The Disappearing Week

This week feels like a waste, work-wise. Here it is, already Wednesday evening, and I don't have a whole lot to show for my week...Except a new pair of boots, a wine aerator, and a few thick binders from my conference. I just don't feel effective because I haven't been able to cross anything off my to-do list lately.

I love having so many opportunities to travel, but it gets exhausting. I get tired of packing, unpacking, and repacking my suitcase and finally just started leaving all my little travel size shampoo/condit/deodor/etc. bottles in my bag for next time.

However, the strategic planning conference was great and a completely wonderful use of my time. I met several great contacts and it reaffirmed what I suspected the strategic planning process looks like. In short, we spent 1.5 days plodding through an extensive planning process for cancer services for a large metropolitan hospital. Then we had to present our plans and justify them while the others (50 or so) tried to shoot holes in your logic.

I planned to drive up to Skokie Monday night, since the last time I drove from the south side to Skokie, it took me an agonizing 3.5 hours. I distinctly remember my calf muscles being sore from the incessant braking on the highway. So I left my office at 7pm on Monday and surprisingly, zipped up there in 45 minutes. In a fit of euphoria, I hit the neighboring mall and did some damage at Nine West and Crate and Barrel.

On Tuesday (on the elevator down to the hotel lobby, actually), I ran into the CEO of St. Swedish Chef, another hospital in the Muppet system. He recognized me (a good thing!) and invited me to "hang" with the strategy director from St. Piggy's. So after the day's conference material, we dined at McCormick and Schmick's. Dinner was good, but my Parmesan-encrusted snapper wasn't worth its $20 sticker price. It's always nice to chat with folks from around the Muppet system; they have a lot of questions about St. Fozzie's and what we're doing up in Chicagoland, to turn the hospitals around. I invited them out for a road trip, to shadow a few areas. Hope this is okay with EVOO and Elvis!

Today, we finished the conference and I cruised home, exhausted and brain dead. I'm tempted to feel overwhelmed with the sheer number of items on my work to-do list and I haven't even started contemplating my ethics paper due on Monday. The topic is Principles of Integrity and Totality and I have a bunch of reading to do before I can even start thinking about my paper's argument. Sigh. Here we go again!

My only full work day is tomorrow (10 hours' of meetings, of course!) and then our hospital's gala is Friday night. I guess a positive upshot to this is that I haven't had a whole lot of time to stuff my face...so that satin dress should fit well on Friday!