This is my title

My week went from extremely low points to extremely high points - which was good. Starting off shitty on a Monday, left the week nowhere to go but up.

Monday was horrid. My project went live 2 weeks ago, but this past week, we were exposing to the world 1 new piece of it for the first time. All code was in place for it, but then the business head stopped into my office on Monday with some questions that I couldn't answer. I needed my tech lead to assist on it. The business head was very concerned about some aspects of what we were doing, and ended the conversation by letting me know that if things didn't go off stellar on launch day, it could be grounds for dismissal.

Oh yay. Oh fucking yay. This project that I loathe, and that I've managed to launch by sheer determination only, that the business lead screwed up in every way, shape and form you could possibly screw up on, is now possibly going to get me canned.

I panic'ed in my office for 15 minutes, and then dug down. The next 3 days were spent getting questions answered, finding out what testing was behind, finding out various crappy aspects of the systems we use which stopped us cold from all the testing we needed to do, etc.

On top of that, on Tuesday night, another team came by to say they were having problems getting their program changes tested, so I offered to help, and when I ran a few tests, I realized that everything we had put in for my shitty program launch was missing. Tuesday night was a LATE night getting people rounded up to answer "WTF happened here?"

Wednesday was a late night also - we tried to move mountains to get finalized testing done for the "get you fired" launch on Thursday, and finally at around 8:30, we threw in the towel, walked over to the SVP's office, and let her know what was going on - we are confident with what we've seen that everything will be fine tomorrow, but just in case...

I was on the verge of an anxiety attack on Wed night. I couldn't sleep as I was so worried about what was going to happen on Thurs. It was nice though, because I had to be at work at 7 am to make sure everything had gone okay, so I was awake around 4:45 am, and was able to get a workout in before heading to the office. 5 of us came in on Thurs to run final tests, and to be able to start an emergency call if things didn't work.

And everything worked beautifully. It literally went off without a hitch. I couldn't believe it. It was bliss as I realized everything was okay. We did a celebration lunch, and then I bailed at 4:30 pm to meet Blondie at poison bar to celebrate - it was also 70 degrees in the city, so it was so nice to be off work early and being able to sit on a patio and enjoy the weather. We had a few beers there, before heading over to Southern Hospitality for dinner (JT's BBQ restaurant) and then hitting up our normal bar to round out the night.

I was in a fabulous mood at that point, and while we were sitting at the bar, my phone rang. It was my friend Slick. I have 2 BFF's in this world (outside of Blondie), and Slick is one of them. He's getting married in Sept, and he called just to catch up on how everything was going (he was my apartment mate when I adopted Max, and Max and Slick loved each other, so he wanted to see how I was doing after Max). Then he said he had a question to ask - and he wanted to know if I'd be a "groomsman" in his wedding (I'll be wearing a bridesmaids dress, but standing up on Slick's side with the rest of the guys). I'm so happy - I love his fiancee, and Slick and I have been BFF's for 13+ years now, so I was all like "YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I'm so excited to be able to standup and support them in an official capacity.

And then Friday - the 2nd issue we found on Wed, I was able to drive that to resolution. We got everything wrapped up on that on Friday night - all the code that I wasn't seeing was actually checked in, but there was also a bug that had been introduced which stopped everything from starting up properly. So while we were the "heros" for getting the issue resolved, my office was also the ones that broke it in the first place. Woot.

Friday night we ordered in Mexican for dinner - I had enchiladas and Blondie had chicken in chipotle sauce, and we took it easy for the night. I think I went to bed at like 9 pm as I was so exhausted from the stress of the week. I woke up yesterday, and the 70 degree weather was gone - it was 30 degrees with wind gusts of 20 mph. I debated about running, but finally Blondie talked me into it. I'm behind like crazy on my training (February happened, enough said), so I know I can't miss any days at all right now. I headed out into that freezing cold weather - I was numb within 20 feet of leaving my building. I did 7 very slow miles (1 hour, 36 mins) and then hit the shower for a 30 minute long steaming hot shower.

We lazed around all day yesterday after that, before getting dressed up and heading down the street to a new bar for my bar friend's birthday. She found this place that has crazy beautiful views of the city, and we had several cocktails there before eating in their restaurant. The food was so good, and Blondie and I are going to hopefully take Mr Pooh there (at least to the bar part) when he comes to town. Blondie had salami platter as appetizer, and lamb shank for main; and I had grilled octopus for appetizer, and pork chop for main. After dinner, we hit up another bar down the street and had many beers to end the night.

I was hung over this morning, not enough to be sick, but enough to be "blah". Blondie went and got us Subways for lunch, and then around 11:45 am, I crawled back in bed and didn't wake up until 3 pm. I felt okay then, so I did 2 hours of workout. We had food delivered this week, so dinner for us was mango, pineapple and hummus. We've got a netflix to watch tonight, so that's our evening plans.

We cooked in every night this week, except for Thurs and Fri (a record for us!). Last Sunday, Blondie made salmon and I made spinach. Monday it was chicken, asparagus and stuffing. Tuesday we made homemade tortilla soup and used the leftover chicken from Monday. And Wed, omg Wed, Blondie made me a killer indian eggplant recipe and we combined that with some baked tilapia. The eggplant was soooooo good that I bought another one this week to make again.

Workouts were good - Monday I did my Insanity Cardio Recovery disc. Tuesday was 1 hour on the treadmill - doing 2 minutes walking, 2 minutes running up a 3.0 grade hilll, followed by a ton of weights. Wednesday was Insanity Core Cardio and Balance disc. Thursday was 3 miles - 2 minutes walking, 4 minutes running (at 5 am - I even got to the gym before they opened it). Friday was rest day (knocked this one out of the park). Saturday was 7 miles in 30 degree weather with a windchill that dropped it into the teens. And today was P90X Kenpo and P90X Shoulders & Arms discs.

Weather is starting to get nice here in NY - this week is supposed to be all 60+ degrees. St Patrick's day is Saturday - I have 8 miles scheduled for that day, and then maybe we'll just drink beer all day. :) Blondie's cousin shows up next week for a few days, I have my half marathon in April which will bring my PA friends to town, Mr Pooh is here beginning of May for Blondie's birthday, and then it's off to NOLA for Slick's bachelor party. Blondie is headed back to Wisc for 1.5 weeks in June, and I have to figure out when we are hitting up KY. Mr Pooh has his kid text me every so often, and she laid the guilt trip on me this week "When are you coming back to Kentucky?" What a cutie she is.

--K