Day Two: Home Sweet Home

Whew . . . yesterday was my first official day on my new job. It was everything I expected it to be - exciting, scary, overwhelming, interesting and exhausting. Joy, the departing CEO, is an excellent teacher but about 3:30, we both looked at each other and knew we were operating on information overload and it was time to stop for the day.

I met and re-met all the staff yesterday. What a great bunch! Mostly female, all age groups and a wide range of ethnicity adds a certain richness that's priceless. Thanks to Joy's leadership, each department runs itself while seamlessly working together as one big team. I am so impressed with the scope of services and how driven the teams are to provide better quality care. Plus, they're just really nice people.

My life has taken on whole new dimensions. Having a set work schedule is new for me but welcome. Trying to complete projects for several clients often had me working well past midnight and on weekends - now I work 8 to 5 - Monday through Friday. A great thing. I actually GET PAID for vacation time - an awesome concept I haven't had in years. Plus, for the first time in six years, we have health insurance with a deductible that won't break the bank, excellent copays and only have to pay 40% of the premium. In this day and age, that's every bit as important as salary. So, it's all good.

There are a few downsides to moving to the desert from the tropics - like chapped lips, extra dry skin and dry eyes. Of course, hairspray is ridiculous in New Mexico winds so forget that. If you love lush yards and lots of vegetation like we do, you'll spend a lot of time looking up native plants on the Internet. Not a lot of evergreens around and in fact, not a lot of any greens around. But if anyone can make a yard out of a pad of dirt, I know Mike can.

Oh, and I got a post office box yesterday so I could fill out my paperwork at the office. I realized when I started the process that I was, at that moment, virtually homeless. I'm sleeping on my daughter's sofa and living out of a suitcase so I really didn't have an address.

But I do now! It's a modest little box in a big neighborhood of tidy little boxes that line the walls of a pink brick building downtown. For now, that's my address and I'm right proud of it.