One-third through the First 100 Days

The first 100 days are supposed to say a lot about a new administration and how the entire term will be. It's also supposed to be the point when the craziness will somewhat die down. We'll see about that but we are officially 33.3333333% of the way to the magic day of April 29th. But who's counting. Me, that's who! So we've survived the first month and honestly I can say that while it's been a ton of work and a lot of insanity, it really hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be. (Time for the proverbial knock on wood!) Of course the busy-ness of the past month has prevented me blogging as much as I wanted to. So this week I'll do a week in review!

Monday was President's Day and what better place to spend the day than at POTUS's house. President's Day is one of those that always sneak up on me and I can't figure out if everyone in the entire country has off or if it's just a DC thing. The only reason that it usually matters is figuring out if the parking garages downtown are opened. I don't get any holidays off so working on them doesn't bother me any more. Having to suddenly discover that it is indeed a holiday and I'll have to find street parking does. Luckily, my favorite garage was opened and the crisis was avoided! As far as work goes, POTUS and the First Family (FF) were returning from Chicago for the weekend. So it was the first time I had seen the girls since Inauguration Day. They didn't seem to recognize me. Neither did Michelle for that matter. They individually bounded off the helicopter, carrying their own bags I might add, and ran into the residence. The Obamas are not big wavers, at least not yet. Sometimes POTUS waves once (no low wave for me yet) but the rest of them just ran off the helicopter and ran inside. Not even Grandma waved even though I waved at each of them. Oh well, we still have several years and my goal is to get a wave from one of the female members of the FF.

Tuesday, POTUS hit the road and had a big signing ceremony for the stimulus in Denver. I stayed home but I was privileged enough to see his departure from the WH. It was fairly cold from what I remember and I'm pretty sure he didn't wave. Anyway, I remember being busy on Tuesday but quite honestly I can't remember what was the main culprit but I'll just blame POTUS and liveshots. Wednesday, he moved on to Phoenix and gave a speech about the housing crisis. And then I got to see yet another helicopter landing but this time it was freezing and cold and rainy. Not a glamorous day at the WH at all!

Thursday, it was Oh Canada!! I went with POTUS to Canada for the day. A long day in fact. It was his first international trip and instead of going to Mexico like Bush did, he went north where it was incredibly freezing. We went on the press charter (thank God it's back in my life!) and got to snowy Ottawa about 8:00a. You would have thought the flight to another country would take longer than 65 minutes but it didn't and I barely had enough time to eat breakfast on the plane! Definitely not enough time to sleep! Anyway, the moment we landed I realized two things. 1) It was incredibly incredibly cold and I was thankful I had worn multiple layers. (BTW, by the end of the day when it was -15 degrees, the four layers didn't work and I was as frozen as a popsicle.) And 2) I was wearing the wrong shoes to walk around in snow. I'm not sure why I didn't think about that but I'm guessing that at 4:00a, I just wasn't thinking clearly.

I wish I could say I have some exciting stories from Ottawa but alas, I was so incredibly busy with liveshots, that I didn't have time for exciting stories. I never saw POTUS in person and I think we did about 18 liveshots and filed a package and we were only there for 10 hours. That might not mean a lot to you but trust me, it was a lot of work!!! I didn't ever even have time to find a bathroom. This might be filed under the category of TMI (too much information for those old fogies out there) but I didn't go to the bathroom from the time I woke up at 4:00a until the plane landed at 10:00p. That's not healthy because I thought I might explode and when the flight attendants asked us to sit down during landing and stay seated until we stopped taxiing, normally I would have complied but I couldn't. I might have actually exploded if I hadn't run down the aisle the very second we touched down.

I'm sure Friday was busy with something but honestly I can't remember with what. I blame the POTUS and liveshots once again. This weekend I was able to completely disconnect from work (which is why I don't remember many of the details of last week!) and spend with a lot of friends. On Friday night and all day Saturday, I was able to attend the women's retreat with my church and it was a ton of fun- one of the best ever! Plus, I was able to have lunch with Julie G. and Marta and Evan and their daughter Kate, and some of their friends. It was great to spend just a little bit of time with some of my college friends and I just love those friends that you can just pick up right where you left off, no matter how long it's been since you've seen them. Then Saturday night, I had a great time celebrating Jessica's birthday! It was so much fun!!

So today, which technically starts the next week, I of course spent most of the afternoon after church catching up on sleep! I'm fairly certain I wouldn't make it until possibly Tuesday if today's nap wasn't possible!