So long. Adios. Auf Wiedersehen. Sayonara. Au revoir. See ya. You are now unemployed.

I’ve been working from home for almost two years now. Making monthly trips to CA to see the kids and to check in at work. It was ideal. It was just like going to work in the office, only instead of driving, I would just go upstairs. I’d start my day at 9:00, sometimes earlier depending on what was on my calendar. It gave me time in the morning to communicate with my European colleagues, or reach out to east coast suppliers, and be on line ready to greet my CA coworkers. I’d meet JD in the kitchen for lunch, and then we’d meet again in time for dinner. No traffic!

Sadly, the decision was made that all buyers (that’s me) needed to be on site. This was a tough pill to swallow. When I left to move to Texas, I was sad to leave, but it was on my own terms. It was my decision, and I knew that new adventures were ahead of me. 

This was a whole new game. As much as I tried not to take it personally, I did. I don’t handle rejection well, and this felt like, well, rejection. Who’s going to take over my role? What about all the things I’m working on?  Sorry BD, you’re getting off at the next station, but the rest of us are going to continue on. Oh, but first we want you to train your replacement. Ouch.

Let’s face it, we spend a good part of the day with our coworkers, and as a result, we turn into a family of sorts. There’s the manager, who we refer to as daddy (but not to his face!) as in, “Hey, when’s your daddy coming back?” Or, “Is your daddy in yet?”

 I worked for “the daddy” for over 15 years. I remember him running out the door as his wife was in labor. Twice. And now those babies are in high school. He’s seen me through plenty of life events. The loss of my father, the decline of my moms health, the births of new grand babies, and he was there when JD and I were married. He was more than just a boss to me, we had a mutual respect for each other, and he was a friend. He was supportive, encouraging, and helped me stretch into those areas way outside of my comfort zone. I could anticipate what he was going to ask for, I knew what information to provide, and in what format he would want to see it. Data. The man loved data! I owe a lot to him, I’m not sure what direction my work life would have gone had we never crossed paths. 

Then, there are the siblings (that’s the rest of us). “Where’s your brother?” Or, “Go ask your brother to do that.” And like siblings, of course there was plenty of pranks, and teasing, poking fun. I will miss them tremendously. I will miss the banter, the daily checking in, and the support that we all provided to each other

As I sat in the office my last week, due to space availability, or lack of, I sat a couple rows over from the rest of the group. Although I wasn’t right in the thick of things, I had a birds eye view of everything that was going on. The interaction, the joking, the tension filled moments. “That used to be me”, I thought. So this is what it’s going to be like after I’m gone. Hmmpf. In a few weeks it’ll be as if I was never there. On the bright side, I think my replacement was an excellent choice!

So now I find myself in this weird, bizarre, what do I do with myself now place. I didn’t know it was possible to feel every single emotion all at once! Talk about being out of one’s comfort zone! Scary, excited, unsure, exhilarated, sad, mad, joyous, relief, and even some guilt. I could go on and on. 

Is this it? Do I get off at this station? I really hadn’t planned to face this decision quite yet. So I’m not going to! For now I will enjoy spending time with JD, continue to bother my kids with frequent visits, attempt to play better golf, go riding with Buddy more frequently, learn to take better photos, spend some time in my mom cave, and finish painting the fence posts I started painting before we entered the rainy season.

To my Baxalta family, we’ve been through a change from Baxter to Baxalta, and now you face yet another with Shire (think how awesome St. Patrick’s Day is going to be!). We’ve suffered the loss of friends through transfers and layoffs, and still continued to be a part of this big machine that cares so much about its patients. At the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about. I will miss seeing you all, but am so thankful for the chance to know you. 

Until our paths again ~

Much like spiders, the only good scorpion is a dead scorpion. At least that’s my opinion.

Having lived my entire life in Southern California, I’ve seen (and killed) my share of spiders. Big ones, little ones, the kind with long legs, and even some short hairy ones. I’m also not one of those people that would scoop one up and put it outside. Nope, it needs to be dead. And if I saw one in the bedroom before going to bed, it needed to be exterminated or I would never be able to sleep. What if it crawled on me during the night, or worse yet – what if it fell from the ceiling on me?

When we moved to Texas, I really didn’t give a whole lot of thought to bugs. But now that I’ve been here for a while, I really think that there should be some nice person standing on the side of the road as you cross the state line that hands out a pamphlet entitled “Welcome to Texas, Watch Out For These Critters”. Don’t get me wrong, I still love living here, but it seems that there are still a whole lot of “firsts” to be experienced.

The first time I saw one of these guys was as I was unpacking. Not gonna lie – it freaked me out! As in instant tears. As I was melting down, I told JD that I couldn’t live with these things in the house. The exterminator was called immediately, and he is now my best friend. I also remember telling JD (in my teary voice) that the first time I got stung by one that I would cram a much stuff as I could into the back of my car and I would be headed straight back to California. As if there aren’t scorpions there!

I immediately developed this keen sense of knowing when there was anything out of order on the floor. I have gotten to the point where I walk in to a room, and in a matter of seconds, can scour the floor for any irregularities. I know every grain, and every knot on the wood floors and every spec on every tile. I am not even kidding.

During the warm weather months, JD is constantly telling me I shouldn’t be walking around barefoot, but I do. I should be able to walk around in my own house barefoot, right? I think yes! Last week, I defiantly walked (barefoot) into the laundry room to pull some clothes from the dryer. As usual, I opened the door and did my usual quick glance, and in my bare feet went. In hindsight, my only mistake (aside from being barefoot), was not opening the door very wide. Had I done that, I surely would have seen that pesky scorpion sitting right smack in the middle of the floor with its tail up and ready for action.

I pulled a shirt from the dryer and took a step back. Ow. Ouch. Yikes. Holy crap. What the… but I knew instantly what it was. Have you ever stubbed your toe and you see it and you know it’s going to hurt but the pain hasn’t made it’s way from your brain to your toe? Yeah, well that was how this was. I don’t use bad language, just not my style (that, and my mom would have never stood for it!) but I can tell you that every bad word I know, plus some that I made up on the spot ran through my head. I looked down, an there it was – just sitting there waiting to strike again.

“JD, I need your help right now!” He came running in and valiantly squashed it, stinger and all. I know he felt bad for me, he ran and got some anti sting spray all the while holding on to the ice cream bar he’d been eating! He eventually dumped it in the sink, but I know he’d just started on it. I hobbled into the bedroom looking for the frankincense oil that my sister had recently given me. JD had read that frankincense oil pretty much instantly relieves the pain of scorpion stings but we hadn’t actually purchased any. When my sisters were here visiting, we wandered into a store that had some and I had picked it up, but for some reason talked myself out of buying it and I put it down. Little did I know that she had purchased it and gave it to me when we got back to the house (am I glad she did!) It was still on my makeup table, still wrapped in the red (how appropriate) tissue from the store.

I can tell you that this sting went from take your breath away pain to no pain at all in a matter of seconds after applying. I highly recommend it – and hope I never have to use it again.

In the end. I now know that although painful, it wasn’t the worst pain I’ve ever felt. And much like getting over my fear of horses, I’m now over my fear of scorpions. Just kidding. No, not really. Still afraid, still walking around barefoot, and although I wouldn’t mind another road trip to California, my car is not currently packed!