I'm in a mad dash for a deadline on the client project I've been working on since last June. I've been helping edit a book for behavioral health workers who work in small, rural, Alaska Native villages. The book is a practice manual for entry level workers -- the first person you're likely to see if you're having any type of mental health or substance abuse issues in a village.

I had no idea what I was getting into when I took the job on. The deadlines have all been wacky and have been renegotiated several times. My scope of work for what was expected from me in terms of the type of services I provide to the project have been very different from the actual work duties. The job has been under-funded and had not enough people devoted to it. I don't mean to sound whiny -- it's been an exciting project because it could become a monumental product that brings a lot of good to people in rural Alaska. But it has been stressful working on deadlines that seem unrealistic, with not enough resources to do the job, and with a project that is as highly visible as this one has been. It's been not just getting back into working more hours more consistently after a year off to tend to health issues -- it's also been getting back into the habit of having a project with so many responsibilities.

In the past month the two people who are most closely aligned with "doing" the work for this project for my client have both quit their jobs. It's quite sad to have them gone -- the good news is that it has given me an opportunity to renegotiate my needs to get this project through. Ever have one of those conversations where everything aligns to go just right? I had one of those last week where I set my boundaries of what I could perform for the project and asked them to please hire a full-time project manager to take some of the burden from me, especially with the other two people now gone. They got approval to do so and the job is already posted! Add in a newly renovated plan of deliverables for our first major deadline in April, a week full of day long meetings where we're getting good work done, and I actually am feeling like I may survive this set of deadlines.

Thanks for listening! All this is to say why I've had so little time for blogging or really for much of anything in the past few months. I'm looking forward to being able to step back from the responsibility and hopefully from the sheer number of work hours so that I can enjoy the impending summer with friends and family instead of being glued to my computer. And yes, I recognize how lucky I am to say that. The mere fact that that is an option for me has me feeling like kissing my husband for being supportive of it.