a week in review {2.}...

It is Friday! Not only is it Friday, but it is the Friday BEFORE a three day weekend. This makes me very happy. That extra day off is basically just what the doctor ordered so that I don't lose my ever loving mind. So, it is time for 'A Week in Review'...

{Monday}: Monday was an okay day. I had some personal stuff going on that wasn't exactly the most fun to deal with, but choices were made and things are getting better. Which is good. Monday was also Valentine's Day...which I don't really celebrate whether in a relationship or not, but one of our van drivers gifted me with Dove chocolates which made my life. He is my new favorite and I told him he bought himself first call when I put together the after-hours crisis calender. Anywho, I hung with my new work clique. There are some amazing gals in that group, and I have loved getting to know them all. Then after work I had dinner with the loves of my life; my mom, big brother Jason, and Bug. It was a good day. On Monday I also blogged about my VERY first 'Always Alexandria' giveaway. I am super excited and y'all have until 2/19/11 at 8:00 pm to enter!!

{Tuesday}: This was the day from Meeting Hell, and yes that place does exist. When and where does it exist? In the 'G' County Mental Health building every third week of the month. This day was a giant suckfest...I was in meetings from 9 to 5. With barely a 30 minute lunch break. Thank heavens for the previously mentioned Van Driver Jeff for keeping me supplied with Starbucks mocha deliveries. I hatttte meeting days. They depress me and make my brain feel as if it is melting. Pretty sure I tuned out around 3:00. You best believe I bolted out of the office with the quickness as SOON as that clock said five o'clock! I then went over to have pizza and girl talk with Bff Jil. It had been over a month since I had seen her, and it was super nice to catch up with her. I missed that girl.

{Wednesday}: Oh Wednesday. You were sorta epic. After our forever and a day long weekly staff meeting in the O-town office, I headed back home to my W-town office. I didn't have much going on work wise, so I kicked it with Tania and Van Driver Jeff while we rocked out to 80's music and they spoke Jersey Shore to each other. Their favorite quote? "The cabs are here." It was too funny. We had a blast. Then the best part of the day...watching Tuesday nights 'Glee'!! Which was all kinds of amazeballs. It also gave me the fever...you know which fever I am talking about. Don't judge.

{Thursday}: Thursday was a meh kind of day. It is storming like crazy in my little corner of California. It is yucky depressing weather. It even snowed a little. THAT is unheard of! The good part about Thursday was that I was able to attend my weekly supervision with Supervisor Supervisor. Basically every week the clinicians, case managers, and supervisors have a meeting just to check in, get advice and blah, blah, blah. Then right after that I have my one on one supervision. It is really amazing because it is basically an hour long therapy session, where our supervisors help us with work issues, personal issues, and any other issues that need to be processed. I really needed it this week, and it felt good to get stuff off my chest. Psbtw, I absolutely adore Supervisor Supervisor. She is too legit to quit, my friends.

{Friday}: I have zero clue what is happening (being that I am cheating and writing this on Thursday night!) Yep...I am sneaky like that.

This weekend will be full of big plans though. I am heading to Sacramento with work friend Tania to help her get stuff for her wedding. Makeup, shoes, and all that fun stuff. Sunday is Tan's birthday and we are getting a girls group together to assemble her wedding invitations, then we are having a lovely lunch to celebrate her day of birth. Monday will be catching up on rest and laundry....why yes, I am super exciting.

What are YOU all planning for the weekend? Please share in the comments section. Also, don't forget to enter my giveaway right here.

xoxo

week in review {1.}...

I honestly do not think I have EVER been so excited to see it be Friday! This week was bananas, b-a-n-a-n-a-s. So, I am not sure if I have shared on my blog that I have a new job. Yep...another one. Let me break it down for y'all. In July I nabbed a super great job working for the county as a Substance Abuse Counselor. I loved that job. I mean I loved it with the passion of a thousand fiery suns. It was a field I never really considered entering, especially working in a treatment court program, but it was an amazing opportunity and I learned so much during the six months I worked for Drug & Alcohol Services. However, in December I was encouraged *cough* forced *cough* to apply for a position that was open in Mental Health Services. How it works with the county is we have the entire Health Services Agency, many departments fall under that category. Mental Health Services and Drug & Alcohol Services are combined under the umbrella of Behavioral Health (even though we share a building it is two totally different departments). Anywho, I was basically stolen from my happy D&A home and moved over to Mental Health. I was NOT happy about that little situation.

Basically because I have OCD organization skills and I work super hard at my job, they wanted me in Mental Health in order to be on the ground floor of developing a pilot project for how smaller counties in California will be handling health care reform when it comes into play in 2014. Hi. I am SO not qualified to be in charge of something this HUGE. I mean...I don't think I can stress how big of a deal this project, and the grant that is paying for it, is. I don't think I want to even try because just thinking about it makes me get gray hairs and frown lines. Yikes. Am I overwhelmed? Yuuup. Is is a stellar opportunity? Hells-to-the-yeah.

Okay, so moving on from complaining. It is a great job. I am going to learn so much. It is going to look killer on an all future resumes. I am trying really hard to be positive about the situation. I miss my old job, and coworkers, but I still see them when I am in the other office building and my new coworkers are pretty alright people. Plus, I really went to school to be in the mental health field anyhow.

So last week my new supervisor set me up with a shadow schedule. She wants me to see EVERYTHING that Mental Health does, so that I can have a full grasp of what the services are, how they are administered, how/if they need to be changed, and what else needs to be added.

Since I have already written a freaking novel (sorry guys, I understand if you don't read all of this) I will just give you the highlights of my first week as a employee at Mental Health Services.

{Monday}: I was bitter this entire day. My main beef was that I was moved to a different office building. We have two main buildings for Behavioral Health, the O-town building (my former home base) and the W-town building (which is so stressful and uptight and where the BIG time bosses work). Guess which is my new home base? Yep...the uptight one. Awesome. I spent the entire eight hours of my day talking to our department head, and reading a 168 page grant. Kill me now folks...

{Tuesday}: Tuesday was SUCH an improvement from Monday. I got to shadow one of our clinicians, who is amazing. She is about 28 and shares my love of all things designer...we were basically pals from the moment we started talking purses. I got to shadow Steph throughout her day. We went out in the field, and I went on some client home visits with her, I met some very interesting people. We had super delish turkey burgers for lunch, took some crisis calls, chilled at the hospital with a guy who was in crisis, then met with a 6 year old little boy whose mother called that he was in crisis. His mom brought him in and it was...whoa. I honestly don't think I have the words. He was a scary little kid. I am not going to go into too much detail, because of confidentiality laws, but holy crap I was scared this boy was going to hurt one of us in that room with him. It was very alarming.

{Wednesday}: Wednesday I had my appointment to sign up for health benefits, life insurance, union stuff, oh my! Then I scurried out of that appointment with the quickness so I could run off to the O-town office, and catch the end of our staff meeting. This meant I was in my old home base! I got to see my mentor Susan, and chat with her, she put my complaining ass in check, and then I was back to shadowing Steph again. We went to our drop in center, and I sat in on a 'Hope and Healing' group , it was a great group.

{Thursday}: Thursday was chill. I chatted with my boss, then headed to the O-town office to have group supervision with all the clinicians, case managers, and whatnot. It was great. Then I had one on one supervision with my direct supervisor...I love her so bad. She is awesome. I of course snuck over to see Susan and the DH Girls in my spare time. Susan and I grabbed lunch. Then I went to Juvenile Drug Court because I was shadowing Tania...it was great. I really enjoyed seeing the juvenile treatment court program, because it is so different than what I did with adults in treatment court.

{Friday}: Basically I spent my morning doing more shadowing, and that's it. Then I left the W-town office to go to O-town because my supervisor is LEGIT! She allowed me to take 3 1/2 hours in order to be at the DH Girls graduation. I was SO happy she said yes. I know I don't work on that side of things anymore, but I love those women and their children. I wanted to be there to honor them, and they told me that if I wasn't there they would hate me forever. It was an amazing, tear filled ceremony, Susan gave a great speech to them, and both graduates gave speeches that warmed my heart. I made a teeny tiny speech, just to let them know that I respect them and that I honor them for all their hard work. Then Susan goes and busts out a certificate to me for my dedication to the women of Discovery House. It was a total surprise, and so very sweet. Yes. I did cry if you were wondering.

Holy crap. I am so sorry I wrote so freaking much. I guess I just needed to vent/share a bit of what week one was like. I am thinking I may do this on Friday's if exciting things happen during my work days. I promise they will be WAY shorter than this one.

Here is to everyone having a very happy weekend! My plans? Sleep...and a ton of it.

xoxo