Work Travel

When I started working fulltime, many people asked what I was looking forward to the most. My answer usually came in the form of one word: travel. Now that I am rounding out my first two weeks of travel, I must admit, my answer may look a little different next time. Many of you are thinking to yourself, what is so bad about it? And it's not that it's bad per say, just different.

Even though I do not have many friends in DC, they all must have gathered together and said, "this is the weekend that we are all going to contact Ashley to make plans." I received many text messages on Friday and Saturday asking what I was doing. Normally, I would feel a sense of belonging as I had friends contacting me to do something rather than vice versa. But after receiving those texts, I felt a surge of panic. Yes panic, I wrote. I mean, if I wrote back and said that I wasn't able to hang out, then those people would feel like I didn't want to hang out. Or if I wrote back and said that I was traveling for work, then perhaps they would feel like I am never home and always busy. I knew what I needed to do at this point, smack myself in the forehead...which I did not do but telling yourself to do it gets the same point across.

Another great part of traveling? The food. Now keep in mind that I'm traveling as a Government Contractor so we get what's called per diem. Due to Michigan's lovely economy, the per diem isn't very high here ($51 a day). But $51 a day still allows us to eat like champs, and boy, have we ate like champs. The first week here, we ordered drinks, apps, entrees, desserts, etc. You name it, and we probably had it. But rounding out the first weekend into the second week of travel, food was starting to get old. The breaking point you ask? We are all sitting in a pizza house having just ordered an app and entree each watching the playoff football games on TV when we realize how full we are before even receiving our actual meals. Saying how miserable we all were must have made us feel slightly better though, for as the game went into overtime, it was obvious that we needed ice cream. Therefore we all ordered ice cream shakes. Literally rolling out to our car and unbuttoning the top button on our pants as soon as we sat down in our rental car, we all looked at each other and said, "whoa...what are we doing?" Its just safe to say that I will not be eating anything for the two weeks that I am home before I leave to go out for another three weeks.

With that last sentence, I hope you caught the words "three weeks". Yes, they are abandoning us to the biting, cold far away place that calls itself Michigan. To be honest though, after the tame winter we've had in DC with highs of 50/60s, its nice to be in a State that still believes in snow and ice. We have received about 3 total inches of snow since arriving and everyone tells us how lucky we are. To that we respond, "No worries, we'll be back for three weeks in February." Weather aside, this town named Lansing has been pretty nice. It reminds me a lot of a mix between Hutchinson and Wichita. Definitely has the downhome feeling to it.

For those of you who seemed more concerned about my love life than myself, I shall let you know that I will be in Michigan for Valentine's Day. Therefore, if you were planning on being my boyfriend for the day, please direct all flowers and chocolates this way. I understand that several of you are probably disappointed currently as you just couldn't seem to figure out the best way to ask me out, but no worries, I'll be back in town for March.

And yes, speaking of March, we are planning on flying back to DC on the 2nd (my birthday). So if you live close to DC and read this....please join me in celebrating this milestone of a birthday. Okay, okay, perhaps its not quite a milestone, but its a birthday nonetheless!

I miss you all. yada yada. I want to visit Kansas but have no time. yada yada. Work is great. yada yada.