I've been doing well since Grandma's funeral. We all needed that time to mourn, and while I still think I'm mourning a little bit, I've let her move on. We had a nice reception after the funeral, lots of family, distantly related family and friends. I was able to reconnect with a favorite past teacher so I can keep in better touch with him now. That was awesome. And I spent some quality time with my sister, and we've been in better contact since I got home.

Since then I've been thrown into full "Docent Training preparation" mode and I'm coping as best as possible. I got a little pit of fear in my stomach that despite what my VP said in the past, that she'll say something different now, and all preparations will have been for naught.

Girl Scouts keeps plugging along. I'm learning my 'place' in the troop. My co-leader is upset about something I did, but we can't find the time to sit down and talk about it. It reminds me of the time a former boyfriend told me there was something he wanted to talk about in April, but didn't want to actually talk about it till I was done with my thesis. That was agony! Suffice to say, we broke up in June, and the thesis that was supposed to be done in July wasn't done till November.

Return and Sad News

I am back from NYC and had a wonderful time. I was disappointed by a few of the sessions, two of which I had shared with the Zoo as ones that would apply to my work with them and not just Girl Scouts. I was very disappointed by the one about working with different generations - I was most excited about it and then after all that it was such a dud where I was more likely to be offended by it than learn anything from it. The session about feedback for facilitators was good and I was way advanced for it because of my experience with the Zoo and our mentoring program.

I've learned from the last PD opportunity I got to go to (Trainer's Day Camp) that I need to be very purposeful about sitting down after to process what I experienced and make a plan. I appreciated that this Learning and Development conference worked that into the days. Even if it wasn't enough time for me to process it was enough time to start and also to prove to me that yes, I do need to think about this more when I get home. Plus, I have two ways to incorporate this information that I'll have to think about using.

The extra night in New York City was very worth it. It was perfect, minus how my travel companion sometimes rubs me the wrong way.

And then when I returned to Denver at 9pm I get two voice mails. One from Mom and one from Dad, both saying to call. My grandma has died. She died when I was trying to relax and ogling the good looking guy sitting next to Maureen on the airplane ride home. It feels strange to say I'll miss her, because I haven't seen her in over a year. She just turned 97. She took care of me as a kid - we spent a good portion of every summer at her house, eating mac and cheese and chicken nuggets, playing in the school yard just beyond her yard, climbing the trees in her yard.... I'll miss you Grandma.