Day 166: A Slow Start Back to Work

Today I am happy for having had a slow start back to work. Our friends, who've been visiting from Texas, had to get up very early this morning to get to the airport for a seven-thirty a.m. flight. Ugh. So we got up with them at four a.m. to make coffee and ride the subway with them to central station to make sure they got on the fast train to the airport okay. We came back home at five-thirty a.m. and thought it would be a good idea to go back to bed for a hour or so before getting back up to go to work.

I laid down and closed my eyes thinking I would magically drift right off to sleep. Nope. It took a good twenty to thirty minutes before I fell back to sleep and when I finally did meet Mr. Sandman, the kiss of sleep was so intoxicating that I had a much, more, difficult time dragging myself out of bed when Mr. Alarm went off.

I was still deliriously sleepy when I left for work. And without my keys to the office. Luckily I realized this before I left the garage on my bicycle. By the time I had gone back up to our apartment to get them I thought I'd better send a message to my boss to say that I was on my way. Two seconds after I sent the message my phone rang. My boss was calling to let me know that he would be in Berlin today for a meeting. One of my other colleagues would be in today but after lunch time and my other colleague was on vacation so I had the whole office to myself to settle back in and sort through the piles on my desk and weed through two week's worth of email. 

There is nothing like peace and quiet on the first day back to work after vacation. Normally I feel like I need a vacation from my vacation but today I actually felt relaxed and refreshed. I was able to pace myself and organize my tasks in a leisurely fashion. My brain really liked that. I was able to get through more than half of my pile and all of my emails before the day was done. Tomorrow I hope to get through the rest of the pile and still leave work early at two p.m. (Love those summer hours!)