New Office

It's 4:30 p.m. and I'm all moved into my new office. Jana suggested that I take a few pictures to share on my blog. I took some on my phone, but don't have the attachment to save them onto my computer. It's a new phone, so I'll have to look and see if it came with that attachment.

So I love my new office. It looks so good. I got a new desk, which took for ever and a day to put together. It's this corner desk, which had been taken apart and put back together so many times that a lot of the dowel holes had been broken and I was afraid it might fall apart at any moment. It still could! We'll have to see how it works out, but I really like it so far.

I put of some magnet and cork board things, which my mom gave me. She had given some to you guys too (sisters-in-law) and she was able to snag a couple for me last time I saw her. I hung up cute cards I've gotten and baby Max's birth announcement (Jord and Kate, I'll hang up Mae's if you send it to me).

I hung up this nice round clock, with a dark brown stained frame that I got from Karleen's gifts when Josh and I got married. I hadn't even taken it out of the box and it's almost been 2 years! I also got this metal-work of a potted plant which I hung on the wall.

I got a taller book shelf so now I can put the toys for my clients' kids on the bottom 2 shelves and my textbooks on the top one or two shelves without worrying that they are going to tear them apart. I have cute alphabet fridge magnets for the kids to play with on my filing cabinet.

My new office is definately brighter and more colorful than my old office. The walls are a light tan, which is a huge improvement from Prison-Powder Blue (see previous blog).

Plus it's decorated how I want. In my old office I just hung up whatever other people had left around the office. It wasn't my style, but I had just gotten married and couldn't afford anything to decorate my office. I was just trying to find stuff to decorate my house!

I have three large windows in my office that span the length of the top of one of my walls. I have a great view of the Grand America when I stand up. When I am sitting down I have a great view of the sky. The windows have this weird plastic stuff on them which makes it blurry when you look out them. Some guy that works here gave me a razor blade to scrape it off. I did most of the middle window, but the glue is difficult to remove and so I quit, figuring I'll try another day. I think it's on the windows to tint them so it's not as hot in the summer. I might regret scraping it off, but oh well. I figure my choices are: be hot, or feel like I need glasses every time I look out the window. I think I'll choose hot.

The best thing so far about my office is that my desk has enough room under it for my shredder, which I always worry my clients' kids will get into. This way I can keep it away from them.

So far, this move has been a big improvement!

Moving Day

Speaking of rehab. . .

Today I spent the day at work packing up our offices so we can move locations.

For those of you who don't know I work for a drug and alcohol treatment center.

I'm a housing case manager. In fact, I just became the Housing Program Manager (which means I get to be in charge of one other person other than myself). I have about 30 clients and they usually have about 6 months to 4 years of sobriety. They are required to come to case managing while they are using a housing voucher. Most of my clients are pretty awesome. Besides getting paid crap for being a social worker I really like my job most of the time.

So we're moving buildings (which I've been talking about for a long time on this blog).

I'm pretty excited about my new office, because this time, instead of being a poor newly-wed, and just taking whatever decorations were available for my office - - - I'm actually going to decorate it the way I want to! I'm excited to feel more at home in my new office.

In fact, the other day Josh had to go to a dentist appointment, so he came to my work to take me to lunch.

"You're offices are so depressing! If I had to work here I would shoot myself!" He said. Of course he's partly right. (We are a non-profit after all. It's not extremely homey in our offices.) The walls are a powder blue. Our clients call it Prison Blue, and some of them would know that the color is "Prison Blue" for sure because they've been there, seen that.

So tomorrow is Saturday, and the movers are coming. I've volunteered to help dictate to the movers what to do. I'm probably not going to get any extra pay, or time off for that matter to do it. I guess the only pay off will be telling people what to do. And if you know me at all, you know I kind of like to tell people what to do! (I became a social worker after all.) After I listen to people's problems I get to tell them what to do. :-)

Today, after spending the morning packing stuff up we went to a vegan cafe for lunch. Now, I know what some of you are thinking. . . . For some, going to a vegan cafe may seem more like a punishment for all our hard work than a reward, but the food was actually pretty good.

I of course got the chicken sandwhich. (Very Vegan of me, I know). But the vegan food that other people got looked really good too and I might venture to try something more daring next time I go there. And just saying that I would consider going there again says a lot about the restaurant.

The thing I was reminded of again today is that this cafe's food is like a million times healthier and more balanced than even going to like Noodles and Company, let alone McDonald's or Wendy's (where you are given the choice to substitute your french fries for something a little more healthy). I really need to start eating healthier. Not only was it better for me, but it tasted much better too.