Catch-Up {A week's worth of words in one post}

First off, I apologize for my temporary blogging hiatus.  I just had so much going on that blogging was not on the top of my priority list.  I guess I can just continue from my 2nd to last post (since the last one really doesn't count for much).  Let's see- before I can start on what happened on Monday, I think you need a little background about my office.  There are 4 of us in my office.  One lady was on vacation for like 3 weeks or something.  So that left 3 of us to do the work.  Not a problem.  So then on Monday, one of the other ladies comes in and said that her grandmother died over the weekend and that she had to leave that day to fly back to Germany for the funeral.  She asked me to handle her patients and of course I said I would.  So now we are down by 50%.  Still do-able.  Not the end of the world.  So you may or may not be aware that I am currently on jury duty.  I actually have been since the end of January.  I have been really lucky and so far I have only had to go for orientation.  My court had not had any jury trials that I had to go for.  Well, last week, my luck ran out.  I had to report on Tuesday morning for a trial.  Now normally that wouldn't be a huge problem, but remember that we only have 2/4 people in the office.  So now, I had to break it to the one remaining lady that she would be doing the job of all four people by herself for an unknown length of time.  I was really hoping not to be chosen for the jury (can you guess what happened?) and to be back at work by Tuesday afternoon.  So I finished up as much work as possible on Monday afternoon and tried to leave everything neatly arranged so that the other lady could find whatever she needed since she was having to do some unfamiliar things.

So Tuesday comes.  I go to the court house in the morning.  Of course I was early- if you know me IRL, then that is no surprise.  I even had a hard time parking and I was still early.  I finally found a spot about 6 blocks away.  I didn't quite remember the way to my particular court room, but luckily there were a lot of people standing outside waiting for them to let us in.  I'm not sure what all was going on, but they were about 50 minutes late letting us in.  We were just stuck out in the hallway watching the lawyers go in and out a million times each.  At least there was this crazy old lady who was out there to keep me entertained.  (And no- she didn't get picked.  Maybe I should act crazy next time.)  So anyway, they start the jury selection process, and I wasn't in the first group.  Looking good.  Then they dismissed several people and of course I was the last person chosen in the next group.  Long story short- I got seated on the jury.  That whole process was really something else.  This was my first time on a jury, or even in a court room.  It was a murder trial and I was not super excited about that.  Over lunch I thought I should check my text messages and voicemails because to check and see if the one lady in the office had any problems or needed any help.  I ended up helping her find a couple of things she needed and then I checked my voicemail.  I had a message from a guy that I had interviewed with about a job.  I only had a few minutes, so I called just to tell him that I did get his message and I wasn't being disrespectful but I was in jury duty and I only had like 5 minutes.  His secretary went to find him and said that he could talk to me right then. 

Rewind- keep in mind that I applied for this job a month or two ago, and then interviewed for it maybe 2-3 weeks later.  I was supposed to receive a letter in the mail to let me know if I got the job or not by the week of March 21.  Well that week came and went and I didn't get anything.  So- the next week they call and tell me that they hadn't finished the process yet and that they would tell me something by the following week.  So everyday I was checking the mail like a crazy person, and no letter. 

OK, now fast-forward to Tuesday.  I'm standing in the jury room talking to this guy and he offers me the job and wants to know when I can start.  We didn't even talk about salary and I had to go so I asked if I could call back on Thursday (when we had been told that they trial would end) and get the rest of the information and he said not to worry about it - that I should get a letter in the mail. {If you are still reading- I'm impressed.}  So basically I just accepted a job without knowing how much I would get paid.  (However there was a range specified in the job posting, and even the lowest part of the range was an increase for me.  So- I wasn't being a complete moron.)  So the first people to know about my new job were my jury friends haha.  Then after lunch, we actually started the trial.  It took until practically 1:00 just to pick the jury.  I sure was sick of listening to those same old questions over and over!  It was a very strange experience.  I was also amazed that people brought their children into a murder trial.  That, to me, is just not acceptable.  I didn't even want to hear some of that, and those children really shouldn't have been in there.  The whole trial I was just thinking that I was in a movie or something.  It just didn't seem real.  So on Tuesday evening around 5:30, they let us go home with strict instructions to avoid the news and newspaper so that we didn't cause a mistrial.  As if we would want to listen to that after listening to it all day long.  :)  I had so much going on in my brain that I had a hard time sleeping on Tuesday night, between the trial and my new job.

So then comes Wednesday.  We all reported to the courthouse bright and early to hang out in the jury room with our new friends.  {Really I think we were all just scared to be late- haha.}  We go for half a day and then during a testimony the judge stops everything and sends the jury on a 10 minute break.  We were happy to have a break and didn't think anything of it.  We met back in the jury room, and then they didn't come and get us FOR-EVER!  We were starting to wonder what was going on when we got called back in.  The judge told us that we had a mistrial and that they appreciated our service and that the trial was over.  Basically, I think the whole thing was stupid and that what happened shouldn't have caused a mistrial, but I am sure glad that I didn't have to make a decision in that case.

So {have you noticed that I like to say "so"?} then I had to come to work and quit.  I was kind of nervous, even though they knew about the job and that I had interviewed and they were even called as references.  It still was kind of scary.  When I got to work they wanted to know about the trial, so I told them that we had a mistrial and that I was done with it.  Then I had to tell them that I was going to quit in 2 weeks.  Oh!  I forgot one thing.  On Wednesday morning, the new job called me again to ask if I could start on Monday!  I didn't feel that was the right thing to do since I wouldn't get to give much notice to my current employer.  I think he was disappointed, but he said it was ok.  I hope I didn't cause too much trouble over that.  So anyway- there was still one more person that I needed to tell that I had accepted the job, but of course he was out of the office that day.  So I went and started the "check-out" process with the HR department.  The other guy finally came back on Thursday, so I had to have that awkward conversation again with him.  So now everyone knows and I am starting to wind things down at my current job and make sure everyone knows how to do my job when I am gone.

This weekend I had to house/pet sit for one of my friends plus take care of my cousin and grandmother's dogs.  It was a crazy weekend full of driving back and forth all over town to feed different animals.  I was also responsible for bringing snacks to Bible study on Sunday evening.  One of the things I made was this grasshopper cake:

It is not quite so fluorescent green as it looks here.  It was pretty good.  I just kind of eyeballed my pantry to make sure that I had all the ingredients before I started.  I looked at the mint extract and I thought I had more than enough.  I guess I should have measured... I only had 1 teaspoon and I needed 2 teaspoons.  However, I thought that it was just minty enough.  I think it would have been too much if I would have put in double the amount of mint extract, so maybe it was a blessing in disguise. :)

I still have jury duty for the next 4 weeks.  I actually forgot to call in today to see if I had to report this week. I am supposed to call by 1, but I accidentally waited until 2:30ish.  Luckily we don't have to report.  This whole jury duty thing has me really stressed out.  haha.  Well it is almost time for me to go and run some errands before handbells tonight.  Hopefully I can get back in the swing of blogging so you don't have to read one massive post once a week.  :)