Thursday night, I headed to Quinnipiac to hang out with Heather before we went to the Women's Retreat the next day. We spent a pretty quiet night, watching Grey's and Private Practice, playing with Phil's Ipad and sharing Res Life war stories.
We woke up early the next morning and drove our cars over to the Student Affairs building. Depending on how many of the QU folks were going I was either going to ride with them or follow them down in my car. There ended up being enough room, so we piled into Megan's SUV and headed to New Rochelle. Cathy had asked Jenn to print the programs, so we headed down early so we could help stuff folders for set up. That was quick, so we had breakfast and then started the retreat.
The speakers for the day were all great. It was nice to be reminded to take care of yourself and to hear from other women who were now VPs and Deans how they raised families and made the time to get their advanced degrees. It's nice to create new relationships and to renew acquaintances. I really enjoy the people who go to NEACUHO events and I feel very comfortable with everyone. The snow was falling throughout the day, so we knew we were in for a long ride home, I just don't think we realized how long!
We left New Rochelle around 3:30pm and got onto 95 to head home. Note, it took us about an hour and a half to get to New Rochelle from Hamden. We got out of NY, went through the toll into CT and BAM! hit traffic. Life 5mph traffic. Google Maps was telling us it would take almost 5 hours to get home with the traffic. We crawled along for awhile and talked about work for the most part. When we got to Stamford, we figured it was time to stop for dinner and found a pizza place to grab pizza and a beer. Dinner was good, if a little bigger than we thought. We then headed to Crumbs for cupcakes and spent a good 10 minutes staring at the all the variety before we figured out what we wanted. We then got on 15, which was much worse than 95 road condition wise. Meg's loss of traction light kept coming on and it was affectionately dubbed the "Oh shit!" light. I decided pretty early on in the ride that I was not going back to New London that night so when we finally made it back to QU, Megan dropped us off at the Commons and we went inside to relax.
We got back to the apartment around 9:30 and Heather's garbage was stinky, so she wanted to take it down the hall to put with the other garbage. While she was down the hall, I heard someone tapping at the window and yelling what I thought was "Help!" I grabbed Heather from the hallway and the tapping and yelling continued. The voice started yelling "Heather! Phil!" but we were both too freaked out to look out the window and see who it was, so Heather called Security. Right after she hung up, there was a knock on the door and she looked through the peephole to find her co-workers in snow gear. In walks Chris and his wife and Dustin, more hall directors. Chris and I had worked together on the drive-in conference for the fall so we knew each other. They wanted us to come out and play in the snow, so I borrowed some snow gear and we went out to play in the snow. We slid down hills and threw snow balls and basically ran around like 7 year olds with potty mouths. Heather took video of us sliding down the hills and I laughed. A LOT. It felt pretty awesome. We finally got tired and headed back to the apartment to enjoy the cupcakes we had bought and head to bed.
I got up super early, drive back to New Lo, dropped my stuff on the floor of the living room and went right back to bed, which is where I spent most of the day. I finished my book and finally got up around 4 to shower and check email and read my RSS feed.
My thoughts and prayers are with the family of the victims today in the shooting in Arizona. It is appalling to me that members of our nation feel that violence is a way to make a difference. I hope that the leaders of our country come together to look for a solution to the never ending violence in our country.
We woke up early the next morning and drove our cars over to the Student Affairs building. Depending on how many of the QU folks were going I was either going to ride with them or follow them down in my car. There ended up being enough room, so we piled into Megan's SUV and headed to New Rochelle. Cathy had asked Jenn to print the programs, so we headed down early so we could help stuff folders for set up. That was quick, so we had breakfast and then started the retreat.
The speakers for the day were all great. It was nice to be reminded to take care of yourself and to hear from other women who were now VPs and Deans how they raised families and made the time to get their advanced degrees. It's nice to create new relationships and to renew acquaintances. I really enjoy the people who go to NEACUHO events and I feel very comfortable with everyone. The snow was falling throughout the day, so we knew we were in for a long ride home, I just don't think we realized how long!
We left New Rochelle around 3:30pm and got onto 95 to head home. Note, it took us about an hour and a half to get to New Rochelle from Hamden. We got out of NY, went through the toll into CT and BAM! hit traffic. Life 5mph traffic. Google Maps was telling us it would take almost 5 hours to get home with the traffic. We crawled along for awhile and talked about work for the most part. When we got to Stamford, we figured it was time to stop for dinner and found a pizza place to grab pizza and a beer. Dinner was good, if a little bigger than we thought. We then headed to Crumbs for cupcakes and spent a good 10 minutes staring at the all the variety before we figured out what we wanted. We then got on 15, which was much worse than 95 road condition wise. Meg's loss of traction light kept coming on and it was affectionately dubbed the "Oh shit!" light. I decided pretty early on in the ride that I was not going back to New London that night so when we finally made it back to QU, Megan dropped us off at the Commons and we went inside to relax.
We got back to the apartment around 9:30 and Heather's garbage was stinky, so she wanted to take it down the hall to put with the other garbage. While she was down the hall, I heard someone tapping at the window and yelling what I thought was "Help!" I grabbed Heather from the hallway and the tapping and yelling continued. The voice started yelling "Heather! Phil!" but we were both too freaked out to look out the window and see who it was, so Heather called Security. Right after she hung up, there was a knock on the door and she looked through the peephole to find her co-workers in snow gear. In walks Chris and his wife and Dustin, more hall directors. Chris and I had worked together on the drive-in conference for the fall so we knew each other. They wanted us to come out and play in the snow, so I borrowed some snow gear and we went out to play in the snow. We slid down hills and threw snow balls and basically ran around like 7 year olds with potty mouths. Heather took video of us sliding down the hills and I laughed. A LOT. It felt pretty awesome. We finally got tired and headed back to the apartment to enjoy the cupcakes we had bought and head to bed.
I got up super early, drive back to New Lo, dropped my stuff on the floor of the living room and went right back to bed, which is where I spent most of the day. I finished my book and finally got up around 4 to shower and check email and read my RSS feed.
My thoughts and prayers are with the family of the victims today in the shooting in Arizona. It is appalling to me that members of our nation feel that violence is a way to make a difference. I hope that the leaders of our country come together to look for a solution to the never ending violence in our country.