Many, many months ago I signed up to come to a conference for work in San Francisco. Many, many months ago when I signed up, the conference seemed forever away- so long away, in fact, it didn’t seem real. But time did its thing and before I knew it, that conference that seemed so very far into the future was here.  And I, being the wuss that I am, started to get a little nervous. Not about the conference- I’m a conference geek. Small talk, learning new things, meeting new people- all of it makes me happy. No, I was nervous about that whole spending-5-days-across-the-country thing.

I mean- 5 days is a long time. I’ve never left my kids for 5 days and I’ve never been this far away.  Then you throw in the events of last week in Boston and all the news stories about the FAA furloughs that will result in major flight delays and my little bit of nerves turned into a whole bundle of nerves really quick.  But, I didn’t have a choice. I was committed.  So yesterday I made the trek cross country to San Francisco.

And I’m so very, very glad I did.  It’s a tough life having to sleep in a huge bed by myself with no children waking me up at 4 am.  It’s a hardship to eat meals while they’re hot and not have to share a bit.  And it’s horrible to have this gorgeous view from my window.

Today I spent the day taking a fascinating class, filling up 4 pages of paper with notes on things to do at my job when I get home.  Then I got to have dinner with wonderful people that I’ve got to work with for the past 2 years but have never met while looking out at this view:

Yup, I miss my family. And I’ll be dying to get home to them on Friday.  But for now, I’m just going to enjoy every second of this gorgeous city, my nerves be damned.