Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Done with a Big Project

I have had this project at work since October 2008, started just before we left for our adoption trip in November. I needed to make progress on this all during our "vacation" in London and both of our adoption trips to Ukraine. My company has a VPN and I was able to remote into the computer at my desk in Mitchell, wherever we were in the world. That is, wherever we had fast internet. When I remote in, I see my desktop, just as if I were sitting at my desk.

I think back to all of the mornings in Odessa, first when we were staying with our friend M at her apartment, then on our second trip in the Odessa Executive Suites, where I would get up early to work. When we were at M's, at times we had up to 8 of us staying in this small apartment (3 roommates, Matt & Sheila Nasekos, and Nancy, Mark, and I). They have a very small water heater and if you wanted a hot shower, getting up early was the best time to get one. So many mornings I would get up at 5 or 5:30, shower, and work before the adoption tasks with our facilitator.

Then over at OES, during our 10-day wait after Nancy went back to America, I worked 12 or 14 hour days (until our internet went out when someone stole equipment at the ISP). There was a couple of days I never even left the apartment. After I got Valya and Sergey, I worked every morning from about 3:00 or 3:30 until they would get up at 7:30. That was very tiring. I usually fell asleep on the couch for an hour right after supper while they would watch movies, then everyone to bed again at 9:00. Since we've been back home, all of my extra time has been spent on it (instead of blogging!). Now, yesterday, at 4:00, I finally finished it and it is definitely a relief.

7 comments:

Jan and John said...

Wow...congratulations on having that huge project completed! Now you can have some breathing room, and hopefully sleep a bit more! Hope all is well with you, Nancy, and the kids!

Anonymous said...

Congratulations! We will hopefully be in Odessa at Executive Suites this summer as well. So, you're saying that you have high speed internet in your suite? Both my husband and I will have work that we would like to be able to continue to do, but also we're hoping to take our kids. If our appointment is later in the summer and will go over into September, it would be nice to be able to "do school" with the kids through our virtual academy.

Conethia and Jim Bob said...

how does it feel to be finished with your adoption and project? Congratulations!

Alycia said...

Congratulations on this accomplishment! And although our trip to Ukraine is off in the future, since we have only just started the home study process, it is reassuring to know that I will be able to keep in touch with the office when we're over there. Our orphanage is in Izmail, however, so hopefully there will be an Executive Suites there....
Alycia

Debora Hoffmann said...

Glad you're done with your project. I'm sure it's a relief. Was the Internet connection consistent enough (for the most part) for you to work? I am praying about the possibility of working while we're there, maybe during the 10-day wait. I would likely have to work from 6:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. or so. (And I assume M's connection can't be relied on!)

Ashley said...

WOW! Congratulations!! I know this is a huge burden lifted!

Blaine said...

Congratulations on your adoption! I'll have to go back and read more when I get a chance. Sounds like VPN connections and software have kept you busy, I can relate to that.