A little chaos goes a long way

The place where I work is in a sort of chaos right now.

The newsroom is being reorganized, which means that most of the people in the room will have a different job by the end of this month, including me.

The physical newsroom is being reorganized, so our co-workers are scattered hither and yon around the building.

A large media company bought our paper last week, so we're now in the transition of new ownership. That includes a new employee handbook (complete with new employee rules), new benefits (which we learned about this week) and even new paydays (the opposite Fridays of when we get paid now).

All this change has cluttered my brain for the past month.

I told my in-laws that it didn't seem like they had been here long enough this year. They come down the week before Christmas and stay through the end of January. They alternate time between our house and Jeff's brother's house. It wasn't until today that I realized ... they spent the same amount of time with us as they always do, but I worked late a lot of the nights they were here, and even when I was here physically, my mind was often elsewhere.

From what we've heard, the company that bought us could have the power to do some good things for us. But because we've seen so many other papers put through terrible times, it's hard not to worry about our future.

I don't want to sound like I'm whining because believe me, I feel very blessed to have a job. So many people I know have been affected by layoffs and job eliminations.

That said, I'll be glad when the dust clears, and we can find some day-to-day normalcy again.

Because of the clutter in my head, writing blog posts has been a struggle for the last little while.

When things are normal, blog posts pop into my head throughout the day, or Biscuit will say something that makes me laugh, or I'll find a scrap of paper where I've written a note about a post I want to write.

But right now, it's hard to come home and clear my head enough to let those ideas flow out of me.

Besides getting married, Biscuit is the best thing Jeff and I have ever done. And even though I've struggled with sharing things about him lately, he is still just as great as he's ever been.

So cross your fingers, send a kind thought, say a little prayer and wish us some soon-to-come calm waters. And I'll do my best to keep sharing Biscuit with you.