The Weekend Already?

I cannot believe that today is Saturday and the beginning of my weekend. I had a pretty good week, even though it started too early in the morning, Monday was court in Wellington. Drive to Wellington, only to turn around and come right back. Tuesday was spent catching up and getting a lot of things done since I knew I would be gone the rest of the week. Wednesday started really early for me, actually, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday all started the same way!! I got up at 5 (which I am no way used to!) and was gone from the house by 5:30 or 5:45 those three mornings. I had training in Amarillo which is one of my favoirte conferences to attend. It is the Women in Criminal Justice Conference. It has some really good speakers from around the area who come every year and discuss several different topics. It also gives women in the criminal justice field an opportunity to meet and talk with other women in our field. There were several women who I talk with on a regular basis and after several years finally was able to meet them face to face. Some of the speakers I know personally and it is awesome to be able to hear them speak at a conference. One man in particular, now works for the Carson County Sheriff's Department. He has stories upon stories from his career in law enforcement. The most facinating thing about him, he analyzes handwriting and has for several years. He has seen the ransom note in the Jon Benet Ramsey case, he has seen the handwriting of Charles Manson (his handwriting is not legibile), he has the handwriting from John Hinkley, and the list goes on and on. About two years ago, he asked me to sign my name and he would analyze it....He did and it was right on!! It amazed me just how my signature could tell him so much about me. Another speaker was Peter Harrell Jr.. If you are ever able to hear him speak, I encourage you to attend. He speaks on several different topics. Two topics he spoke about were Verbal Judo and Gender, Culture and Communication. It was awesome. he broke down a lot of misconceptions about our culture, the American Culture. His speech made me think about the different cultures we are in contact with every day and how to communicate with them without feeling awkward or making the other person feel awkward. Another one of my favorite speakers, Dr. Harry Hueston, from WT came and spoke about how safe is our workplace. Brought a lot of interesting things to the table. If an active shooter were to come into our place of business, where ever it might be, what would you do and even if you had a plan, would you be able to carry it out? What to do to survive an active shooter and how to help those who are in the line of fire. He talked about the Virginia Tech shootings and really amazed us all.

Friday, I got to go to my conference, but then had to leave to go to court. I get to court and find out that I will have several pleas in Carson County. Several? Oh boy!! I was in Panhandle by myself and wound up doing 8 pleas that day. Keep in mind, we were under the assumption that it was just a docket call with no pleas likely. I know going to Carson County could entail having pleas, I thought I was ready. I finally got to leave Panhandle at 5:45 and made it home at 7:20 and I was starving. But you know, even after it was all said and done, the previous days and the reflection on it made my trip home pretty good. What made the trip even sweeter was returning home to my family. They are the reason I drove every day instead of staying up in Amarillo, mostly to help Ryan out!!