CWS

What is CWS, you ask? Well, it stands for Compressed Work Schedule, which means I work four 9-hour days each week, one 8-hr day and then get off a day. I chose Mondays for my day off and my short day because I HATE Mondays. I can never seem to get to sleep at a decent hour on Sunday nights, which means I wake up feeling cranky and irritable and tired. I'm NOT a morning person. I hate getting up while it's still dark, having to leave my nice warm bed and go to work. But the plus side is that I LOVE having every other Monday off, having a loooong weekend every other week. And another bonus is that if I go to visit my daughter and grandkids in North Carolina, I can drive back on Monday and not have to fight the inevitable weekend traffic on I-95 coming north on Sunday. Believe me, it's not worth it. It's hard to imagine how congested it can get, but it's basically stop and go from Richmond to DC. Uggghhhh.

Also, now that I'm on CWS, I have to drive myself in to work in the morning since my van pool doesn't leave early enough. That means that I (not the morning person) have to get up by 4:30 a.m. to be at work by 6 a.m. It's a 40-minute drive, which is about the same distance and time I had to drive in when I was in North Carolina. But it's also about 2 hours earlier than I had to get up in NC. There are benefits though. I'm usually too groggy to care about the traffic going in, which is relatively light at that time of the morning. And I get to check out the big dipper and notice how beautiful the sky looks with just a hint of sunrise by the time I get to the Annex. Driving home isn't bad since I get to leave at 3:30 p.m. Traffic has picked up a little by then, but the drive along the George Washington Memorial Parkway is just gorgeous, especially this time of year. It basically follows the Potomac River, and there are always kayaks or canoes out there, not to mention the beautiful fall foliage right now. It changes daily. I have to remember to take my camera and stop at one of the scenic pullovers and take some photos before the leaves are all gone.

This is a shot of where I enter the Parkway when I leave work.


Here is a view of one of the several bridges as I see it from the road going North. It's really very beautiful.