Last night, got home from work after 7 - laid down on the guest bed to snuggle with a kitty, and crashed. Woke up at 5 this morning wondering WHERE THE HELL AM I, found my real bed and slept for 5 more hours.

It has been a really, really, really long week at work. Next week will prove to hold a resolution, but with it, another set of challenges and probably another working weekend.

The STS-127 crew landed safely yesterday, and will have a Welcome Home ceremony at Ellington Field this afternoon. Hard to believe that their mission is complete - it was a long, hard road to get there.

I was looking at mission pictures and thinking back on the ~18 months I had with the crew, and thinking about what lies ahead with my next crew, and it struck me, as it has been a lot lately, that we really are coming to the end of an era. I am working incredibly hard, pushing myself and proving myself capable of things I never thought possible...but a year from now, I may still be laid off.

Eight months ago, I could have walked away. I didn't think I would make it to a summer launch - I certainly didn't think I had the wherewithal to start the whole damn process over again. I was beaten down in so many ways; tired, defeated. But my heart is in it now - I can't leave. I'll do this again - tear my hair out and bitch and worry and cry and lose sleep. I'll invest more of my heart in my work than maybe I should. I'll stay until they forcibly make me leave - but I'll walk away knowing that I share in the success of a mission, that I did everything I could, that I helped them make history.