Finishing ... and Starting

Yesterday, I got all the tests working on my last major piece of work for IBM. I submitted the patch request, and have been in discussions with my colleagues in India Software Lab -- they reviewed it, and will maintain the code. I have one other patch request in process, but it's just a bit of cleaning now. And there are some other things I might do for IBM in the next week and a half, if I feel like it.
I'll probably feel like it. There was a long time where I felt that work was, well, work. A sucker's game; I looked forward to retirement. But these days, I want something to do. I like writing code. I like having customers.
With this last assignment, I wrote the tests after the code was finished, although it was in the back of my head that to be Agile, I should have written the tests first. However, I spent a lot of time on the first test, a run-through of the basic use case with confirmation that all of the pieces were there. For a while, I had to get the test code (Perl) right, then it was running and then it failed. My code was broken! Yet, it only took a few minutes before I smiled -- my test had taught me something, had shown me something that I had forgotten to implement. That's just what it is supposed to do. And everything gets improved. Cool.
Then, of course, I forgot to follow my Agile training, and I saved the most doubtful piece of code for the last test I implemented...so the last few days was a flurry of re-coding, re-checking and getting a new code review.

That was yesterday. Today J is out of town at a conference, so it is just L and me. L is OK, Mama comes up in his conversation a lot, so I know he misses her. "Did Mama give you a kiss for me?" he asked this morning; I said yes, and kissed him. On the way to day care, he was all "Papa, I love you. Papa, can I tell you something? I love you..." I can see that he's feeling nervous and upset about Mama being away.
After dropping him off ... I came back home. I could have packed up my laptop and headed into the office, but I can "work" from home. Coming home feels like a punishment. I'll get more laundry done and the breakfast dishes cleaned. I have a networking lunch with a former manager today -- it's easy to get to from home. But I feel like I've been sent home; it feels like the first day I haven't had work to do, that it hasn't mattered whether I'm on the computer or not.

I have a list of things to do -- prepare for the Career Assessment module with Right Management, tidy up my last assignment, neaten up my LinkedIn profile, set up more networking meetings, go have lunch. I'm just sad, as I get started.