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miss_lucy21This week, I'm telling you. Hell, this month. I feel like I'm running, running, running and never going to catch up.
So, yes, election, and then there was a contract, which, yay, money. But, these projects are kind of grueling, particularly for someone whose brain is not wired to pay close attention for many hours on end. I balance that out by being pretty freaking good at the task and being faster than all get out because I read ridiculously fast and my brain makes connections quickly when I'm looking for a very specific set of words/arguments/circumstances. But being good at something doesn't mean that it's actually an easy task for me to accomplish. I just make it look easy.
Combine that with having evening commitments every night of the week, except Friday, and the fact that I have no internet (or phone) access while I'm on these contracts, and that means I'm trying to keep up with all my other stuff that I usually spend a decent chunk of my day doing in the 90 or so minutes between the time I get home and the time I need to go to bed in order to get enough sleep. Some of that is, yes, screwing around on the internet. Admittedly, I do probably more of that than I should, obviously, that gets cut first. But, there is also the basic living tasks, like email and bank stuff. And there is prep work for tutoring- the kids do their homework 90% of the time, but there's always a kid who forgets his/her stuff, or finishes it quickly, so we have enrichment and reinforcement materials for them to work on. We're still pretty much a start-up operation, so we don't have a wealth of materials already developed, so I usually spend a couple hours a week seeking out materials that meet the individual needs of the kids we work with. And then there's this matter of looking for a full time, permanent job, which is a full time job in and of itself.
Also, my family that does not live with me tends to carry out the majority of our interaction online, so I do make flipping through my facebook news feed and commenting on people's stuff a priority, as opposed to categorizing that as "screwing around on the internet" and let me tell you, my family are chatty people. This isn't so obvious when I'm poking my head in there several times a day, but it's really clear when I'm wading through an entire day's worth. But I have so few family members and we've been spending the past 5 years navigating how to keep ourselves together as a family now that my grandfather is gone, because now, there's no center and we had to make a new way of operating. And it has been rewarding and lovely, but it's still not entirely automatic.
So, the things I'd like to accomplish sometimes fall to the bottom of the list (the Casefic, I'm looking at you). And there is an idea I'm working on that is also going to be time consuming, but might assist several of my other goals (as in, having some money and possibly lead to that full time permanent job) and I haven't have much time to piece that together this month either.
And then, all of a sudden, it's Thanksgiving week (it's early this year, which is partly why I'm going o_O "what?"). And while our actual Thanksgiving holiday is very low key (just me and my parents, and our meal isn't really much more complicated than a typical weekend meal around here), we are the hosts of Family Thanksgiving for the extended family on Saturday (we do Christmas here, too, but that's a whole different story). We're centrally located and have the largest house, which is important when it's cold out and you can't spill out into the backyard, like we can for Memorial Day at my aunt's. Our house is...not company ready. The individuals who live here are not exactly neat-freaks (I am the worst and I will freely and fully admit that). Things like cleaning the kitchen and the litter box and taking out the trash, and putting food away, and laundry, and keeping the bathroom reasonable happen on a regular basis, of course. We're not slobs. But, we are a family that's pretty comfortable with piles of random things (mostly involving books or mail. Or yarn in my case) around and with not mopping and vacuuming on a daily (or, okay, weekly) basis. But my mom has Company Standards when it comes to her sisters that I'm not even going to try to understand and therefore, the house Needs Cleaning. I mean, yes, of course, I understand that running the vacuum around and making sure the bathrooms are clean and having clear counters/tables/coffee tables are all probably good ideas. I don't particularly think the windows need cleaned or all the floors need scrubbed, or the carpet needs shampooed, but apparently, they do. And since I'm home and everyone else is working...yeah. I don't mind, exactly- it's better than everyone scrambling to do it when they're tired and cranky on Friday- but cleaning is not my favorite activity. The cooking for Saturday, now, that will be fun, mostly. We're having 2 kinds of chili (everyone's tired of turkey by then), one of which is my vegetarian chili, and I'm also making brownies and bacon-cheese potato bites and probably rolls (double batch, because we'll have them for Thanksgiving too). But the rest of the prep? Eh.
At any rate, I should probably get started instead of blathering on here. Because I could go on and on about how holidays make me feel fragile and I'm already a little wobbly because of the whole being dark too early thing and the fact that I am a little too aware of other people's stress/unhappiness/suffering in a number of events that don't affect me directly and I definitely don't want to make about me, because they are not. I over-empathize, is all. So, yes, cleaning and laundry and cooking and job searching and researching options and on and on and on.
So, yes, election, and then there was a contract, which, yay, money. But, these projects are kind of grueling, particularly for someone whose brain is not wired to pay close attention for many hours on end. I balance that out by being pretty freaking good at the task and being faster than all get out because I read ridiculously fast and my brain makes connections quickly when I'm looking for a very specific set of words/arguments/circumstances. But being good at something doesn't mean that it's actually an easy task for me to accomplish. I just make it look easy.
Combine that with having evening commitments every night of the week, except Friday, and the fact that I have no internet (or phone) access while I'm on these contracts, and that means I'm trying to keep up with all my other stuff that I usually spend a decent chunk of my day doing in the 90 or so minutes between the time I get home and the time I need to go to bed in order to get enough sleep. Some of that is, yes, screwing around on the internet. Admittedly, I do probably more of that than I should, obviously, that gets cut first. But, there is also the basic living tasks, like email and bank stuff. And there is prep work for tutoring- the kids do their homework 90% of the time, but there's always a kid who forgets his/her stuff, or finishes it quickly, so we have enrichment and reinforcement materials for them to work on. We're still pretty much a start-up operation, so we don't have a wealth of materials already developed, so I usually spend a couple hours a week seeking out materials that meet the individual needs of the kids we work with. And then there's this matter of looking for a full time, permanent job, which is a full time job in and of itself.
Also, my family that does not live with me tends to carry out the majority of our interaction online, so I do make flipping through my facebook news feed and commenting on people's stuff a priority, as opposed to categorizing that as "screwing around on the internet" and let me tell you, my family are chatty people. This isn't so obvious when I'm poking my head in there several times a day, but it's really clear when I'm wading through an entire day's worth. But I have so few family members and we've been spending the past 5 years navigating how to keep ourselves together as a family now that my grandfather is gone, because now, there's no center and we had to make a new way of operating. And it has been rewarding and lovely, but it's still not entirely automatic.
So, the things I'd like to accomplish sometimes fall to the bottom of the list (the Casefic, I'm looking at you). And there is an idea I'm working on that is also going to be time consuming, but might assist several of my other goals (as in, having some money and possibly lead to that full time permanent job) and I haven't have much time to piece that together this month either.
And then, all of a sudden, it's Thanksgiving week (it's early this year, which is partly why I'm going o_O "what?"). And while our actual Thanksgiving holiday is very low key (just me and my parents, and our meal isn't really much more complicated than a typical weekend meal around here), we are the hosts of Family Thanksgiving for the extended family on Saturday (we do Christmas here, too, but that's a whole different story). We're centrally located and have the largest house, which is important when it's cold out and you can't spill out into the backyard, like we can for Memorial Day at my aunt's. Our house is...not company ready. The individuals who live here are not exactly neat-freaks (I am the worst and I will freely and fully admit that). Things like cleaning the kitchen and the litter box and taking out the trash, and putting food away, and laundry, and keeping the bathroom reasonable happen on a regular basis, of course. We're not slobs. But, we are a family that's pretty comfortable with piles of random things (mostly involving books or mail. Or yarn in my case) around and with not mopping and vacuuming on a daily (or, okay, weekly) basis. But my mom has Company Standards when it comes to her sisters that I'm not even going to try to understand and therefore, the house Needs Cleaning. I mean, yes, of course, I understand that running the vacuum around and making sure the bathrooms are clean and having clear counters/tables/coffee tables are all probably good ideas. I don't particularly think the windows need cleaned or all the floors need scrubbed, or the carpet needs shampooed, but apparently, they do. And since I'm home and everyone else is working...yeah. I don't mind, exactly- it's better than everyone scrambling to do it when they're tired and cranky on Friday- but cleaning is not my favorite activity. The cooking for Saturday, now, that will be fun, mostly. We're having 2 kinds of chili (everyone's tired of turkey by then), one of which is my vegetarian chili, and I'm also making brownies and bacon-cheese potato bites and probably rolls (double batch, because we'll have them for Thanksgiving too). But the rest of the prep? Eh.
At any rate, I should probably get started instead of blathering on here. Because I could go on and on about how holidays make me feel fragile and I'm already a little wobbly because of the whole being dark too early thing and the fact that I am a little too aware of other people's stress/unhappiness/suffering in a number of events that don't affect me directly and I definitely don't want to make about me, because they are not. I over-empathize, is all. So, yes, cleaning and laundry and cooking and job searching and researching options and on and on and on.