Tag: free time

Fragile

Wednesday and somehow, it’s Pay the Bills Wednesday again. Go figure, right? Time keeps on slipping, into the future…. Time keeps on slipping, into the future…. Time keeps on slipping, slipping, into the future….

I’ve been spacy this week and I am not really sure what that’s about, honestly. I don’t mind–I’m being productive and getting things done, but I think I’m still not used to all this free time that I have now. I’m used to worrying about things I have to do when I’m taking down time, and I’m also so used to having so much to do all the time that I can’t comprehend having actual down time without anxiety. I’m still wrapping my mind around this. Trust me, I don’t miss being that busy or that Type A in the least. So the week is going well. I haven’t been doing much reading this week, either, but after I get home tonight–depending on how miserable the drive home in the heat–I want to do some reading. This a/c in the car not working thing is very unpleasant (fortunately I am not in the car that long), so I will have to bring the car in this Friday. It’s fine, I haven’t been over to the West Bank in a while, and I should see what else I should do while I am over there. I have to make groceries on the way home, and of course, not having a/c in the car is going to make the trip even more marvelous. Heavy heaving sigh.

Yesterday was a good day, even if I was tired. The plumber is coming to look at the sink tomorrow morning, so I need to empty the dishwasher tonight and do something about the dishes in the sink, which are too dirty to load into the dishwasher, but I can at least hide them in there to get them out of the sink and out of their way. Yesterday was a nice, busy day at the office, and I stayed caught up on everything. Our site visit is today, too. Two more days of July, so I also have end of the month duties to look forward to tomorrow and Monday. Yay! I know this sounds like I’m spoiled, but not having cold air in the car during a excessive heat warning is the pits. By the time I got home yesterday I was drained; the heat just sucks your soul right out of you. I fed Sparky and gave him some attention (he loves to sit on my shoulders and head butt me) before collapsing into my easy chair to cool down from the hideous heat outside. Paul was home, so we watched some Jeopardy before diving back into Ride or Die, which we are loving. Hannah Waddingham and Octavia Spencer need to be in everything. I went to bed at a relatively decent time and slept like a stone. I’m debating running errands on the way home tonight in the heat; there are a couple of things I need, so maybe I should just swing by and make some groceries on the way home but not drive uptown for the mail until after I get the car serviced Friday morning. It does seem smarter. At least then I will know if there’s anything wrong with the a/c compressor.

Sigh.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mins. Have a lovely Wednesday, and I will see you tomorrow on my last day in the office for the week day blog.

This is such an 80’s look! Sweaty and everything torn for a glimpse of lovely skin. And lots and lots of oil.YayYay

I Want to Be Free

Monday morning and back to the office. I didn’t want to get up this morning–not really a surprise there, after a holiday weekend–and even now as I sit here with my coffee and can feel my mind and body coming back to life, my body really wants to go back to bed. This week will be my first regular work week in a while–four days in the office and one at home–so I imagine I will be dragging come Thursday morning. I did get some more work on the apartment done yesterday–the difference in the apartment is actually pretty amazing–but had some fatigue. I made groceries in the morning and came home to just kind of collapse and relax. I went down some research holes on Youtube (Louisiana bridges; the story of how New Orleans’ bridges were built and funded should also be a book; some of the nation’s longest bridges are in Louisiana; the top three, in fact–the Causeway, Atchafalaya swamp basin, and Manchac swamp bridge–all are in the New Orleans area) and then scribbled the rest of the evening in my journal. We started watching an odd show called Outer Range with Josh Brolin and Lili Taylor, which is different and interesting and very well filmed, and then I went to bed early.

Today is also usually my Admin day but I am in clinic this morning and afternoon, so I kind of had let some things slide to do today but I also found out late Thursday that I would be in clinic, so I am very behind and will be trying to get caught up around clients all morning. I am also trying very hard not to get stressed about it–it is what it is and it will get done at some point–and I also have some emails to answer. And it’s fine; I’ll get everything done like I always do, and not going to let anything get to me today. I slept really well last night, and now I am waking up completely. (I love when my body shifts from “want to go back to sleep” to “waking up and feeling rested”.) I’m also trying to spend less time on social media–primarily because it isn’t fun any more, and hasn’t been in a long time; it’s just another habit that needs to be broken. I need to resist the urge to waste time there “just to check in” and spend that time more productively. The precipitous decline in emails that need to be answered has been delightful, even if it still catches me off-guard, as does the amount of free time I now have.

It occurred to me last night that I dealt with my stress of the last decade or so in about the same way that I always did in the past–by taking on too much of a load so I don’t have time to focus on being sad or worried about things or concerned. The primary problem with that is I’ve slowed down some, and can’t keep up the way I used to be able to do. So, in order not to face unpleasant realities and keep myself occupied I replaced worry and sadness with stress and overwork. This time I finally burned myself out in a way I had never experienced before–the COVID in the summer of 2022 that basically wiped my short term memory and left it permanently on the blink also didn’t help matters any, either. The last two years or so have been so much stress and depression and sadness and fear (the surgery terrified me, as did the recovery process) that my memory and brain couldn’t really recover, and I went back into strictly survival mode–“just get through the day/week/month”–and I am now finally coming out of it at long last, and it’s been so long since I’ve not been buried in work and projects and things that I am having a difficult (but nice) time getting acclimated to my life again.

I also am resisting the urge to say yes to everything because I have free time, and if I have free time that means I’m wasting time….it isn’t the best way to have your brain wired, really. I would much rather waste time than spend the rest of my life worried about running out of it, to be honest. But like I said, I really went into a deep dive on the book last night in my journal, getting to the heart and core of my main character and why the experiences he is about to have are going to happen and how it changes him, who he is going to become. I think that’s important, and it’s something I always forget when I am writing a non-series book; I don’t have to really go into a lot of detail about who Scotty and the boys are; and with a non-series book I have to remember it must be written differently and the plan has to be completely different. (I do worry that this is more busy-work to do so I don’t have to write, but that’s always going to be something I wonder about, and no, this was incredibly productive because I am starting to get a grasp on who my character is and what he wants and why he is where he is in his life…)

And on that note, I’d better start getting ready for work and my not-Admin day. Have a great one, Constant Reader, and I may be back later; one never knows. It depends on how busy we are and if I can get caught up on my work or not. We shall see.