What I’m reading: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
What’s on the iPod: I Want to be Sedated by The Ramones
Today starts the marathon. Time for me to inhale deeply and power through a lot of small projects so I’ll have some money post-vacation. I’ve asked one client to double up on the projects until the day before I leave. That should stave off a bit of poverty and give me something to pay bills with in November. I’m also sending out queries for larger projects, bigger clients. I’ll be gone two weeks, not two months. There’s no reason why I can’t line something up for my return.
Planning work around a vacation is enough. However, that’s not all that’s going on. We’re having a party the end of the month – three days after we return. Put it off, you say? So did I. Can’t. We also have house guests showing up sometime after we return and before the party. Know those wind-up monkeys with cymbals that bounce around uncontrollably? That’s me times ten. I’m planning my work schedule, my vacation, the party, the house guests, the menus….. we’re going to be eating out a lot, I predict.
Normally I’d wave off one or more of those things. I can’t. It’s his mom. We don’t wave her off. She’s more important than a little sanity. She’s older and the time we spend with her is very precious right now. She doesn’t live near us, so I welcome seeing her as often as we can.
And the party? Part of his birthday plans. He wants just a party, not a big milestone birthday bash. So honoring his wishes is important, too. Let’s just say I’ll need that vacation when it gets here.
So the weekend was spent cleaning. Oh, and drying out the basement. First time in ages I’ve seen that basement get wet, and it flooded. Naturally. Just pile on one more thing. Why not? But the flooding was more than half the length of the house, which was totally strange. Thank you, hurricane rain. So Friday morning we dragged everything out of the water and busted out the ShopVac. Saturday was putting it back, which snowballed into a major basement cleaning.
And since there was a surgery and a huge drought, the gardens were neglected. I spent three hours in the front garden getting the path cleaned, the weeds out, and trimming back out-of-control vincas and shrubs. He took care of a tree that had outgrown its space. The stump comes out the minute the rain lets up. Sunday was a combination of cleaning the house, trips to Goodwill, and football. The world may come to an end, but I’m stopping long enough to see the game.
I think I’m glad it’s Monday. Work isn’t this much work. But we’ve yet to get our car reservations or decide our full itinerary. We have a rough sketch. I’m content with it. He won’t be. In my world of delegate what you don’t want to deal with, he can work with it until he’s happy with it. I’ll go wherever as long as I don’t have to clean or weed when I get there.
Happy Monday. How is your work week shaping up?
12 responses to “Stress Balls”
my week is crap. my weekend was crap. I'm ready for the suicide hotline.
Yes, you've got a lot on your plate, but you've also got it well in hand. You're being organized without being obsessive and leaving enough flexibility so that whatever comes up will be handled with your usual grace.
have a fabulous vacation!
Wow, you make me sound so together! LOL Thank God for Saturn in Capricorn, I say. 🙂
I loaded 4 bags of dried pine needles this weekend only to have the wind & rain kick up so it now looks like I didn't even rake. Such a pain.
The week is starting slow-like me. I have gotten in this nasty habit of waking up every 2 hours and struggling to get back to sleep. I am definitely running on empty.
I start a white paper tomorrow-research, interview (rescheduled for 3rd time-so I THINK I am having an interview tomorrow). Then the rest of the week picks up with some more projects.
Today, I am going to mellow with some blogging and quickie articles-unless the caffeine kicks in – soon! 🙂
My son woke up super-early and I just couldn't get to sleep after finally getting him back down. I've already showered & washed my hair, gotten a couple of work emails out, a post written, and breakfast eaten.
That never happens. Especially on a Monday. I hope to continue kicking some asses & taking names today. I could really use a productive week.
Got a contract I've been waiting on, so work should commence soon with one client. Doing a quote for a flyer revision with another (and hoping that I'll also get to write their web site content). Applied for a couple of other things that I may or may not hear about this week.
Did I mention I could really use a good week? 😀
"I Want to Be Sedated"–after all you've been through lately, I love the sense of humor to this one!
My week isn't off to the greatest start either. The desktop is out for repair so I'm on the laptop, which is slower on the DSL than a rainy Monday. (Notice it didn't prevent me from stopping by your blog though. :o)) The good news is my tech can't find anything major wrong with the desktop. The bad news is I probably won't have it back for a couple days yet. I won't be getting a whole lot accomplished until I do.
Whenever I hear "I Want to be Sedated" I think of a classic Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode. A Spike-centric episode, naturally. So just reading that made my day.
My week is looking good. I'm ahead of the workload (yes, I worked this weekend, but only 4 or 5 hours). I've got calls to place and a couple more interviews to set for an article that's due on the 15th. Somehow I have to knock a column out today. I normally do those on the weekends, but I didn't get around to it. And my favorite editor should be assigning soon – this week I hope.
Tomorrow I have someone scheduled to service the boiler. I never turn the heat on until the boiler's been checked (yes, I'm shivering). Why? Last time I did that, six years ago, the guy pointed to a bend in the metal flue that winds its way to the chimney – condensation had caused the metal to rust and disintegrate and there was a softball sized hole. He said if the house wasn't so old and drafty, and if it had been colder out, I could have wound up with carbon monoxide poisoning. My detector never went off. The other reason I always get it checked can be boiled down to (pardon the pun) the fact that the boiler is estimated to be at least 50 years old. To quote the serviceman, "The good news is this boiler could last another 50 years. The bad news is this boiler could last another 50 years."
Yardwork! A week ago I spent a couple hours weeding and trimming and cleaning up the yard….yet if not for the bags of yard waste lined up for the recycling truck that week, no one would have noticed I'd done a thing.
Lori, there's one advantage to having the party after your return: by cleaning the house before you go, when you're back you'll only need to do a little dusting and dry mopping. And laundry, of course.
You know, Kathy, I've been told that my unconscious has been beating at the door of reality for a while. I really WAS listening to that yesterday. And it's true! I see the correlation – if only I could transfer that to all my writing. LOL
Devon, explain crap. Sounds like you had a pretty productive weekend with all the packing! Hang in there with the realtors. They like to pretend you're their only client when they meet you. We know better. 🙂
Cathy, pine needles are a lot like dog hair – you think you've got it all, then they shake. As for the waking up, been there. My husband is that way, too. He usually gets up and goes downstairs to work on the computer or watch tv. He doesn't fight the sleep. However, now he's up every night, so I'm not sure that's a great idea.
Kick ass, Becky! And yes, you need a really good week! Hang in there. 🙂
Paula, I always clean before I go anywhere. It's usually much cleaner when I leave than when I'm here every day. It's relaxing to come home and not have to do anything. But we have an adult kid staying here, so the cleaning will be short-lived, I'm afraid. I just hope to come home to live plants and a live fish.
Hear you on the boiler! Our furnace man said, "Tell him to stop being cheap and buy a new one." LOL Pretty bad when your furnace guy is tired of fixing it!
And Kathy, I'm glad you used your bandwidth to come visit. :))
I don't like working on a laptop. It's just so freaking slow compared to the new desktop. But at least there's the option of plugging it into the monitor and keyboard. Not a total loss, I guess.
"I'll go wherever as long as I don't have to clean or weed when I get there" — LOL. Love this.
I'm waiting to hear from a client on several small projects, so at the moment I have a rather incomplete view of what my week will be like. That's okay. A little breathing space on a Monday morning is quite all right with me!
By "crap" I mean the escalated harassment by the landlords.
I'm struggling to recover from a serious case of burnout. The burnout is due to personal issues, but of course real life issues can easily bleed over into business affecting productivity, e.g. money earned. *sighs deeply* I think I'm slowly getting a handle on things now. Today is the most productive I've been in a couple of weeks.
Lori – the boiler guy is here as I type. One thing I'm focusing on is speaking with other people who replaced an old, functioning, boiler for a more efficient new one only to have frequent repairs. The newer ones aren't built to last, so the sooner you replace it, the sooner you'll have to replace it again.
I do what I can to keep Old Reliable working as efficiently as possible; I use window film; I open south and west-facing drapes on sunny days for passive solar heat gain; and I keep the thermostat set to 60 or 62 (radiators keep, uh, radiating after the boiler turns off, so 62 on a sunny day can send indoor temps up to 66).