Date Posted: July 26th, 2010
The Weekly Check-in is where I let you all know where I am on the path. “The Hard” is stuff I struggled with this week. It’s complaining except hopefully not as annoying. “The Good” is what went well this week. “The Learning” is what I realized this week. Learning could be related to The Hard or The Good but it might not be. The format is similar to the one FluentSelf’s Havi uses in her Friday Chickens.
The Hard
All of it’s related this week.
Bad Times in My Head
Depression. Guilt about depression. Shame for said depression. Believing my feelings are invalid. :-/ Not good times.
Is it over? It’s not as bad as it was over the weekend, but not sure it’s over yet. We’ll see.
Feeling a bit burned out on sewing
Mostly because I’m not sure I can get it and other things I want to do done in time. I can probably get the cotehardies finished, but the hose and the hood and the shifts… not so much. Unless I take time off work, which I can’t since I’m already going to be out of days due to Pennsic. Alas.
Not really able to enjoy my me time… even though I need it
Has to do with the burnout and the guilt. How can I be spending time on me when X, Y, and Z need to get done too?! Not that I have energy to work on X, Y, and Z. It’s just bad.
May have taken on more than I can handle
Gave up one SCA position for another. The other’s more aligned with what I want to do, but it may end up being more work than I bargained for. We’ll see.
The Good
Bweesness for Blogging
Last week I thought of a way to get some valuable experience for this blog. I’d love to be able to tell people to go out and start a business doing what you enjoy doing, but as of today I’ve never actually had a side business of my own. So, I think I’m going to start one… and blog about the experience. The one caveat being that I’m already feeling overwhelmed. How can I take on more?
Also that’ll mean my life will consist almost entirely of money making or potential money making activities. I don’t know how comfortable I am with that. :-/
Still this is a good thing. It’ll be valuable life experience if nothing else.
Chore Schedule
We have a roommate now, so we came up with a chore schedule with everything that needs to be done in order to make everyone happy. So far so good, although it’s only been up for half a week. Methinks think it’ll work, though, because of the accountability. I don’t want to frustrate both Aaron and the Roommate. 
The Learning
Sovereignty
Havi writes a lot about Sovereignty, and for a while I didn’t see the value of applying those ideas to my life. Respecting your capacity is over-rated. A lot of people do less than they are capable of. I don’t want to sell myself short. Etc. But this weekend I started thinking that respecting my current capacity to do things might be a good idea.
I have a hard time saying no to things I would want to do if I had infinite time and energy. So I say yes to positions, or go to events and then don’t enjoy myself because I really ought to be doing something else. At events I’ll often beg out early if I realize that’s what I did. I feel better afterward. Positions are a lot harder for me to quit for some reason. :-/
The thing is, no one is happy when I say yes to things I can’t really do or stay in positions I can’t do well. I just need to say something like, “I’m sorry, my intuition says that that’s not the right thing for me to be doing right now. Have Fun/Good Luck!” It’s hard because it’s rejection. I don’t like to be rejected. I don’t like to dole out rejections. But people still aren’t happy when I say yes when I really should have said no.
So, I need to figure out what my boundaries are. I have a lot of data to work with now. I should be able to come up with something reasonable.
Tags:
Career, Emotional Health, Stuff-Management.
Posted at
8:26 am | No Comments »
Date Posted: July 9th, 2010
This week the format of the check-in is “The Hard” followed by “The Good” followed by “The Learning”. “The Hard” is stuff I struggled with this week. It’s complaining except hopefully not as annoying. “The Good” is what went well this week. “The Learning” is what I realized this week. Learning could be related to The Hard or The Good but it might not be. The format is similar to the one FluentSelf’s Havi uses in her Friday Chickens.
The Hard
The Heat
The weather’s been in the 90s this week, so it’s been a bit unpleasant. On Monday, I had very little energy, and I’m pretty sure the heat was the main cause. Alas. A day off from work and I didn’t have the energy to use it productively. I even went for a walk to try to get more energy, but that didn’t work.
Also, Aaron and I have been snippy at each other because of the weather. Luckily neither of us takes it too seriously.
So much to do
And so little discipline. On Wednesday I came home from work and instead of doing the things I said I’d do (make food for the cat, calculate fabric amounts for Pennsic clothes, and do some cleaning) I read World Without End, practiced music, and read some more. It was fun, and I did get the music practiced, but I felt guilty about the time spent on the book.
Working 9 – 9.5 hour days.
We’re leaving early today for a wedding this weekend in Ohio, so I had to flex out those hours over the week. While I’m at work I don’t feel the extra hour. It’s when I come home and there’s not much time left that I start to feel resentful. Yeah I know people have it worse… that still doesn’t make me feel better.
The Good
Sno-cone Maker!
Last summer we bought a sno-cone maker and it’s turned out to be a great purchase. Yeah, we have an ice-crusher built into the fridge, but this thing does a much better job. Very refreshing. 
Exercise!
Biked to work Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday this week. Took a walk on Monday. Friday we’ll be leaving for Ohio, so no biking. Yay!
Got writing done.
Just about finished a post for the future. Started a few more.
Singing
We’re singing and playing music at the wedding this weekend, so we did some practicing on Wednesday. A lot of the music I already knew, and it’s in a good range for my voice.
Enjoyed Reading about Underground Houses
A goal Aaron and I have is to one day build our own hobbit hole. I got a book from the library called $50 & Up Underground House Book on just that topic. It’s dated (published in 1978 dated), but the information is still good, and it’s very entertaining. Well, entertaining for me since the author’s a back-to-the-land hippie…
The Learning
Exercise makes me happy… but only up to a certain point.
Last Friday I biked to work and felt ecstatic for the first few hours of my workday. This week I’ve been biking daily and my mood hasn’t been lifted nearly as much. As I mentioned, on Monday I went for a walk in the hope that it would wake me up and it didn’t. I didn’t feel worse afterward, I just didn’t feel much better either.
I’ll keep on exercising regularly, but I’ll try not to be disappointed on the days I don’t get a euphoric boost.
Pleasant rituals are hard to break
I start my day reading my personal email and checking feeds. This feels good and comfy, but I know I’m not as productive when I do start my day this way. The obvious thing to do is to replace my morning “check email and feeds” ritual with some other pleasant ritual, but I haven’t come up with one that’s sufficiently pleasant and sufficiently motivating. Apparently going through my to-do list isn’t that motivating to me. I will think about it.
Fun is as important as other stuff
I have this ongoing fear that if I do the things that need to be done I won’t have time for fun. Take Thursday. After choir we packed for Ohio and made kitty food. By the time we were done with that it was 10:40pm. Our bed-time is 11pm. Instead of dropping everything and reading for the last 20 minutes I wanted to make an icy drink and turn off some of the lights upstairs. If I had done that it would have been 10:50pm and at that point I might as well go to bed, fulfilling the “I can’t do work and have time for fun” prophecy. Luckily Aaron insisted I just go and read. 
I don’t want to binge on fun stuff and feel guilty about it later, so I’m going to start including fun stuff in my “things to get done” list. I’ll keep it at the end of the list so I don’t procrastinate on less fun stuff, but I’ll make time to do it. I have a feeling this will work. That’s it for this week.
Tags:
Character-Development, Recommended Stuff, Self-Discipline, Stuff-Management.
Posted at
10:02 am | No Comments »
