Sameness

After a couch nap and nine hours of solid sleep, waking up naturally, I am excited about a day without work and going on an adventure.  Breaking from my sameness routine, I’m going to a new area to do errands, take my dog for a walk and take photos.   Then we are going out to dinner at a new place.  Sometimes a little shake-up from routine can mean the world.  Of course I am just planning this now and who knows how it will turn out.  It’s still cold and windy and there’s a lot to do on the home front this weekend.  I was mindful yesterday of being on time and present at work, so that made that better.  Structure and routine can be good, but if that’s all there is to one’s life, not leaving room for spontaneity or creativity, it really does dampen the soul.

Blog, blog, blog

I get sucked into the blogosphere and almost forget to post my morning pages. Not much sleep last night and off to work again. I did bake – rather maniacally – yesterday. No need to buy bread for weeks now. I walked, talked, met new people, took photos (hard to do around new people met in parks). Even with three days off, I barely scratched the surface of my to do list. That would be okay, because I had a lot of good times, but not okay, because now I have to do all the stuff I avoided at night after work.

Taking Time

My dog and I went to my new spot yesterday and had a lovely time.  We met a woman with two wonderful dogs.  She and I talked while the dogs ran and played.  I also read for a while, which precipitated an unplanned nap and puttered around the house.  No, I didn’t get much done, compared to a usual Saturday, but it was so much better than usual.

Insomnia

Last night was one of those nights, when I could not fall asleep. In bed for hours without sleep. Either I can no longer have caffeine in the evenings, or I can not change my schedule so that I’m dining at ten or it was that I was very disturbed by an anniversary and new news that both hit the separation anxiety button hard within me. Whatever it was, it was a shame because I had had such a nice active day in the nice weather. Now the question is – do I call in sick or struggle through today, in the hopes of being so tired tonight that I will sleep well?

Theme

I couldn’t sleep last night. I don’t know if it was from the excitement or sleeping too much the day before or some weird biochemical something. The kids and pets just sleep and sleep, but not me – not consistently at least. Sick of thinking about it.

Multi-tasking

Couldn’t fall asleep last night, after a busy day at work, multi-tasking and finding mistakes everywhere. Some mine, some others. The evil perfectionist reared her ugly head at me and I felt so bad about my mistakes. Mind racing past midnight and now too sleepy for what promises to be an even crazier day of meetings, ice, cold – it’s the first day of the spring semester and it sure doesn’t feel like spring. I was able to leave the craziness for an hour to discover a new to me industrial area and take some of the nicest photos of this past month and buy some pretty flowers for my office. Trying to figure out how to find some time today in the midst of the insanity to be sane and creative.

One Day

Back to work for one day and I am so tired.  I taped Oprah yesterday and it hit a lot of raw nerves, about life being out of balance, being tired, doing everything for everyone else first and leaving no time to take care of or love your self.

Had to rush, take my dog for a walk, while taking photos for my photoblog during lunch. I may not be the most brilliant photographer, but I do see somewhat differently from most.  By finding the beauty in the ordinary, my images give people a sense of peace and that is important to me and to the viewers.  My creativity should not be an afterthought, when I can squeeze in the time, after doing for others sixteen hours a day.  

I tried to schedule in some time for myself last night, but once again I was tethered to a ringing telephone and ended up going to sleep too late.  Must figure this out.

Another Day

of no alarm clocks and going at my own pace. Lovely. Feeling remorse over not knowing how to be relaxed and productive in areas I enjoy while working. First thing would be to try to get more sleep during the work week. Then how to get everything done and still leave time to relax and be creative. I didn’t work on my website yesterday, because after all of the to dos were done, I did not want to get in the technical frustration zone again, so I decided to spend a half hour a day and slowly finish this project.

It’s not the job

In this economic time, I am grateful to have a job – a job I like, people I like, and a very short commute, with good benefits.  However, after having six days off, sleeping a lot, being very social, doing things I enjoy and relaxing, the lack of balance in my life while working is sad.  This will be another short week of work and I have some interesting projects lined up for my days off already. Some day I’ll figure out how to have a job and balance – maybe.

9 Hours

Time and time and time again, I have felt the wonderful difference getting nine full hours of sleep makes to me. This morning, I woke up feeling so good and so right and thought – hmm, must be nine hours and sure enough it was exactly. Being a night owl in a day person’s life, it has been a struggle since I was a child to get enough sleep. Staying up is so intriguing, but I pay for it morning after morning when the alarms rip me out of sleep.