Last week I took a much-needed break from the overwhelming amount of work and projects I have been pushing on myself. It’s been nice to be so busy again, but it definitely started to catch up with me in the form of stress and moodiness. So last week I cleared my schedule, visited with friends and family, and took time for myself to regroup and refocus.
I made plans with an old coworker and friend to have a late lunch at my house. She had never been to my home before. I was excited for her company. She brought me some beautiful flowers and I made us a little spread of cheese, grape leaves, olives, mushrooms and tiny little sweet red peppers served with warm, toasty bread and olive oil with an herb and cheese seasoning for dipping. Truth be told, I could abandon actual meals and eat like this most days! We visited for just a couple of hours, but packed in a lot of talk about our current jobs, our former, sometimes most times terrifying job, our families and many laughs. We promised to get together again soon. Most days you could have cut the tension in our former office with a knife, but somehow we still managed to not only survive, but remain friends!
Later in the week, I made a visit to see my cousin and her sweet little baby. I brought her some homemade goodies and spent some time catching up with her, my aunt and, of course, that adorable baby boy. It was nice to get away from the house and the computer for a few hours.
Since I made the switch from Blogger to a website, I have been consistently working on some formatting issues. I began to abandon the few hours at night spent with my husband to escape to the office after dinner to edit, edit, edit. I felt guilty about it. I felt like a bad wife. But I really wanted to get it all done (including other projects I have yet to finish on the side). For the record, I am still 30+ pages of posts away from finishing the editing I need to do and cannot figure out faster way to get it done than the manual efforts I’ve put in. I am adamant about having this place run smoothly and look the way I think it should. Once I have a goal in mind, forget it! It’ll drive me crazy until it’s done! But, like any job, there comes a time to clock out. So I have given myself a schedule to work and I “clock out” by dinnertime and spend the rest of the night in my husband’s company.
My brain no longer feels like it might explode! I’ve reclaimed some of my sanity and instead of saying “I can’t” and “no” to the people around me, I have been sticking to a schedule. It’s nice to strive for better and reach out to your goals, but I realized how becoming obsessed with my work (’cause, yeah, I feel like a business now) was pushing people, the people I love, away from me. 9-to-5 is where it’s at for this girl. I’m passing on the overtime! I may have even spent some time on the couch over the weekend doing nothing and then picking up my book to read a few more chapters. What?!? Again, busy is good. But so is a little personal downtime.
