Last night I did something I rarely do. I went home. At 4pm. Before 5pm. Before 8pm! It was lovely. You see, between my job with its myriad of after-hours committee and subcommittee meetings, working a second job at the Gift Corral and volunteering for AOII, which takes sometimes as much as 20 hours a month, I rarely ever just come home after work.
Usually, my Outlook schedule has color-coded appointments set onto dates way in advance. Yellow for planning related, orange for generally preservation related, green for preservation board related, blue for personal, purple for Montana Gift Corral, red for AOII. It somewhat works; I don’t think I’ve missed too many appointments or important events. I think I actually do better when I’m busy. I have more of a sense of purpose and am more inclined to get everything done, as well as make it to the gym. I come home at night feeling like I accomplished something during the day. (You thought I was kidding, didn't you?)
I do sometimes feel the drawbacks of always being so go-go-go. I mentioned to DJ on Wednesday night that sometimes I feel like I neglect him. We live and work together, so you’d think that by the end of the day I’d be tired of talking to him. Instead I often feel like we’ve been around each other all day, but didn’t really spend any time together. Getting home at 8:15pm means stuffing dinner in your face, making lunch for the next day, checking facebook, and trying to shut the lights out by 10:30pm. DJ often gets dragged on an evening walk by me, to overcome my issues with never getting to be outside during the day. I’m thankful for those jaunts around the neighborhood; I think they give us a good opportunity to reconnect.
DJ’s also been really busy with little league baseball recently, which makes it really hard to find the time and energy to go on those little walks. I understand; believe me, wrangling 13 nine to twelve year olds would be exhausting for me too. This meant that last night I WAS HOME ALONE for three whole hours. Oh my god. Awesome. Silence. No baseball on ESPN in the background. I actually walked around naked for a little bit, before realizing that I might be flashing the 12 year old boy across the street a little too much (ok, I was changing from work clothes to home clothes, it’s not like I was hanging out in the buff!) (Its ok, the boy across the street already had a high definition screening of the Sex and the City movie last fall before it occurred to me that we have a hi-def TV, it was dark out, and no blinds in the front window… some of those scenes are, um, graphic).
But last night’s home alone experience made me realize something. Without something to do, I DO NOTHING. No really, I went home with this mental to-do list of items I could knock off before the weekend: dust and organize bookshelves, clean bathrooms, dust house, put away laundry, etc, but only got the bookshelves done. Well, partially done, before DJ got home at about 8pm. What did I do instead? Watched trash TV. Something on Roku about the cocaine wars in Miami in the 1980’s. WTF? Why would I waste so much time like that when I could either get stuff done or actively relax by reading or drawing? I bet if I’d only had an hour home by myself before DJ got there I’d have gotten two or three things done. Apparently I’m really lazy at heart.
And I also took this morning off to, to stay home and “get things done”… welp, I put away the laundry and unloaded the dishwasher… that counts, right?
Usually, my Outlook schedule has color-coded appointments set onto dates way in advance. Yellow for planning related, orange for generally preservation related, green for preservation board related, blue for personal, purple for Montana Gift Corral, red for AOII. It somewhat works; I don’t think I’ve missed too many appointments or important events. I think I actually do better when I’m busy. I have more of a sense of purpose and am more inclined to get everything done, as well as make it to the gym. I come home at night feeling like I accomplished something during the day. (You thought I was kidding, didn't you?)
I do sometimes feel the drawbacks of always being so go-go-go. I mentioned to DJ on Wednesday night that sometimes I feel like I neglect him. We live and work together, so you’d think that by the end of the day I’d be tired of talking to him. Instead I often feel like we’ve been around each other all day, but didn’t really spend any time together. Getting home at 8:15pm means stuffing dinner in your face, making lunch for the next day, checking facebook, and trying to shut the lights out by 10:30pm. DJ often gets dragged on an evening walk by me, to overcome my issues with never getting to be outside during the day. I’m thankful for those jaunts around the neighborhood; I think they give us a good opportunity to reconnect.
DJ’s also been really busy with little league baseball recently, which makes it really hard to find the time and energy to go on those little walks. I understand; believe me, wrangling 13 nine to twelve year olds would be exhausting for me too. This meant that last night I WAS HOME ALONE for three whole hours. Oh my god. Awesome. Silence. No baseball on ESPN in the background. I actually walked around naked for a little bit, before realizing that I might be flashing the 12 year old boy across the street a little too much (ok, I was changing from work clothes to home clothes, it’s not like I was hanging out in the buff!) (Its ok, the boy across the street already had a high definition screening of the Sex and the City movie last fall before it occurred to me that we have a hi-def TV, it was dark out, and no blinds in the front window… some of those scenes are, um, graphic).
But last night’s home alone experience made me realize something. Without something to do, I DO NOTHING. No really, I went home with this mental to-do list of items I could knock off before the weekend: dust and organize bookshelves, clean bathrooms, dust house, put away laundry, etc, but only got the bookshelves done. Well, partially done, before DJ got home at about 8pm. What did I do instead? Watched trash TV. Something on Roku about the cocaine wars in Miami in the 1980’s. WTF? Why would I waste so much time like that when I could either get stuff done or actively relax by reading or drawing? I bet if I’d only had an hour home by myself before DJ got there I’d have gotten two or three things done. Apparently I’m really lazy at heart.
And I also took this morning off to, to stay home and “get things done”… welp, I put away the laundry and unloaded the dishwasher… that counts, right?
And finally, I leave you with my favorite sign:
Which I took in Bozeman during Homecoming of 2006. Ohmygod! I just realized dad's old Bobcatmobile is in the background! The white tahoe with the dead rat head on it!
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