Traction

For some reason November was kind of a rough month for me. I couldn't seem to get an traction to get anything done, and I hate that. I like productive days where I can go home at the end of the day and feel like I Got. Shit. Done. You know?


Part of it was moving into a new house. It's overwhelming to look around and come up with an endless list of to-do's. Most pressing is the need to get a paperwork system devised, and a bills and office organization. I've (mostly) kept on top of everything, but honestly, I'm just not a great details thinker. I'm a better big picture person.

Which is why the AudioBook CD that I'd borrowed from the library for our Oregon trip in September went unreturned. I moved it twice, but apparently didn't have time to return it (despite going to the Library a handful of times in the last three months for work related stuff). It caught my attention on Tuesday morning when I received an emailed version of a letter from a collections agency regarding my overdue book and associated fine... Yep. Turned over to collections for a $10 late book fine.

I immediately returned the book and paid the fine, but still, I'm embarrassed about it. Embarrassed that somewhere between trying to juggle everything I let that ball drop. And such an easy one too!

I feel like part of being a grown up is having your business life in order. Marriage is, after all, a non-profit union for the joint protection of assets, isn't it? Our union isn't a fully complete one; we're still working towards a semi-merged financial system. There will be glitches along the way, but I'm mostly concerned that I will screw it up on my end. We've got a joint checking account, and for the first time in my life I'm actually writing stuff down in the register to account for every penny. I don't want to let DJ down on our shared assets.

Work has been busy, as usual, and I seem to be embroiled no less than three projects where the neighbors acidic relationships with each other just suck the life out of any forward progress on the projects. It's hard to stay focused on being a good public servant when you're receiving nasty-grams from people who accuse you of being unethical and an advocate for projects you didn't want to support but the Boss said you had to. Tough to recover from.

And I can't help but be super overwhelmed with Wedding stuff. I think it would have helped to find time for me, my mom and DJ's mom to sit down and think through the whole vision of the event. I have it basically all planned out in my head, but I haven't communicated it very well to anyone... And I was starting to lose sleep over how behind on the whole thing I felt. To the point that I actually took the entire day off on Tuesday (save for a late evening board meeting) to work on wedding stuff. All day long. No TV. Little facebook. Just me and focus! I knew I needed to work on it all day Tuesday for my sanity, and felt like I should be honest with my boss and not burn 8 hours of work time working on private stuff.

I feel substantially better today about where the wedding stuff is at. There were some setbacks, like calling the restaurant where the reception is going to be and finding the phone has been disconnected and they're closed for the season until the end of March. . But I mostly finished the Save the Date Pamphlets (still to do: final edits, drop them off to be printed), and worked on a sort of stream of consciousness wedding thoughts outline (sorry DJ, not everything fits into a spreadsheet!), as well as a checklist of tasks.

I'm going to start working on a monthly email to be sent to the 'rents and siblings on the 10th of each month leading up to the wedding, as a way to keep everyone informed. I plan to talk about what we've gotten done so far, assign tasks to be completed that month, and give an overview of where we are in the whole process. Can you think of anything else I should add?

The good news is that after spending 10 straight hours on wedding yesterday, I do feel better about it. And I actually had some forward momentum to get all of the random crap on m desk at work taken care of. It feels good to be productive and on top of things.