Whew, this week, man. It was FULL. I find these days that how I feel about life at any given moment is very correlated to what’s going on at work. At face value, that seems like a rather depressing statement, but here’s what I mean: slow weeks can be really demotivating career-wise, but they at least make me feel like I’ve got plenty of time to get stuff done. But the packed weeks, like this one? Where I feel like I can’t get ahead on any of my tasks because they are all piling up at once? Well, a busy work week is all it takes to push me over the edge and feel like I’m barely hanging on to all aspects of my life.
Since becoming a group lead nearly 18 months ago, I’ve had exactly 2.5 months where my group was properly staffed. We finally got back to full strength when a new hire joined us in September. Then one of my group members got a promotion — yay for her! But boo for me. And last week another of my group members had a baby — yay for her! But boo for me, at least for the next few months while she’s out on maternity leave.
Long story short is that I’m covering a bunch of different tasks and just trying not to royally screw anything up in the process.
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We got our Christmas tree last Sunday and it’s looking lovely. Charlotte thought the Christmas tree lot was the best place ever and wanted to run around and around and around.
It looks lovely in our living room…but of course a couple days after decorating it, half a string of lights mysteriously went out. Arrrrrgh.
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I went over to our old house on Monday to check the mail. Because it’s still our house. Because no one has bought it yet. SOMEONE BUY MY OLD HOUSE. I did not expect to still own two houses at Christmas and it is giving me financial anxiety. In retrospect, I wish we’d put it on the market in July as soon as we were under contract on the new place but alas, hindsight is 20/20 and we just didn’t know that at the time.
(I should add the disclaimer that we actually are fine…but two mortgage payments just ain’t fun, no matter how you slice it.)
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On Tuesday night after work I went out on a limb (for me anyway) and took a class at Orange Theory Fitness! I first heard about Orange Theory from Kelsey and then started seeing it mentioned elsewhere — it seems to be a bit trendy at the moment. The workouts are based on interval training techniques, so you move back and forth between the treadmill, rowing machine and weights/strength exercises over the hour-long class. The other “gimmick” is that you’re wearing a heart rate monitor, so you always have real-time feedback on your level of effort.
Anyway, there’s a new location about 10 minutes from my house so I signed up for a free trial class. The verdict? It was actually pretty fun, it was definitely a good workout…and I was SO SORE on Wednesday and Thursday from it! (I expected that, since my one and only form of exercise in the last couple years has been running. Rowing and strength stuff is new.)
I liked it enough that I decided to sign up for the base level membership — 4 classes per month, so I’ll do one class each week. I really like the idea of adding something new into my routine, and I really like the flexibility they offer by letting you sign up for whatever day and time you want on any given week. New year, new things, right?
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When work is extra busy, I don’t have as much energy to do things in the evening so my sewing has really slowed down after my fast and furious burst of projects around Thanksgiving. I finished up a quilted tote bag that I’ll post about next week, and need to finish quilting my Acacia Radio and Intertwined quilts. It doesn’t look like I’m going to quite get Charlotte’s stocking done for Christmas Day…but I should be able to wrap it up before I put away the holiday decorations, so it’ll be ready to go for next year.
I’m also starting to think about quilting/crafty goals for 2017. I’ve got a lot of ideas, but am simultaneously wary of being overly optimistic with those ideas.
- There’s a Jen Kingwell quilt sew-along from February-May that is really tempting me.
- I have an idea for a personal “block of the month” challenge that I think would be fun and challenging.
- I’m already committed to a couple “secret sewing” projects for spring and summer.
- I bought Haptic Lab’s Constellation quilt pattern during a sale last month — this one’s been on my “want to make” list for AGES and now that I pulled the trigger on the pattern, I want to make it happen.
- I want to sew a dress for each of my girls.
So yeah. I’m already fighting a losing battle in the “don’t do too much” department, aren’t I?
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My mom sent Christmas outfits for the girls and they wore them to school yesterday for Santa’s visit. Adorable, right?! Emma smiled for a great photo with Santa. Charlotte cried the instant I passed her to him. So…pretty much what I expected. Ha!
Ive been doing OTF for a year now and absolutely LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE IT! I go anywhere from 3-5 times a week.
Wow! So I’m assuming you find that they switch things up often enough to keep it interesting? Since I’ve only done the one class so far, I don’t have a good feel for how different the hour can be from class to class. This one was segmented — first half hour was back and forth between the rowing machine and strength, but second half hour was all treadmill.
Which do you find you like to start with? Rowing or treadmill? I started with rowing this time but am going to try starting with treadmill next time.
Glad you’re discovering rowing.
Even if it’s more fun on water. What they always tell beginners is, “Slow up the slide!”
Ha, I don’t even know what that means! Please explain!