Personal journalling kind of stuff
I've decided to reanimate my LiveJournal for my general "life" stuff. I dunno what all I'll say, and it'll probably be of interest only to those closest to me, and maybe not even them. This is for cathartic purposes... it's about me, not you.
You ever get into one of those phases where everything that you consider a priority seems to have filtered to the bottom of the list of the things you actually do? And just when I realize I've developed a real problem with my life, my best friend has an honest-to-God mental breakdown and half of his problems become my problems, including handling all of his finances because his doctor has ordered him, among many other restrictions, not to handle money. Right before I start the Christmas marathon with my families. (Next year, we're no longer going to do Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with my in-laws. It'll screw up their tradition, but I'm up to four separate family events crammed into three or four days now, and that's just more Christmas joy than anyone deserves.)
So here I am on my week off between Christmas and New Year's not seeming to get anything accomplished, in part because of someone else's crisis. In part because I've gotten in the habit of not getting anything useful accomplished. I watched Silent Hill. And took my son to see Charlotte's Web, which was a good thing. I haven't worked on the major server upgrade I wanted to get done over the holiday. I haven't done much reading. I haven't done any real writing. Heck, I haven't done any writing that didn't involve a blog or email in... weeks? Going on months.
Now I do have a nifty new digital SLR camera I got for "Christmas" at the end of October, and I've been filling some of my time with that. (See "self" portrait userpic, lighting by me, shot by my 6-year-old son.) But not enough of it... I'm spending more time reading Flickr groups than I am shooting. Nothing like a 150-message-a-day Flickr group to suck up your time.
I think reading crap on the Internet has really done a lot of it. And I've developed some dysfunctional behaviors around a lot of my responsibilities and hobbies that have reached "responsibility" levels (like this server upgrade, which I've been trying to do for something like three years, though I'm actually seeing progress). But I think I spend too much time frittring away my time in front of the computer instead of getting something useful done. That and TV... Netflixing TV shows has done a good job of stealing time in little pieces.
A year ago, I changed jobs and acquired a 1.5 hour round-trip work commute. Great for keeping up on podcasts and audiobooks. Sucks for finding big chunks of daily time.
A few months ago, I started back on a 4x9+4 work schedule... 9-hour days, working from home for 4 hours on Friday, and I've got all of Friday afternoon off. If I can get around to getting to work by 7, I can be done by 11 and have a pretty big chunk of time. Considering that I save a half-hour commute, I'm getting a solid 5 hours between time out for lunch and my son's school bus arriving. But for some reason, I'm not using it in any useful way.
I've lost all sense of "sacred time"... time set aside to accomplish something specific on a regular basis. That Friday afternoon should be "sacred" but I'm running into this problem: the things highest on my list of "need to do" are things I don't want to do (upgrade the server). But because of that, I feel like if I'm going to sit down in front of the computer for any length of time, that's the thing I "should" be working on, so I can't work on anything else serious. So I'll "just spend a few minutes" reading blogs and tootling around the net until I've wasted three hours. Or I'll go do something else equally useless. Usually I try to work on laundry, but somehow I don't even manage to get much of that done.
So... for those of us who have held on for this entire "I suck" post, I'm going to list the things I want to actually get more of done in the immediate future. Despite needing to pack up half the house so we can do some repairs in preparation to put it on the market. (I am so close to calling HomeVestors.)
- More gaming -- I don't game nearly enough. It's supposedly my favorite and primary hobby, but I'm lucky to get one session in every other week, and they're often on the weak side. I feel like they're too far apart to really get my "sea legs" and figure out what's working and what's not working.
- More writing -- I write well. (I don't thoroughly proofread or edit my blog posts, so it doesn't always show.) I think my writing and editing skills have surpassed my computer skills for "what I do best." I need to write more in a more formal context... less blog posts, more gaming material. I need to get less conflicted over the status of Fudge as a viable publishing platform and just write my world material.
- More Phoenyx -- The Phoenyx has needed an OS upgrade for a very long time, and I've got it 90% done. I really want to get this one finished and off my plate.
- More "cleaning" -- I really need to get the clutter around me under control. I'm not a trashy person... you won't find dirty dishes, empty wrappers or anything like that on or under my desk. But it's hard to find my desk for all the books, papers and whatnot laying all over it all the time. My computer/TV area has gotten so full of crap that I have a couple boxes of junk that have nowhere to go... they literally sit on one of the two chairs or the Gamecube rack and get moved around as necessary. Heaven forbid that my son and I want to play Gamecube together, requiring all three spaces at the same time. And when I empty a box and get rid of it, another box takes its place within a week. I own too much crap. Yay, storage unit, which we're using until we find a house and move... maybe it'll teach me how much of my junk I can live without.
That's enough for now. I'll keep you posted on when I get some of this stuff accomplished. If I don't post, feel free to ask me how I'm doing. There, now I've set up imaginary accountability, because all of my online friends are going to be watching the drama of my life. :)