No extra time

[cjsmith]

[LJ-CUT TEXT="I need to start making some responsible decisions."]

I went out with a friend to a steak place last night (thank you, shoutingboy!), and I got home late -- after my nominal bed time.

The steak was scrumptious. The company was excellent. I greatly enjoyed the break.

Of course, there are always tradeoffs. As a result of this choice I made, I didn't get the laundry put away, I didn't do the grocery run I have agreed to do before 6pm tonight, I didn't clean the litterboxes, I didn't bring the mail inside, and I didn't do the dishes. (I did bring the trash out, bring the parcel in from the porch, feed the cats, and medicate everyone including me. Late, but medication was given.) Because kitty also has the UTI again, my bathroom's gone and I had to set her up in there with a litterbox again, which further ate into my sleep time. I didn't give her extra fluids, which would have been good home care. I most certainly didn't get enough sleep!

I also get two trips to the vet today and my daily routine gets "medicate Little Girl" added twice a day. Probably fluids daily, too - ten to fifteen minutes. I still haven't done the grocery run, which means leaving work earlier than usual, and I was later than usual to arrive at work because of Trip To Vet 1.

I need to realize that until and unless I get a lot more efficient with general life stuff, I cannot do things like that. Healthy people go out to dinner with friends. I cannot, not right now. With the sleep problems, the size of my daily routine, and cats who get sick(er) at the drop of a hat, I simply don't have the spare time.[/LJ-CUT]

Sometimes I don't like being a grownup. But I like to think that when being a grownup is the best thing to do, I'll do it.

Comments

[layer.livejournal.com]

sad but true. :(

tuesday i took my parents out to dinner for father's day which meant i got home late, didn't get my laundry done, didn't get lunches made, didn't finish some project work that was due the next day therefore missing my deadline... there are just some times when you have to go dark and get stuff done.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Yes indeed. And if I'm needing more time to get stuff done than I've needed in the past, my new schedule needs to reflect that. Weekdays are for chores, work, chores, and sleep. If that's how much I can get done on a weekday, then that's how much I'd better schedule!

[shoutingboy.livejournal.com]

Sorry about the kitty's UTI! And sorry about being a Bad Influence (bwah-hah-hah!). For what it's worth, I'm happy to come over for laundry-folding too. Or laundry-folding followed by steak. Or I can bring a steak, and eat it while you fold laundry... there are many options!

Regardless, really neat seeing you last night.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

This poor cat has really been through some annoyance! She's at the vet again today. I suspect she hates that as much as she hates the physical pain. She's sure more vocal in her complaints about going to the vet.

You are a fine Bad Influence! And it was good to see you too. As for company during chores, part of the question is exactly when I'd be doing them. Weekdays I run around like an idiot with medications and syringes and food and the like, then I fall asleep.

Hey, turns out the wedding I was talking about isn't the weekend of the 6th, it's this coming Sunday. [last sentence redacted so's I'm less of a twit.]

[brooksmoses]

When I've said things like this (mostly about my dissertation), I've fairly often ended up with rather more stress than is good for me, and finding myself reminded that breaks -- and time to recuperate and not be focused on all the need-to-do things -- are necessities for maintaining sanity, and I'm going to end up with them whether I plan for them or not, by just hitting a wall of "can't deal with this".

I recognize that your must-do limits are rather harder than mine were, and that my "can't deal with this" wall was rather sharper than yours is likely to be (due to the depression that got tangled up there), but even so. Remember that you need to breathe, too. :)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

That's a good point. If I hit that wall, something is going to have to give, and if I think now about what that will be and how, I'll be a bit better prepared. (Possibilities: Better sleep drugs. Hospitalize UTI-kitty. Pay exorbitant prices for a week's worth of takeout steak.)

[brooksmoses]

*nods* And actively choose what gives, yeah -- and do it before actually slamming into the wall, ideally.

What happened to me was that I didn't recognize the situation for what it was, and spent nearly all my waking hours either sitting at a computer procrastinating and feeling guilty (and in a state where I couldn't actually work without nearly working myself into a panic with worry about how far behind I was and how nothing was ever going to get done), or else eating and sleeping and worrying about not getting anything done.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Right, because by the time you're at the wall, you're much less able to prioritize and make decisions.

That description paragraph sounds all too familiar, actually. I wonder how many times I've been there and not seen it for what it was.

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

Agreed. Simple willpower will not allow me at least to fill all my available time with work. It will get my butt in the chair, but then I will spend my time flicking.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Yes! This! And not *relaxing* flicking, either. Flicking causing more and more repressed stress.

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

Yes! Leading to a weepy breakdown and then whiny self-hating posts to LJ. ;)

[moriamerri.livejournal.com]

Sorry can't seem to help myself:

More possibilities:
--hire personal assistant / housekeeper 5 or 10 hrs a week (laundry, dishes, cat box, maybe shopping, pick up drugs, maybe take cat to vet or maybe not.)
--pay exorbitant prices for a part-time cook / steak delivery person. (This one has some exciting possibilities... cook extra food and pack it in freezer... make sauces to spec in quantity..... teach you about flavorings....)
--work less hours (in a planned way, that is). E.g. tell job they only get 30 hours a week for x weeks...

I also really like the offer shoutingboy made about doing chores and bringing steak over. I was thinking in that direction. Clearly you need flexibility in the sort of "help". If you combine this thought with the rfrench comments -- well, maybe you could have an evening helper or sleepover helper a couple of nights a week. You know, someone who picks up dinner, comes and eats it with you while sharing a few chores.... (Delegation is much more work at the beginning, but then can be very worth it.)

I have sleep problems but haven't tried sleep drugs -- maybe I should....

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Because I'm really trying to keep costs down, things like personal assistants and hospitalizing the cat are ideas to hold in reserve. (I so do not have the money for the things I want to do in the near future! SCARY....)

Last night ambar came over to teach me how to make a couple kinds of frittata and a pot roast with cloves and onions. That worked out wondrously well, partially because I had gotten out of work early & gotten a lot of the chores done, and partially because what we were doing included dinner. Afterward I even had four breakfasts and four lunches-or-dinners for later! That is so totally the kind of help that can make a HUGE difference for me. I need to make a point to get over my don't-want-to-impose-on-others thing and accept when people offer something like that. (Especially ambar. She's a great teacher for a newbie cook.)

yep

[moriamerri.livejournal.com]

yep, I figured that these were a bit over the edge (or is that beyond the pale) financially..... along with the "exorbitant" week worth of take out steaks! The "don't want to impose" thing is um -- familiar. Guessing by the responses you get to your entries here, I have to say that getting volunteers signed up to help you should be VERY easy. I mean, from a PRACTICAL standpoint. Emotionally is another thing. If you are not seeing how this could be really easy.... well, I hope you do see it.

[oddhack.livejournal.com]

My friend in vet school at NCSU says they are told on entry "School, Life, Sleep.
Pick two."

She picked School + Life. 24-year-old energy levels can accomodate a lot of lack
of sleep.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

That's what I picked as an undergraduate, too. (Well, it seems I could probably only pick one. Half school -- graduated but with mediocre grades -- and half life.)

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

I've discovered the hard way that 32-year-old energy levels cannot :)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Nor can 40-. At least not with chronic pain and untreated Lyme. :-)

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

once you cross six bits you're screwed (:

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Unless you can pass for young and healthy. Heck, I've got an energy level people expect to see in a caffeinated 20-year-old. But I'm by no means healthy, so there goes that idea!

[airporter.livejournal.com]

I'd say eight bits isn't all bad, but given this week...

Hope Kitty gets better quick, hon.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Some weeks are definitely better than others, aren't they?

[rfrench.livejournal.com]

Be thinking about what I can do to help on a regular basis once I get back. Sometimes even having someone else take ten minutes' worth of chores makes all the difference.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Such a deal I have for you! YOU give yourself a B12 injection every morning... ;-)

While I'm here: July 4 weekend is filling up with potential stuff to do. We can discuss details when you're back.

[kimatha.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I think I need to make some friends around here. then I realize I don't have time for friends. I get all resentful and annoyed when Sam and I invited to social things with Sam's friends. I just don't feel like i have the time or energy for it. One of his peeps/colleagues is having a cookout on Saturday and when I heard I got this sinking feeling.

NB: when I say I don't want to go to these things, I always remind him that I'm perfectly happy with him going to do stuff with his friends without me. But he likes having me along for some reason.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I hear you. That's mostly the case with Rob and me, too: he has made a circle of friends out of his flying colleagues and his (ex-) students. Any time we have people over to the house, it's His Friends. They're fine folk, and it's nice to socialize a little bit when I haven't been doing it at all, but it's also a reminder that I don't have My Friends. This is a stronger contrast ever since I had to quit square dancing, although honestly, those people were His Friends too.

At MIT I was in demand socially. This was of course because I had boobs. Now that I'm forty, *and* the folks around us are just as likely to be gay men as any other demographic, *and* I'm gimpy, I am the least socially-desired type it is possible to be. It's lowering to realize this, not to mention how it feels to realize where my friendships largely used to come from.

LJ saves my bacon.

[rfrench.livejournal.com]

I would say you are very much in demand socially via LJ. It's just a different place to find friends, every bit as valid as work or some other hobby. If people want to spend time with you, and it's something you want to do, don't turn them down. Given that no one is required to offer assistance or just plain socializing, and in fact their absence wouldn't even be noticed if they didn't say anything, it's reasonable to trust that people are telling the truth when they say they want to help.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I agree that it's just a different place to find friends, and in some ways it's "better" because the friends are "portable". Of course, that also means that a lot of them aren't nearby. :-)

Serious question, but it might sound snarky

[dizzdvl.livejournal.com]

Why do you stress about the little stuff? All of that can wait another day. Hell, laundry can live in baskets until you wear it if it makes life easier. Yeah yeah yeah it has to get done. I know. But it doesn't have to get right now. (Ok, feeding the cats does because they will eat your face in your sleep if they are hungry enough.)

But seriously, it's all little stuff that doesn't have to get done right now. Breathe. Make sure to set aside time for just you.

Re: Serious question, but it might sound snarky

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Welll, laundry that's clean can wait, at least until I need to wear some of it and it's so tightly wrinkled it can stand up on its own. Laundry that's not clean can't wait, not if I need socks! Similar thing with dishes. I don't have extras of pots and pans or of tubs to store stuff in. (I've got loads of plates, considering Rob almost never uses any. Nine is loads. But every time I use a pot I better wash it.)

I think the bigger question is that if I can't do this stuff on a weeknight, then I can't do it on the next weeknight either, or the next. I have to schedule a lot better. If I can't do laundry tonight, and tonight's a Monday, then I better do something drastic if I want socks for Thursday or Friday.

Drastic might only mean coming in to work a bit late. I did that this morning, giving myself time to put the pot roast into food-unit-sized storage thingies, and it's great to know that's done.

Re: Serious question, but it might sound snarky

[dizzdvl.livejournal.com]

Oh, I own entirely too many clothes. I never get rid of anything.

You will need to invest in more socks, and lots and lots of ziploc bags for foodstuffs!

Re: Serious question, but it might sound snarky

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

More socks (and more undies!) would be smart. I actually found socks that fit, but of course they stopped making them. Next time I see any I will definitely buy out the store.

Ziploc bags are something I need to learn to use more. Because they're flexible, they can pack down into a lot less fridge space than rigid containers use. I feel so wasteful pitching them, though.

Re: Serious question, but it might sound snarky

[moriamerri.livejournal.com]

I own very large amounts of socks and undies. (In my case it is because I don't like to do laundry, and have planned my strategy for doing lots at once but very infrequently.) (Not being able to find good socks to buy makes this rather less helpful however.....) Socks and underwear can also be hand washed in a a sink, at least enough for the week. While this would logically "not save time", sometimes it does work out to buy time till there is a bigger chunk of time to "really" wash clothes.

I wonder about your thought that "if I can't do it Monday night..." -- I wonder if it is true. I know it seems logical and all, but I think my unpredictable energy level means that (for me) one weeknight is not as much like another as it might appear. Also, you probably won't go out every night, so maybe last night is not a good benchmark of what can be accomplished on a weeknight. (I'm not sure if it was the benchmark in the example above or not.) None of which means that the Undone Stuff is not a concern.

Re: Serious question, but it might sound snarky

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Things that "don't save time" are often really useful for borrowing time. There's always a payback, but sometimes the stopgap measure is the best option.

My energy level doesn't seem to be all that varied, unless I do something like get too little sleep, but there might be some variation in my work hours. (Yesterday I went home early because I'd finished a big task.)

Re: Serious question, but it might sound snarky

[dizzdvl.livejournal.com]

Unless it's meat I wash ziplocs and reuse them. Or you could get the ziploc containers. Those last a long time.

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

being a grown up does suck sometimes :( and sleep is usually the first casualty of backsliding

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it does, and it is! Sadly, during this treatment I really need to put sleep as a high priority. I need that more than I need break time, much as I'd love to have lots of fun social break time!