Day 8

Hello,

This past week has been a whirlwind.  I'm here; I'm there; I'm everywhere; I'm going no where.  I had/have high expectations of myself and I knew/know they were/are a little ridiculous since I had/have no clue what my life would/will be like, day-to-day, with a new job.  I do apologize for the slashing of tenses, which I realize may be annoying to the reader.  It indicates, however, a slow realization that things need to change but the desire to stick to my guns as much as possible.

I had a long talk with my work mentor yesterday.  One of the stupidest things I could have expected of myself was to NOT workout.  Another ridiculous thing to assume was that I would be able to read, write and research (no matter what the subject-matter) for more than 12 hours in a day.  Then there are the things that I had no way of knowing: Samara is on some new schedule and is up by 5:30am every day (there goes morning time); going to bed not having completed what I want to denies me any good, deep sleep which in turn affects me day after day as lack of sleep accumulates; if I expect myself to blog every day I should have a computer available in the space I prefer to blog, rather than in a place that seems so far away to me (in the depths of my basement office).

While I knew I didn't blog yesterday and freely admitted it, I'm perplexed that there is no blog for Monday...  What happened? I thought I blogged? Things like that annoy me.  I need a little more oversight regarding this blogging project...

Taking what I've learned this past week, I am going to change a few things around: I will revise my expectations of morning time and give Samara her choice of what to do while I work until Mackenzie wakes up.  That morning time is ALL that I will expect of myself in terms of my dissertation during the work week.  I will THEN attempt to do my workouts at night.  I've been so tired by the time night comes that I can't see straight - but amazingly if at the gym, energy usually finds its way to my body.  There is no reading involved so maybe I can make it work...  In order to follow through with blogging, I will keep my laptop at my bedside since I usually realize I didn't blog as I'm falling to sleep which also probably affects my sleep-quality.

My goal is 20 hours per week of dissertation writing and doing things this way still gets me about that much.  Who knows.  So right now, I keep my goals rather unattainable but I will figure this out, I promise.

To do list:
8. Clean out the garage
7. Complete the scrapbooking projects I have for the girls
6. Fix up the area I envision as a mudroom (which will cut down on dirt in the house)
5. GO TO THE GYM as often as I want (without feeling guilty)
4. Read a newspaper with coffee in the morning (without feeling guilty)
3. Write a will
2. Read a novel (without feeling guilty)
1. Learn Spanish