Few more rounds

Still feeling tired and "low-spoony" (emotionally speaking) today.

(And irony of ironies: I pulled up the CNN website to see what the primary tire-fires in the world would be today, and the autoplay audio had the talking head dude start off with the old chestnut about "The man who makes no mistakes never really makes much of anything" and maybe that's a reminder to me but I wish my mistakes were more of the "Eureka!" variety and less of the boneheaded-trying-to-cut-corners-timewise variety. Though arguably, if I weren't trying to do too much already, I wouldn't have to try to cut corners*)


(*I had the thought last night, walking out from Bell Choir: "Maybe this is the bridge too far. Maybe this is the think I took on that I should not have" but the thing is: it's become so important to me that it makes me both sad and angry to think of having to give it up because my worklife is too pressing. But really - of the people in there, the majority of them are retired, the other two people I know are still working for sure both work in a bank and are essentially 9-5 workers. Oh, and the one little kid. But yeah - why should I give up the things I love and that feed my soul in order to carry an increasing burden of work? That seems unfair)

But I am here now in my office, before a big exam in one class (the grading of which will be this afternoon's duties), and I am writing one of the two exams I give next week. That's the thing that gets me, the whole multidimensional chess aspect of it, where you can never really "live in the moment" because you have to be thinking towards what you will be doing in the next two weeks.

(Not gonna lie: if I didn't have these exams to grade, I'd be running out to Sherman this afternoon to "make up" for the Saturday I couldn't get out. But I can't see in my schedule another time I could grade the exams that wouldn't mean staying up very late, so....there you are. That's the problem of adulthood in a nutshell: you have to do things you have to do so you can earn money to do things you want to do, but then you often wind up "floating" the things you want to do to some indefinite future time).

At least I added another round and a half or so to Celestarium last night. Maybe I just have to hang on to that - that even if all I can do in a day on it is add five or six stitches to the whole, that's still five or six stitches towards completion. (I used to be far better at that sort of thing - at working on a project that took "forever" and seeing every little bit of progress as "I'm closer to done" but having to do revise and resubmits kind of beats that out of you; now I think "Well, I did this thing, but maybe I have to undo it tomorrow")

I also have some lowgrade things I need to do:

I have bills to pay (Yes for some things I still do the "mail it in" type of bill because it makes it easier for me to manage my money)

I need to wrap my niece's present and get it (and don't forget their address! You don't have it memorized yet) out to the UPS store and I am just going to let UPS pack and ship it and pay whatever high fee they want because it's a big box, and I don't have a large enough box to repurpose right now.

If I am going to do ANY Hallowe'en decorating, I should think about it now, or at least take down my summer wreath and put up the fall one. (I also have the little string of spider lights, and a couple of Hallowe'en themed plushies to put out....and I think I have a garland of silk autumn leaves somewhere, and ANOTHER LED strand of orange lights, if I can find it)

I really need to wash my hair, it's been a couple days, but it was too late for it to dry naturally after Bell Choir last night.

Laundry, which is an eternal.

Make up the meatballs I had big plans of doing over the weekend before the hamburger I bought (which, I checked: is not part of the current recall) goes off.

Ugh, why does self-care go out the window for me in favor of work things? I hope I can get this exam graded fast this afternoon but as it's largely essay, I don't think I can.


Updated: First exam is almost written. (I give another one next week as well) so maybe there's a little light at the end of the tunnel.

Updated, right before class: and Exam 2 for next week is written as far as I can on it until I see just how far I get on the material this week.  And I updated the numbers on an older stats homework (and CHECKED THEM ALL this time to be sure they work out) so that's done for Friday.

I try as much as I can to "front load" doing stuff in blocks of office hour time when I don't HAVE to be doing something else (e.g., prepping for class) so that I don't have to stay late and do it. My goal for today is to go home after my bio class, eat lunch, maybe do a little grading, run the couple of errands I need to (you never, never run errands in this town between noon and about 1:30 pm: traffic) and then come home, finish the grading, and maybe buy myself enough time this evening to make meatballs AND do a little knitting. I hope....