I just read my last post and realized how whiny it sounded. I have friends currently running political campaigns, at an approximate burn rate of 20 hours a day. I have friends with full time jobs and children. I have friends with MULTIPLE children. And here I was, whining about how I fell asleep until noon on Sunday.
Ya’ll probably didn’t appreciate that, did you?
I’m SO sorry.
The crickets are out, and the sun is setting on a perfectly lovely weekend.
Today started out a bit rocky. I woke up around 9, watched a little television in bed, uploaded some photos to Facebook, and somehow fell asleep again. The screeching sounds of Nascar woke up up again after noon, and from there I couldn’t kick myself into high gear. The kitchen needed cleaning, my inbox needed emptying, and I have a very important licensing contract to fulfill. A trip to Starbucks was all the motivation I needed to get me started, though.
It took me about four hours from there to reply to the past weeks emails, and sort them into the appropriate ‘have done’ folders. I think you know you are stretched to the limit when you can’t reply to emails until the weekend. I used to reply to emails every day. Now, it just seems like there is too much to deal with.
So now I’ve ordered a pizza (online, didn’t have to even leave the couch!) and I’m going to tackle the licensing designs. The kitchen still sits empty, but I can clean that before I go to bed. And I think I’m going to watch Crusoe this evening, too. I love pirate movies, so I was excited to see this series. I haven’t read the book either, so hopefully the show will suffice as a lazy lesson in a classic.
But Friday and Saturday were perfect. I spent the weekend in Stillwater, at my alma mater–it was glorious. One of my best friends was with me to receive a reward from my college–a very affirming experience. I was invited to speak to a class, and hoped I inspired some students to dream big. I met amazing people, visited with old friends, sat in the new suites of the Boone Pickens stadium. It was perfect. A little slice of heaven. I missed the hubs, who is away on business right now, but I’ll get to see him Thursday.
That’s all for now. I’m off to tackle some more work before my coffee rush dies!
It’s been a crazy year. Absolutely nutty. And it’s not even over!
Let’s recap. Planned wedding and attended trade shows in January (minus four weeks). Married in February (minus two weeks). Sophie died in March (minus two weeks). Hubs lost a major line in April. May is always over before it starts (minus four weeks). June was peaceful and I started to feel like I was going to get something done–buy the press, generate some new revenue channels, and then…Amy quit in July. Hired Mike in August, and then everyone else quit. Trained entirely new team in September. And now it’s October. With all that having gone on the first ten months of the year, I have no idea what’s going to be thrown at me the last three.
Things continue to change drastically on a daily basis. I’m learning to sit back and just hang on for the ride. I control what I can, and diligently work at accepting what I cannot (the stock market). Every now and then, I feel like I just need to declare bankruptcy on the inbox, but that isn’t an option.
And at the bottom of it all, I’m still grateful. I asked hubs last night what his three most important values were, and what he thought mine were. We discussed, and come up with integrity and respect for him, and determination for me. I could easily add gratitude to that list.
I’m grateful that I have something to do every day. And I’m grateful that every day presents me with a new challenge, even if that challenge is just to become a better person. Usually the challenge will have more to do with fixing printers and getting orders shipped out on time, but you get the point. And I’m grateful that I have some great people around me to help get those things done.
I’m off to Ikea now. I have a production floor seating plan to implement.
I was up this morning at three. Francie woke up, started barking, and I couldn’t go back to sleep. Four o’clock hit, I pulled out my phone to play bejeweled. Five o’clock, might as well respond to some of the email pile. By six, I was on my way to the gym.
The gym hasn’t seen me in months. I haven’t lifted a weight or run in what seems like eons. I look back at our wedding pictures from February and think, “Yeesh, my face was thin!” I don’t know what got into me this morning–if it was looking at the wedding pictures, or just needing to let out some frustrations, or if the calories piling up on my waist finally fell into the category of irresponsible–but whatever it was, it got me to the gym.
I didn’t think I’d be able to walk a mile, let alone run, especially on three hours of sleep. The second those earphones hit my ears, though, I was off, running through Britney, A-teens, Katy Perry, Cascada, High School Musical II. I know, it’s bad. Would you believe that in the car I only listen to K-Love or classical? Seriously.
As I wrapped up the run and stepped off the treadmill, I realized I was very dizzy. VERY dizzy. Scary-I-might-fall-over-dizzy. But I didn’t. I casually made my way to the bar, ordered an egg white omelette with turkey bacon and fruit, and pretended to be able to read the twitter updates on my iphone. In reality, I was seeing two of everything. But, ya know, at the gym you have to be cool. Especially at 6 a.m. when all the die-hards are there.
The omelette was quickly polished off, and I headed out to my lovely, bird-doody spattered Volvo parked in the row of pristinely washed luxury sedans and SUVs. It looked so tired, dirty, and up-chucked between the sparkling white Denali and the slick black E-class. This realization spurred a series of thoughts, the first being that the daughter of car-wash owner shouldn’t be driving such a filthy vehicle. The next thought was, “Who has time to wash their car?” I answered my own question: “People like that guy who just walked into the gym with his dry cleaning. That’s prepared. He not only remembered to pick up his dry cleaning the night before on the way home, so that he would be prepared to come to the gym at 6 in the morning, he remembered to bring it.” That’s discipline.
So on the drive home, I thought about discipline. And organization. And how on earth does one become disciplined and organized. Frankly, I don’t think that I’m either undisciplined or disorganized. On a scale of one to ten, I would say I’m a strong 5 on discipline and 7 on organization. I think the thing I struggle with the most is VOLUME. Seriously, you can only organize so much in a day.
But enough of that rambling. There is a full day ahead of me. The morning is crisp, there are emails to be replied to, printing to be done, typesetting to be organized, people to help. No wonder I step off the treadmill dizzy.
What does one do? Pours a poor man’s margarita (club soda and limeade), turns on tivo’d episodes of Top Design, and figures out how to add links to a blog.
Hi, I'm Whitney. I am first and foremost a child of God, a mum to two rambunctious little boys, and lucky enough to call the most amazing man I know my husband. By day, I run a stationery company, and consult at the intersection of tech and graphic design. At night, I dream of charming cottages by the sea, silk ballgowns, and a perfectly organized office.
