crack the shutters open wide
I am currently watching hobbit24's most recent vlog, but since it takes videos forever to load on my sad wireless speed, I figured I'd start an update while I'm waiting. This week was just LONG. This time of year is generally kind of crazy at work, because a lot of placement decisions for next school year start being made in March and April, which means schools always have certain kids they want tested before then. And that makes now crunch time. Not that I don't work hard regularly at my job, but I feel like this week I really solidly WORKED the whole time, and I'm pretty beat now. I've felt like the weekends aren't long enough for me to recover and also get things done around the house lately, so I'm counting down to the 3 day weekend around Family Day. Right now, I've got 4 reports ready to be written, 1 assessment in process, and 4 more ready to be started. I think I will really appreciate March break this year, even if I don't end up doing anything for it. At this moment, I'm feeling like I really don't want to travel, but we'll see how I feel as we get closer. At this moment, I'm just grateful for the fact that it's Friday and I don't have to get up early the next two days.
Actually, that's not entirely true. Brad's going to a chemistry symposium on campus tomorrow with one of his professors, which I'm hoping will be a good networking opportunity for him. I offered to give him a ride, and he needs to be there around 8:15, so I'll probably get up at 8. However, this is still sleeping in since I normally get up at 6:15, and I generally wake up by 8:30 on weekends anyway. Plus if I want to, I can come right home and go back to bed. So I still win.
Lately, though, probably because I've felt so tired during the week, I have totally failed at working out. Pretty much since I got back from my trip, to be honest. I have worked out no more than twice in any given week in January, and not at all in the last week. It's just been really hard to wake up at all in the mornings, so making myself get up early just to go work out has not been happening. I'm a little disappointed, as I really had a good routine going in the fall, up until I left, and I haven't been able to pick it back up again. If I can work out at all this weekend, then hopefully I'll be able to get the routine going again. We'll see.
My unofficial resolution for this year has been to try to stress less. I feel like I spent a lot of time last year worrying about things, namely money, even when there wasn't anything I could do about the situation. And things always ended up working out one way or another, so I didn't accomplish anything by being stressed. I've been trying to keep reminding myself of that this year, that things will work out. That if I've done all I can do at that moment, then I need to let go of whatever's stressing me out. I think I'm doing okay at it so far. Money's been tight since I got home for a variety of reasons (budgeted for the trip, but somehow didn't think to include the week after I got back and before I got a paycheck, first paycheck was only for one week because of the holiday, more money is coming out of my paycheck for things like EI because it's a new year so it starts all over again, et cetera). But each week, even though there've been some close spots, something has always happened to make things work out. I've gotten babysitting money or mileage money or whatever to get us through to the next paycheck. So I'm really trying to just acknowledge the financial situation, recognize when I've done all I can do, and then stop worrying about it. I would really like to spend less time stressed this year, so hopefully that will happen.
On a couple of lighter notes, I got a whole big box of pictures from my grandmother today. Lots of baby pictures and childhood vacation pictures and so on. There were a couple of hilarious ones, like the one where my dad had shaved his beard and just had the mustache, lol. I have no idea what that look was about; it wasn't a good one on him. And I found a "family" photo of me, my sister, my dad and our first stepmom, who was only married to my dad for about a year and a half. I had no idea there were any pictures of us with her, so that was bizarre. There's a ton of pictures, but maybe at some point (in my free time, HA) I'll play with our scanner and upload some of the good ones.
In knitting news, I am finally almost done the shawl I started in July! To be fair, I've done a whole bunch of small projects in that same time frame, so it's not like that's the only thing I've been working on. But I have felt like this shawl was just going to go on forever, and I'm really glad I'm just about done. I figured out that I'll have put about 85 hours of work into it once it's done, which is a lot of work. Also, Lynn made me calculate how many stitches the shawl is, and it's over 36,000. Oh sorry. 38,304. I told her I never wanted to figure out a stitch count for any object I make ever again, lol.
And in a final humorous note, I discovered something highly amusing yesterday. February 2 is Groundhog Day, and I grew up with the Pennsylvanian groundhog Punxsutawney Phil predicting the weather. This year, I'd heard, he predicted six more weeks of winter. So, waiting in line at the bank yesterday, I was watching CP24, which is always on the tvs there. And I discovered that Canada has its own groundhog, Wiarton Willie!! Not only does Canada have its own groundhog, but Wiarton Willie predicted an early spring! I seriously laughed out loud at the bank when I saw that. I think it'd be hilarious if Canada gets an early spring, while on the other side of the border it's an extra long winter. Guess we'll just have to see which country's groundhog is the more accurate weatherman, lol.
Happy groundhog day/February/weekend to you all! I'm going to read a few more entries and then indulge in the sweet sweet comfort of my bed. :)
Actually, that's not entirely true. Brad's going to a chemistry symposium on campus tomorrow with one of his professors, which I'm hoping will be a good networking opportunity for him. I offered to give him a ride, and he needs to be there around 8:15, so I'll probably get up at 8. However, this is still sleeping in since I normally get up at 6:15, and I generally wake up by 8:30 on weekends anyway. Plus if I want to, I can come right home and go back to bed. So I still win.
Lately, though, probably because I've felt so tired during the week, I have totally failed at working out. Pretty much since I got back from my trip, to be honest. I have worked out no more than twice in any given week in January, and not at all in the last week. It's just been really hard to wake up at all in the mornings, so making myself get up early just to go work out has not been happening. I'm a little disappointed, as I really had a good routine going in the fall, up until I left, and I haven't been able to pick it back up again. If I can work out at all this weekend, then hopefully I'll be able to get the routine going again. We'll see.
My unofficial resolution for this year has been to try to stress less. I feel like I spent a lot of time last year worrying about things, namely money, even when there wasn't anything I could do about the situation. And things always ended up working out one way or another, so I didn't accomplish anything by being stressed. I've been trying to keep reminding myself of that this year, that things will work out. That if I've done all I can do at that moment, then I need to let go of whatever's stressing me out. I think I'm doing okay at it so far. Money's been tight since I got home for a variety of reasons (budgeted for the trip, but somehow didn't think to include the week after I got back and before I got a paycheck, first paycheck was only for one week because of the holiday, more money is coming out of my paycheck for things like EI because it's a new year so it starts all over again, et cetera). But each week, even though there've been some close spots, something has always happened to make things work out. I've gotten babysitting money or mileage money or whatever to get us through to the next paycheck. So I'm really trying to just acknowledge the financial situation, recognize when I've done all I can do, and then stop worrying about it. I would really like to spend less time stressed this year, so hopefully that will happen.
On a couple of lighter notes, I got a whole big box of pictures from my grandmother today. Lots of baby pictures and childhood vacation pictures and so on. There were a couple of hilarious ones, like the one where my dad had shaved his beard and just had the mustache, lol. I have no idea what that look was about; it wasn't a good one on him. And I found a "family" photo of me, my sister, my dad and our first stepmom, who was only married to my dad for about a year and a half. I had no idea there were any pictures of us with her, so that was bizarre. There's a ton of pictures, but maybe at some point (in my free time, HA) I'll play with our scanner and upload some of the good ones.
In knitting news, I am finally almost done the shawl I started in July! To be fair, I've done a whole bunch of small projects in that same time frame, so it's not like that's the only thing I've been working on. But I have felt like this shawl was just going to go on forever, and I'm really glad I'm just about done. I figured out that I'll have put about 85 hours of work into it once it's done, which is a lot of work. Also, Lynn made me calculate how many stitches the shawl is, and it's over 36,000. Oh sorry. 38,304. I told her I never wanted to figure out a stitch count for any object I make ever again, lol.
And in a final humorous note, I discovered something highly amusing yesterday. February 2 is Groundhog Day, and I grew up with the Pennsylvanian groundhog Punxsutawney Phil predicting the weather. This year, I'd heard, he predicted six more weeks of winter. So, waiting in line at the bank yesterday, I was watching CP24, which is always on the tvs there. And I discovered that Canada has its own groundhog, Wiarton Willie!! Not only does Canada have its own groundhog, but Wiarton Willie predicted an early spring! I seriously laughed out loud at the bank when I saw that. I think it'd be hilarious if Canada gets an early spring, while on the other side of the border it's an extra long winter. Guess we'll just have to see which country's groundhog is the more accurate weatherman, lol.
Happy groundhog day/February/weekend to you all! I'm going to read a few more entries and then indulge in the sweet sweet comfort of my bed. :)