Morning pages
I got to the gym last night to weightlift in the free weight room. That makes twice in one week. Before that I think it'd been at least a week, maybe two. I never regret spending an hour at the Y. It's a combination of meditation time and wellness time and social time and is generally safe from clients attacking me with the "why aren't you done yet?" question. Unlike evenings in my home. I had five phone calls from two different people last night after 6 pm. (I let the first one ring on line 1, she called back on line 2 and I let it ring, then she called back a THIRD time so I picked it up. Her urgent question: when are you going to finish the tax return you put on extension until October 15th?) Later when another person called I didn't answer either time he called. But now it's morning and I have 40 minutes before work. I could either: do yoga and eat grapefruit and read the paper and shower OR listen to phone messages and try to shove one of the backlogged jobs into the beginning of the day. That's more or less what I chose when I sat down at my desk, but then started blogging.
I've added a few things to the dog walk in the morning. It only costs me maybe 20 minutes, from 8 AM to 8:20 AM, but I am so damn scheduled that it hurts. Literally hurts, my stomach aches as I think about the pressures. The things I added: I can't easily get to the post office during work hours so I've decided to swing by there after I walk Small Boy to the bus. It's only a block away at that point. And then a block back, so it adds two blocks of walking on sidewalks to my walk, which doesn't thrill the dog. (Which is mostly why I can't get to the PO box easily: this dog dislikes going to the post office and the post office dislikes her coming in so we've just fallen out of the habit that I had with my old dog of taking a daily walk to the PO and banks at lunch-time.
The second thing I've added is another brisk hill. I'm finding that it's really opening up my lungs. I didn't even realize how asthmatic I've become. I am not in the least bit ill but find myself coughing up gunk from my lungs every time I charge that hill. Seriously gross, and somewhat troubling. Which obviously means I need to keep doing this.
The last thing I've added is a few minutes in the yard. This means bringing the dog inside because she isn't going to settle for just hanging out with me - she'll strike off on adventure. And if I go and get a tie-out and tie her out she'll bark the entire time to be left off. We bought a fancy shock collar to teach her the edges of her area, but it's too circular for our rectangular lot, and we didn't spend enough time training her on the edges and benefits of staying in the territory. Also, she doesn't mind pain. She's been a hard dog to train. All she wants to do is play interesting games, mostly ones involving tennis balls.
So in the yard I have maybe ten minutes. I can plant something or rake something or water something. But mostly I see what needs to be done that I have no time to do. I don't even have week-ends: next week-end I'm going to Maine, the week-end after that I'm at my college reunion, and then Memorial Day week-end we're having a party at our house on Saturday - the very first day I have available to work on the house! What? I'm spread so thin and having two yards to garden in two different states is just too much.
Oh, yeah, three yards. Also a fun note: one of the three tenants didn't pay rent. Their electric and heat bills came to $200 last month and that's apparently supposed to be my personal gift to them. I can't make people pay rent. I really just hoped he would. He's out of work and his mother had been paying it but just... didn't. I think he wants out of his lease so this may be a way of leaving two months early? I don't know. I just know that I'm out $1195 in rent for the rest of his term. These thousand dollar hits just keep coming.
I don't think blogging has helped me this morning. I'll go see if I can fit that yoga/shower/grapefruit/paper thing in during my remaining 23 available minutes.
I've added a few things to the dog walk in the morning. It only costs me maybe 20 minutes, from 8 AM to 8:20 AM, but I am so damn scheduled that it hurts. Literally hurts, my stomach aches as I think about the pressures. The things I added: I can't easily get to the post office during work hours so I've decided to swing by there after I walk Small Boy to the bus. It's only a block away at that point. And then a block back, so it adds two blocks of walking on sidewalks to my walk, which doesn't thrill the dog. (Which is mostly why I can't get to the PO box easily: this dog dislikes going to the post office and the post office dislikes her coming in so we've just fallen out of the habit that I had with my old dog of taking a daily walk to the PO and banks at lunch-time.
The second thing I've added is another brisk hill. I'm finding that it's really opening up my lungs. I didn't even realize how asthmatic I've become. I am not in the least bit ill but find myself coughing up gunk from my lungs every time I charge that hill. Seriously gross, and somewhat troubling. Which obviously means I need to keep doing this.
The last thing I've added is a few minutes in the yard. This means bringing the dog inside because she isn't going to settle for just hanging out with me - she'll strike off on adventure. And if I go and get a tie-out and tie her out she'll bark the entire time to be left off. We bought a fancy shock collar to teach her the edges of her area, but it's too circular for our rectangular lot, and we didn't spend enough time training her on the edges and benefits of staying in the territory. Also, she doesn't mind pain. She's been a hard dog to train. All she wants to do is play interesting games, mostly ones involving tennis balls.
So in the yard I have maybe ten minutes. I can plant something or rake something or water something. But mostly I see what needs to be done that I have no time to do. I don't even have week-ends: next week-end I'm going to Maine, the week-end after that I'm at my college reunion, and then Memorial Day week-end we're having a party at our house on Saturday - the very first day I have available to work on the house! What? I'm spread so thin and having two yards to garden in two different states is just too much.
Oh, yeah, three yards. Also a fun note: one of the three tenants didn't pay rent. Their electric and heat bills came to $200 last month and that's apparently supposed to be my personal gift to them. I can't make people pay rent. I really just hoped he would. He's out of work and his mother had been paying it but just... didn't. I think he wants out of his lease so this may be a way of leaving two months early? I don't know. I just know that I'm out $1195 in rent for the rest of his term. These thousand dollar hits just keep coming.
I don't think blogging has helped me this morning. I'll go see if I can fit that yoga/shower/grapefruit/paper thing in during my remaining 23 available minutes.