"a balance of opposing forces..."
Religion notes:
Via Philocrites' Guide to Unitarian Universalist blogs: the Guuild - UU Religious Professionals Knitting.
On the op-ed page of today's New York Times, a quarter-page ad commemorating the 400th anniversary of the Episcopal church in North America.
My current church-related docket includes two more services for Cookeville, a sermon for Nashville, a set of child dedication certificates to letter, and a band gig for a birthday celebration. After July, though, I'll be taking an extended break and participating only in lay leading (once a quarter), hymn leading (pinch-hitting as needed), the fundraising table (once a month), and chamber choir (one rehearsal and performance a month). It means formally dropping out of the main choir and band (not that I've been able to participate in either this year with any semblance of regularity or reliability) and ending the monthly eastward shlep.
There are definitely pangs (there are quite a few people I get to see only through these activities) but there's also a certain measure of relief: I'm tired of being constantly tired and feeling forever behind.
The good news is that my primary contract has a non-negotiable, drop-dead deadline of Halloween, which means there is a definite end-date to the insanity; the bad news is that neither my manager nor I see any alternative to us both working multiple nights and weekends this summer to ensure that date is met, even with plans for additional hires. On the plus side, I do find the work engrossing, and the paychecks will let me splurge on new dresses with a clear conscience (all the ones in my everyday wardrobe are starting to show holes or fray at the hems, and I hate mending). On the minus side, it's now appallingly clear how delusional I was to imagine I would get to _____ [gestures to rest of to-do list] this year, and there are other things being dropped or postponed besides the ones listed above, including gardening and calligraphy and the bulk of my off-contract writing (I have two overdue fest-gifts I'll be pushing myself to finish before July, but everything else will have to wait. Of course, every time I say something like that, I get stampeded by plotbunnies and stung by sonnetbees).
Back on the plus side, it appears my analytic mojo is still in the house: the crude but functional spreadsheet I created for my schedule was useful and user-friendly enough for the other managers to adopt as their template for wrestling the master timeline into submission. Also, it's a solid reality check seeing every blessed weekday from now until All Saints' blocked out (minus the four days I'm stealing for Boston); I clocked out last night at over 54 hours for the week, and that's without getting to the tasks I'd planned to tackle on Thursday and Friday -- never mind my other monster project. (Really, this needs to be my rule going forward: I joined the main project after the contract was signed, but for anything new, I need to remember to multiply the official guesstimate by four and use that to gauge whether I'll truly have enough time to take it on.)
I'm more than a little vexed at myself about this new extended residency in Overtimeville - the schedule is insane, but so am I, and my ongoing angst over other claims on my time could have been avoided with more discipline and less dilatoriness. That said, I've expected unreal results from myself all my life, and balancing "what I want to do" vs. "what other people want me to do" vs. "what I need to do" vs. "what I actually can do" vs. "what I can do, but not this week/month/year - some people have a good grip on this from the get-go. Alas, that would not be me. But I'm learning.
One thing that's making it far easier to say "no" these days is having finally realized that it doesn't actually close doors, in my case: there will always be more things I want to do than time to do them well -- and the doing them well matters very much to me, so I need to stay focused on that and stop fretting over the fun I'm missing or the connections I'm failing to make/maintain when I decline to become involved in x or participate in y. (Yes, it's daft to worry about such things in the first place, but that's how I'm wired. I also happen to be solidly introverted, which sometimes leads to bloody inconvenient emotional short-circuits when it collides with the desire to be "in" (or at least "in the know") on everywhichthing, which isn't even achievable in the first place.)
And, as is typical, I've spent more time on this entry than I intended. *winces* On the other hand, it's what I would normally put in the letters I currently owe to half of you, and it's part of the balancing process, for me: typing things out helps me put them in order.
The bottom line is that life is good. Messy and not wholly manageable, but definitely good.
I left for this morning's walk to the library with two books to return. On the way, I paused at a yard sale (to benefiting a youth services group) and saw several police officers getting ready to direct traffic around a 5K race through the 'hood. On the way back, I passed by two more yard sales, stopped at the bakery, and watched the runners/shufflers/stragglers streaming past a water station near the B&B. I arrived home with two pints of soup (honeydew melon and Caribbean mango), a chocolate-chip scone, a beat-up cutting board, and a copy of Nathaniel Hawthorne's A Wonder Book.
Last night there was quite a bit of rain, and the living room reeked of wet dog as I worked. Today the sun is shining, and the songbirds are out in force. The rest of the day will be devoted to laundry, errands, and writing. The joke is on me: If you'd asked me twenty years ago what I wanted, it wouldn't have been this. When I was seventeen, I was terrified of dogs, I was thirty pounds lighter, I regularly wore makeup (a habit I'm thinking of resuming -- but probably not this year *g*), I had yet to nosh on my first avocado or sip my first Scotch, and I doubted I would ever own a house or return to the South to live. Ten years ago, I would have told you that I liked steady paychecks too much to consider freelancing, although I was working sixty-hour weeks as a retail buyer (plus commuting daily between Ann Arbor and Detroit) and not getting much of anything else done outside of it. I had yet to visit San Francisco or Edinburgh or Tokyo, I wore oversize men's clothing more often than not, and I probably downed more wine and whisky each week than I have the whole of this year. (Ah, how I miss my old metabolism.)
I'd be lying if I claimed I'm not apprehensive about aging, but I shouldn't be: if the pattern holds, and I do my part, life will keep getting better. So: laundry, errands, and writing. (And the mango soup, and maybe a haiku, and definitely scritches for the leek-chomping dog.) And love to you all, and praise for such joys.
There are definitely pangs (there are quite a few people I get to see only through these activities) but there's also a certain measure of relief: I'm tired of being constantly tired and feeling forever behind.
The good news is that my primary contract has a non-negotiable, drop-dead deadline of Halloween, which means there is a definite end-date to the insanity; the bad news is that neither my manager nor I see any alternative to us both working multiple nights and weekends this summer to ensure that date is met, even with plans for additional hires. On the plus side, I do find the work engrossing, and the paychecks will let me splurge on new dresses with a clear conscience (all the ones in my everyday wardrobe are starting to show holes or fray at the hems, and I hate mending). On the minus side, it's now appallingly clear how delusional I was to imagine I would get to _____ [gestures to rest of to-do list] this year, and there are other things being dropped or postponed besides the ones listed above, including gardening and calligraphy and the bulk of my off-contract writing (I have two overdue fest-gifts I'll be pushing myself to finish before July, but everything else will have to wait. Of course, every time I say something like that, I get stampeded by plotbunnies and stung by sonnetbees).
Back on the plus side, it appears my analytic mojo is still in the house: the crude but functional spreadsheet I created for my schedule was useful and user-friendly enough for the other managers to adopt as their template for wrestling the master timeline into submission. Also, it's a solid reality check seeing every blessed weekday from now until All Saints' blocked out (minus the four days I'm stealing for Boston); I clocked out last night at over 54 hours for the week, and that's without getting to the tasks I'd planned to tackle on Thursday and Friday -- never mind my other monster project. (Really, this needs to be my rule going forward: I joined the main project after the contract was signed, but for anything new, I need to remember to multiply the official guesstimate by four and use that to gauge whether I'll truly have enough time to take it on.)
I'm more than a little vexed at myself about this new extended residency in Overtimeville - the schedule is insane, but so am I, and my ongoing angst over other claims on my time could have been avoided with more discipline and less dilatoriness. That said, I've expected unreal results from myself all my life, and balancing "what I want to do" vs. "what other people want me to do" vs. "what I need to do" vs. "what I actually can do" vs. "what I can do, but not this week/month/year - some people have a good grip on this from the get-go. Alas, that would not be me. But I'm learning.
One thing that's making it far easier to say "no" these days is having finally realized that it doesn't actually close doors, in my case: there will always be more things I want to do than time to do them well -- and the doing them well matters very much to me, so I need to stay focused on that and stop fretting over the fun I'm missing or the connections I'm failing to make/maintain when I decline to become involved in x or participate in y. (Yes, it's daft to worry about such things in the first place, but that's how I'm wired. I also happen to be solidly introverted, which sometimes leads to bloody inconvenient emotional short-circuits when it collides with the desire to be "in" (or at least "in the know") on everywhichthing, which isn't even achievable in the first place.)
And, as is typical, I've spent more time on this entry than I intended. *winces* On the other hand, it's what I would normally put in the letters I currently owe to half of you, and it's part of the balancing process, for me: typing things out helps me put them in order.
The bottom line is that life is good. Messy and not wholly manageable, but definitely good.
I left for this morning's walk to the library with two books to return. On the way, I paused at a yard sale (to benefiting a youth services group) and saw several police officers getting ready to direct traffic around a 5K race through the 'hood. On the way back, I passed by two more yard sales, stopped at the bakery, and watched the runners/shufflers/stragglers streaming past a water station near the B&B. I arrived home with two pints of soup (honeydew melon and Caribbean mango), a chocolate-chip scone, a beat-up cutting board, and a copy of Nathaniel Hawthorne's A Wonder Book.
Last night there was quite a bit of rain, and the living room reeked of wet dog as I worked. Today the sun is shining, and the songbirds are out in force. The rest of the day will be devoted to laundry, errands, and writing. The joke is on me: If you'd asked me twenty years ago what I wanted, it wouldn't have been this. When I was seventeen, I was terrified of dogs, I was thirty pounds lighter, I regularly wore makeup (a habit I'm thinking of resuming -- but probably not this year *g*), I had yet to nosh on my first avocado or sip my first Scotch, and I doubted I would ever own a house or return to the South to live. Ten years ago, I would have told you that I liked steady paychecks too much to consider freelancing, although I was working sixty-hour weeks as a retail buyer (plus commuting daily between Ann Arbor and Detroit) and not getting much of anything else done outside of it. I had yet to visit San Francisco or Edinburgh or Tokyo, I wore oversize men's clothing more often than not, and I probably downed more wine and whisky each week than I have the whole of this year. (Ah, how I miss my old metabolism.)
I'd be lying if I claimed I'm not apprehensive about aging, but I shouldn't be: if the pattern holds, and I do my part, life will keep getting better. So: laundry, errands, and writing. (And the mango soup, and maybe a haiku, and definitely scritches for the leek-chomping dog.) And love to you all, and praise for such joys.