Season of Meetings
I'm not here to stay
There's gonna be brighter days
I just might bend but I won't break
As long as I can see your face
I'll keep dancing anyway
Wow, February already. WHOOOSH. The sound of the deadlines flying by... Life moves pretty fast...
I mounted an assault against the ridiculously tangled mob of cords in my home office, and in the process reworked my whole space a little bit to be more useful by re-assigning shelf space. I made three very important discoveries regarding computer space in the last two days. The first is that Paul's small portable drive that failed recently (not taking anything irreplaceable with it, for once) is still under warranty, and I have made all the ridiculous preparations necessary to send it back. I have included the 2 inches of bubble wrap on all sides that is required, without which shipping the drive voids the warranty... Secondly, there was a drive I hadn't been using and that was now a redundant backup, making it possible for me to backup some information that I only had one copy of. You know, the less important things, like my RAW photo files for the last two years. :p And the final kicker - there was a single file on my computer that was taking up a quarter of my hard drive space. Stupid iPhoto. I only used it for a little while before discovering I didn't actually need to use it for my Keynote presentations. In that time it had amassed over 250 GB of photo doubles, backed up elsewhere, that I haven't looked at in over a year. I thought things had filled up faster than they should, and I was right. If only I'd figured that out earlier, but at least now I have normal use of my computer back, a clean and re-organized workspace, and a feeling of accomplishment.
Of course, that feeling fades when I consider the next project - taxes. It took me a whole year to get into a rhythm of proper recordkeeping, so 2011 is the last bad year when it comes to taxes. Sadly, as happens to me often, that's a mistake I get to pay for now. Better than 2010 at least, and I did keep a really good list of expenses this year.
The two tradeshows that have been consuming my life went very well actually, particularly Bridal Fantasy, which has already netted me two weddings, a possible Destination wedding in Cuba that could not have been timed any better, and another seven or so wedding possiblities in the next two years - I'll be doing coffee with quite a few couples in the coming weeks. It looks like some of our financial difficulties will be smoothed over by the wedding bookings, which is a great relief.
Today I told Paul that something that would make me truly happy is $100 a month that I could blow in whatever manner I felt like at the time. It would feel like utter richness to me... Just over half a year until I might be able to start thinking about that as a real possibility! For now, Paul and I just make exhaustive lists. Dance. Buy one of the cute little stuffed "monsters" from the farmer's market. Get magazine subscriptions. Those are just a few of the things on the growing list. It's almost harder to handle the longing the closer we get...
I spend a lot of time reading these days. I should probably make more of an effort to contact people, and I think I'll try in the coming weeks, but it's sometimes difficult to do anything but focus on work when the computer is in front of me, and on the shambles of the house when I sit on the couch, and the dishes when I'm in the kitchen... I need to start making a much more concerted effort to actually relax and get beyond all that.
Today I enjoyed one of my favourite traditions - watching the movie Groundhog Day on Groundhog Day. It's such an awesome movie, it always makes me happy, and moreso now that I get to share it with my favourite husband in the whole wide world.
Tomorrow is another day that will probably vanish, but I got a lot done today, despite being in a funk for most of the day and feeling like there was absolutely nothing I wanted to do. Here's to days that get better!