How I Spent My Spring Break

The above photo is 2 quarters of my Napa Valley Distillery club shipment booze, which I decided needed to be sampled. Not shown, the bitters and shrubs that were part of the shipments to make various cocktails, which may (or may not) become fodder for future posts. 

Wow, exactly 11 years since the last time I posted anything on this blog.  Given the state of the world at the moment, i.e., the shelter in place thanks to Covid-19 and how it’s pretty much altering the way everyone lives, I’ve decided that now was a fantastic time to make some positive changes in my life.   Having something to write (and to read) that isn’t gloom and doom in the media seemed like a good place to start. Plus it will be a good place to rid me of all my fantastic sarcasm. 

One of the reasons it took me 11 years to update this blog is because I am shitty at balancing work/life.  This is especially true of the “life” side of the equation. Recently, I told someone that although each morning tends to start out promising, by noon, my well organized plan of attack, looks more like rabid squirrels at a gang bang.   

Last week was M’s spring break from school.  He and G had plans to go to Lake Tahoe to Ski and spend time with G’s family.   Last Tuesday they embarked on the trip, only to arrive in South Lake and learn that the casinos were closing at midnight, and that the Ski Resorts who had originally shut to evaluate the situation decided they would close for the season.   Wednesday they returned home.  I am not sure who was more disappointed by this development – them, or me?  

See, when I am home alone a very magical thing happens.   I get shit done.  I am 1000 times more productive when left alone.   I would like to pass it off simply as I am not interrupted as much but reality is that my sleep wake schedule morphs into something peculiar.  Suddenly 2 a.m., is go time, and I no longer need more than 20 minute naps to refresh and revive.    

For weeks prior to ski break, I have been planning my to-do lists.   Work things, personal things, organizational things, general cleaning things, things upon things that I wanted to do were being written down and scheduled with precision into my alone time.   The anticipation of it all turns me into a kid waiting for Christmas morning, so hearing they were coming back so soon, was the equivalent of finding out Santa isn’t real.

Couple losing my week of “to-do accomplishing” with learning that the world was being shut down until further notice, by mid-week, I knew that 1 of 2 things were certain.  Either I had to make some changes, or I was going to lose my damn mind.   And since White Jackets aren’t really my thing, I opted to at least try making some changes.  Deciding on these changes and mapping out a plan took some time, but since the hope of actually accomplishing anything last week was dashed, I figured I could call it a win, if I at least made a plan to succeed in the future…  It’s like New Year Resolutions 2.0

What I came up with.

-Establish a better work / life balance (generally)

On the work side, since I am working from home for the foreseeable future, I am going to keep normal office hours and not respond to emails and calls that are work related outside of normal business hours.  Usually for me, I work Tuesday-Friday, and reserve Monday’s as my catch up day, but I am also pretty well known for working through an entire weekend on work projects. For this “balance” experiment to be effective, I won’t be working Saturday/Sunday starting immediately.

On the life side (which is really the side I need to improve upon)

-Set aside time each week to take care of personal business items (making appointments / gathering tax documents, organizing my personal documents etc.)

-Set aside time to do something I enjoy, and actually do it.  Stop having other things “pop-up” and kill my plan.  

So far:

I’ve worked in the yard Yard Duty

Went to the ranch Ranch Life

Found a new hobby I bought a shotgun

Plans to sample make up Make Up for Lost Time

Since the gym, tanning salon, and weight watchers are currently closed, I am working on trying to include those things into my life too – which will likely result in random adventures that I will hopefully remember to write about in the near future (and not wait 10 + years to update this blog!)