Yesterday at this time, around noon, I was feeling overwhelmed by all the things I have to do and all the things I want to do, then feeling incompetent because I can’t manage my fairly simple life. I have one house, one job, one husband, one guinea pig, and a few hobbies. That’s it. I don’t have kids or ailing parents to take care of. I’m not getting another degree at night. I’m not running for political office. I don’t have nearly as many demands on my time as a lot of people do, yet often I get depressed about all the things on my to do lists and feel I’ll never get them all done, or even get all the important ones done.

Most of my discretionary time on Monday night was sucked up by post-vacation tasks. I picked Bubba up from his pigsitters. That took a little longer than I expected because they wanted to give me the full report, which included an apology for putting the spare litter too close to his cage (plastic bag = extra yummy snack for Bubba) and the story of how he got them to feed him hay even though we hadn’t brought any for him. Then it was home to get him settled back in his regular accommodations before tackling the huge piles of mail. Evidently Christmas shopping season has started already, as the catalog volume was way up. I only managed to sort through the stacks and look at the really important stuff before it was time for bed. What with the jet lag resulting from the three-hour time difference between here and California, I was plenty tired.

I got bad headaches on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons, rendering me pretty useless by the time I got home from work. Tuesday night, my only accomplishment was working out, and Wednesday grocery shopping was the big event. I probably wouldn’t have done either without Mr. Karen to cheer me on. He knew I was really feeling bad when the store was out of our usual wheat bread, and I said the multigrain was fine. Normally, multigrain bread, with its unpredictable and unidentifiable seedy bits, is on my “don’t eat unless everything else in the house is moldy and the phone is out of order and the car is in the shop” list.

Other than those things and a little reading and a little tv watching, I did nothing significant between the time we got home on Sunday and now. No laundry, no house cleaning, no quilting. My suitcase and flight bag are sitting open on the guest bed, not unpacked, and I’ve been picking things out as I need them. My paper journal came out first, then the new eyeshadows and liner I got at Sephora in Downtown Disney, the charger for my cell phone, and some clean underwear (did I mention I haven’t done any laundry?). Today, half the clothes I’m wearing came out of the suitcase. (The Eeyore socks don’t really go with the rest of my outfit, but at least they’re clean). I guess that counts as unpacking, in the babiest of baby steps. At this rate, I should have it all done by next summer or our next big vacation, whichever comes first. I sure hope no guests show up in the meantime.

My two quilt projects in progress are hanging on the felt wall, forlorn and untouched. One just needs a binding and a label. On the other one, I just need to finish the last bit of quilting before it can be bound and labeled, too. I just haven’t had any time this week when I felt up to sewing. Either I was too tired and knew I’d make mistakes or my head hurt way too much to even think about doing detail work. People are waiting for these quilts, and I need to get them done. I don’t want to just rush through them, though; I like to imbue my quilts with good vibes, and working on them when I’m stressed and hating the process is no way to accomplish that.

I could get more done at home if I’d work through my lunch hours so I could leave earlier (well, in theory I could leave earlier, if customers wouldn’t save their crises for 5:15 at night). Yesterday I goofed off on my lunch hour, so I had to stay late. I think it was worth it though, because my head hardly hurt at all in the afternoon, unlike Tuesday and Wednesday when I did much less goofing off and my head throbbed with pain despite liberal ingestion of Tylenol and Advil. Today, despite having done even less last night than I’d done any night this week, I’m feeling pretty cheerful. There’s still as much on my list as there was yesterday, and no more time has magically appeared to do it in, but it’ll be the weekend soon.

On weekends, I feel much more that I am the mistress of my own destiny, free to spend my time as I choose. I don’t always choose wisely, true, but that’s a Sunday night subject, not a Friday afternoon one. Friday afternoon, all things are still possible. Even the fact I now sport wet spots down the front of my shirt from a grape tomato incident can’t bum me out. The vision of a sparkly and wonderful weekend will carry me through the rest of the day, despite the rain pouring down outside and the programming problems I haven’t yet figured out how to solve. I know I probably won’t come back to work on Monday feeling on top of the world, having accomplished all my goals for the next two days, but I’m indulging in the fantasy of a perfect weekend now. Like I often say, it could happen.

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Inspired by Lynda’s book log, I’ve updated my books I’ve read page. I added commentary and links to Amazon and switched the order to put the latest on top.