December 17, 2010

Me time?

Today came out of the middle of nowhere. This week has been mostly good, lots of laughs and I finally took some me time. I am really bad at taking me time and just relaxing. There is too much to do to relax.  I am usually at work for 8 hours and then head to work with Jon for 4 hours so we can tackle projects together, then home to blog and then sleep. I usually consider me time to be time at home to clean, cook, get ready for work, and if i'm out and about, me time is running errands or meeting my trainer at the gym. I understand that Wednesday's movie snow day just can't happen every week (I mean the movies, not the snow. I would be moving tomorrow if we had that much snow each week!) But that was the first day that i've had to relax since I was sick in October. And, we did errands all morning, the relaxing only happened in the afternoon. 
The wonderful people that train us for Jon's job continually yell at me for not winding down. If I keep going at the speed i'm going they think I will burn out. I am starting to think that they are right. Lately I am so tired that my fuse is about 1cm long. I know that the way to fix it is to rest more and take better care of me. How do I do that? I am the one who gets stuff done around here. I am the one that notices and gets annoyed when the house isn't clean, when my dress pants are all dirty and when the kitty's claws are too long, so how can I expect anyone else to deal with the day to day tasks? Is this just because i'm a newlywed and I haven't learned to delegate tasks yet? Or is it that I am so fussy about the details that nobody around me has that same awareness level. If I notice something it takes others about a week to figure it out. Do I have to buy a ton of these cards from this lovely Etsy shop and leave them in really obvious places with arrows pointing at what has so be done?
via 

To all of you out there, when do you fit your me time in? (or do you not get any either, and if this is the case, how do you cope without it?) Do you have any tricks on raising the awareness levels of the people around me so things will sometimes just get done?

Oh yeah, right, here is my day...
I had a Christmas and clothes shopping morning, but a useless one. Have you ever gone shopping with a specific list and had problems finding everything? New dress pants, no problem, hey, they even have a sale this week, try on 10 pairs, none work. If they fit in the tummy they are too tight on the leg, fit the leg and the tummy is massive, the cute buttons dig in, the wide pockets stick out, you haven't even tried on a shirt yet and your hair looks like a tornado hit it. After the first couple of stores I decided my caffeine level wasn't where it needed to be. Ok, that can be fixed, quick run to the coffee shop, refill on the travel mug I carry around in my purse (yup, i'm one of those people. I have extra bags in there too...) Get the coffee and try again. Back to the same store, pick up a few pairs in different sizes, try them on. None of this grabbing 10 because then you can choose while you are in the room with bad lighting, grab 3 and let the girls who work there figure out the sizes. This turned out to be a better plan for me. I did manage to find a few pairs, and despite having to hem them, they fit quite well. Next stop, Christmas shopping. This didn't go as well, but I still have next week to finish off the list. That was frustrating, but not insurmountable. Next stop, work. Currently the most stressful part of my life as we are hiring new people and the training falls on my shoulders. Usually I am the accountant, payroll clerk, interior designer, receiver, stocker, displayer and customer helper. Adding training into that mix means I can't do 95% of the things I am supposed to get done, which means I get in trouble for not completing my to-do list. It's a vicious circle. The only way to win is to get people trained really, really quickly so I can get back to my other duties. That sounds like an easy thing to do, but when your store is a specific niche market there is a lot of product training. But yeah, finished work, came home. Had tacos (Highlight of my day right here...) and then realized how much I have to get done in the near future. The taco high died down pretty quickly. Movie day next week? Nope, too much to do. Time to get my nails done before my cousin's wedding? Nope, probably not. Walk to the store in the freezing cold snow and darkness to get a few more stocking stuffers? Yup, that's the only way they will get filled. 
But hey, the day is over now. Time to crawl into bed and get some sleep. Tomorrow we have a big birthday party to go to after work! 

1 comment:

Robin said...

Sorry about the stressful life right now.

They aren't kidding about burnout, you know. It happened to me. More than once. This time my system hasn't been able to recover.

You have to learn to let things go. Enjoy a few more things and worry about a few less. It doesn't matter if the cleaning gets done less or the shopping isn't as perfect. If you don't learn to let more go by choice, you will be forced to do so when your body gives out.