Attempting to recover at home. It helps a lot that both of my boys are here (ratzeo doesn't need to be on campus today, and Kershach is ... well, doing his kitty thing and chilling out near me).

I've been thinking a lot about my New Year's goals - namely, how I haven't been fulfilling them. I've done some things, like writing bits of fic, but I've fallen behind on my reading goal and I haven't even touched my sketchbook. I'm still falling into the pattern of: go to work, go to gym (on certain days), come home, feel too tired to do anything productive until it's time to go to sleep. And then do it all over again.

There have been some improvements: primarily, I'm not stressing as much about work. I have let myself worry - because I can't not worry about things, and not letting myself do so would just stress me out more - but I've been improving my ability to do so proportionally. How long do I think about the stress? How large do I let it loom in my thought process? How much fear do I feel about the possibility of failure? How likely is that failure, really? And what alternatives are there even if the failure occurs? How much do I express my stress to others, or let it affect my interactions with others? etc. There are a lot of areas I can exert control over, and I am in the (neverending) process of bringing those areas under my control.

Of course, I have to be honest and acknowledge that one of the reasons I am doing well is that the high-stress period of my job is over. It's definitely easier to manage stress when I can say to myself, "That was the hardest part, and I already did it." This isn't ideal - I should be able to manage my worries even without having the payoff of "I did it and didn't die" giving me a boost. I need to be able to manage my stress even when I still have the potential failure/catastrophe/whatever still looming over my head.

Anyway. Besides that area, I do need to work on how to make better use of my time. I don't have a lot of hours between getting home in the evening and my bedtime, but there are enough to get things done, especially if I work little-by-little on a daily basis.

I don't want to let days, months, 2009 pass by in a blur. I want to engage in productive and fulfilling activities, even if I don't manage to do so every single day. I'm not sure, at this point, how to do it. (Of course, my brain is fuzzy with teh sick, so that might have something to do with it.)

So my goal for the week is a meta-goal: figure out how to make goals so that I can spend my time in the ways I really want to. I'm going to think about what kinds of goals to make, and how often, and how to reinforce them. That should give me a good start, at least.

Okay, my goals for the week sort of failed. A combination of fighting off sickness, stressing out over crises at work, and generally letting myself get high-strung over my accumulative responsibilities ... I'm not in great shape. I took a sick day/mental health day from work today, and I'm attempting to reset myself both physically and mentally.

So, with that in mind, I'm making a to-do list for today that should hopefully balance relaxation with getting crap done:

[x] sleep in
[x] eat breakfast
[x] grocery shopping
[x] eat lunch
[x] watch one episode of The Wire
[x] work on embroidery
[x] work on RP
[ ] work on email backlog
[x] clean bathroom sink + bonus cleaning windows!
[x] cook chicken soup for dinner

Throughout all this, I should also remember to drink lots of fluids, take vitamin C, and rest as necessary.

Blood donation yesterday + hot day today means I want to do nothing more than be a lump at home today. But! I need to get things done. So here's my (short enough to be manageable) to-do list to keep me from wasting the day.

[ ] load of laundry
[x] acquire dinner (whether that means actually cooking, or just buying something)
[x] submit apartment inquiries
[ ] character backstory

Tomorrow: Pride Parade!

Monday
[x] gym
[x] Black Sexual Politics ch. 2

Tuesday
[x] cook food for this week's dinner
[x] Black Sexual Politics ch. 3

Wednesday
[x] gym
[x] Black Sexual Politics ch. 4

Thursday
[ ] gym
[x] Black Sexual Politics ch. 5

Friday
[ ] NWSA meeting
[ ] Black Sexual Politics ch. 6

Work on every day until done
[ ] notes for NWSA meeting
[ ] character creation (note to self: this is your break-from-work fun project, NOT Warmakers fic)

Weekend and beyond to be organized later
[ ] pack for Cincinnati
[ ] finish Black Sexual Politics
[ ] final notes/outline for talk

Started feeling ill last night. Looks like I've finally succumbed to whatever has been making people around me sick. Took a sick day today to hopefully nip it in the bud. I'm confident I can; recently I've been able to avoid down-and-out sickness by taking a day to recuperate early on. And I WILL be well for Warmakers, dammit.

Today's last-day-before-game to-do list:

[x] eat lunch
[ ] keep consuming tea, oranges, vitamin C supplements
[x] take a nap only if necessary for recovery, not if I'm just feeling lazy (I didn't nap ... which I consider accomplishing this goal!)
[x] finish level 18 Khag
[x] level 19 Khag
[x] character sheet for Khag's mount
[x] print final version (no, really, for real this time) of Sae character sheets
[ ] last-minute plans for followers?? + crash course in Ranger spellcasting
[x] clean stove
[x] packing list for weekend
[x] pack what's on the list
[x] eat dinner
[x] get to ratzeo's at a decent hour
[ ] if time permits: fanart?

This week should be a little less busy and structured, in terms of my to-do list. I want to maintain my productivity, though, so I'm still laying out my goals.

Fun goals (work on one of these every day)
-write fic(s) for Warmakers episode 24
-draw at least one 4-koma
-make Sae's new character design (hopefully to result in some substantial drawing, though that may have to wait until next week)

Less-fun goals (also work on one of these every day)
-gym x 3
-revise resume
-read NWSA write-up
-write my own NWSA write-up
-grocery shopping for weekend events

Tentative schedule

Monday
[x] gym
[x] revise resume
[x] finish(?) another thousand words on fic #1

Tuesday
[x] gym
[x] cook dinner for the week
[x] level 21 character sheet for Sae
[x] finish fic #1

Wednesday
[x] read NWSA write-up
[x] sketch out (or more) the two 4-koma that popped into my brain

Thursday
[x] gym
[x] meet ratzeo for dinner ♥

Friday
[x] grocery run
[x] ink 4-koma

Saturday
[x] NWSA meeting
[x] birthday party

Sunday
[x] U-District Street Fair
[x] level Sae to 23
[x] levelstart building Khag

I keep composing these lists in my head, but then forgetting to post them. I've been feeling sort of breathless this week as I keep up with my goals, so things without a clear deadline of next week (or earlier) are temporarily on the back burner.

But it's always good to ruminate on why I'm happy.

1. Ran into coramegan on the bus again this morning and (surprise, surprise) talked about Warmakers again. This Sunday is our second to last session - after that will be a full-weekend marathon of the last two adventures. O_O Admittedly, this is sort of a sad thing - but in a good way. We've had the full run of the "television season" (campaign) and it's time to reach the well-deserved epic ending.

2. Tonight I'll be going with some co-workers to a university banquet. :D Food, wine, and hearing about student achievements - all in all, a very pleasant way to spend my evening. Also, it's located in a campus building that I rarely get to anymore, just in time for me to see an anti-violence exhibit put on by one of my former professor's students.

3. On Friday I'm getting a massage. XD Every once in a while we have a masseuse come into our office, so when I heard about it this time I decided to splurge on a half-hour massage. And boy, do my shoulders need it.

4. My tea stash and earring collection, while both beloved, are also huge, and threaten to overflow the space allotted to them. I'm paring them down by sorting out the things that are perfectly good, but which I never use, and passing them along to folks who will appreciate them more than I do. This is not only good for me, but also for the people who will be getting my money now that I have more space. :P

5. I have thus far managed to meet all of my goals this week, even including the extra free-floating goals. I know it's only Wednesday, but I feel pleased and energized by the fact that I haven't missed anything so far. I have a pretty demanding set of goals this week (well, for me - probably other people could do all this one-handed!) and don't plan on keeping up this accelerated pace for long. But it's a temporary pace set for the purpose of next weekend's NWSA meeting (and then, one month after that, the conference itself!). Also, this weekend, I shall take a well-earned rest.

1. My coffee maker arrived on Friday, and I've been wanting to try it out. shadawyn and I have a date to go to Pike Place Market on Saturday, where I will raid Market Spice (an awesome tea/coffee/spice shop). So I couldn't really justify buying anything before that, just for the sake of my own impatience.

However! Today at work, a salesman came by, and, in thanks for my help (which was really quite minimal), gave me a $5 Starbucks gift card. So, I thought, why not? And off I went after work, to buy a bag of coffee beans.

... Except, through cashier error and my own obliviousness, the gift card was not counted toward my purchase, so I ended up paying the full price. :P Ah well. I did get a free drink out of it, because apparently that's what Starbucks does when you buy coffee beans. And, uh, I still have a gift card. XD;;

2. I have been giggling like a giddy child over my new BPAL imps since I picked them up on Saturday. :D And I also made a new order with shadawyn (a.k.a. my enabler). XD

3. ratzeo ran an awesome adventure on Sunday ... which was part one of two, so now I reeeeaaally want to play the other half.

4. kyonkun gave me a link to a Japanese image gallery of hairstyles (so I can see what Asian hair looks like), and I think I've decided what I want for my new haircut: something like these. (Okay, really and truly I would want one of these, but those would definitely take more effort than I'd want to put in.)

5. As I mentioned earlier, on Friday, we had a brief planning meeting for the NWSA conference. It really helped me focus and get back on task, after having floundered about for the past several weeks. I hunted down books to buff up my theoretical knowledge - I'm currently reading this and have ordered this and this.

Which brings me to my goals for the week ... which are basically to finish The Macho Paradox and set a pace to finish all three books by the time we have our next major meeting in mid-May. This goal takes priority over (though hopefully will not exclude) all other ongoing goals.

Can I do it? Honestly, I know there's the risk that I will fall behind here. The daily amount of reading I will need to do will be somewhat like my reading load in college - but now I don't have deadlines and grades acting as enforcers of my discipline. Learning to keep myself on track will be hard. On the other hand, this is a skill I need to learn anyway, now that I'm out of school.