Twisted Thoughts, Tissues & Time Management
January 31, 2009
The winter doldrums are here & I’m questioning the way I spend my time.
I am not one of those women who love to say, “Oh, I am so busy, busy, busy!” The longer I’m on this planet the more I wonder why anyone would want to live that kind of life, let alone admit to it. I’ve dropped out of the race to do the most, have the most, be the most, blah, blah, blah.
Now I’m not talking about working two jobs to barely pay the mortgage, I’m talking about people who fill their calendars by choice and then brag under the guise of complaint.
In the end, we all still die and none of it matters for shit. (I don’t think I need to be on anti-depressants at this point, but if you disagree I’d be interested in your opposing opinions.)
HOWEVER . . . there is a need for a happy medium, as exhibited by the fact that my accomplishments this winter include:
(1) A game of Bookworm that reached almost 4,000,000 points;
(2) Convincing my husband to leave the Christmas tree up all year long as a conversation piece;
(3) Forty-eight episodes of Trading Spouses & WifeSwap;
(4) Tears spilled over Dr. Drew Pinsky’s Sober House;
(5) Learning the basics of Facebook, something I never, ever needed to do; and . . .
(6) A single dinner party for nine guests, five of whom were children.
We cleaned for 10 hours beforehand and I screamed at least 28 times over inane things that were purely caused and created by my own failure to keep up with the basics. I’m not a fan of daily, repetitive, mundane upkeep, not at all.
I even complained to my husband that he must stop buying “such ugly f*cking tissue boxes that sit on the counter for a year collecting dust.”
In reply, I received this from a UPS truck two weeks later:
Yes, my husband purchased specially ordered boxes of Kleenex just for me. You can, too, at www.kleenex.com! Briana, the girl above with curly hair, is not a member of our family. She was mistakenly included and we got to keep her.
Obviously, I don’t budget my time wisely. The real problem is that I’m not sure what’s important enough that it matters.
Cooking? Augh.
Cleaning? Ack.
No one seems to notice the cobwebs when you’ve got funny tissue boxes all over the house.
* * * * *
What I’d really like to know is how much time other people spend on blogging. I can write and re-write for hours. It’s not working for me.
When I’m writing and reading and commenting and tracking there is no time for mothering and cooking and cleaning and showering.
(Obviously I don’t really do a lot of that stuff, but sometimes I think I should at least pretend.)
How do you find time for both blogging and regular life?
January 31, 2009 at 8:05 pm
This is a great story…your good! please read one of my blogs and tell me how you like it!
January 31, 2009 at 8:09 pm
I hardly edit at all except for typos, punctuation, etc. I just blargh it out and hit publish. It’s like I’m sending you an email. I look a little bit harder at comments since I can’t fix them later, but often I edit my posts three times in the first 15 minutes after hitting “publish” because I realize something makes no sense. I spend about 30-60 minutes total on on a post I bet.
Don’t worry, we can wait til you just can’t stand it any more and post again
When I’m not posting I’m not doing any of those things either. I’m surfing the net, or reading fiction. Or just laying about whining.
January 31, 2009 at 8:50 pm
I only blog when a.) I have something to say or b.) I feel really guilty because it’s been so long between blogs.
I clean when things get dirty. I launder when I want to wear my favorite indies. I cook when I get hungry and there are no leftovers worth reheating.
I lie in bed and cuddle with my man a great deal of the time. I spent almost 50 years working my ass off so I figure I better learn to enjoy whatever time I have left!
January 31, 2009 at 9:04 pm
Oh my holy goodness graciousness, that is the coolest gift I have ever seen! What a sense of humor your husband has! I love that I recognize all the pictures from the blog, other than your brand new pseudo-niece, Briana. Cute kid though.
January 31, 2009 at 9:28 pm
LOLOLOL! I truly do LOVE your husband Pam! LOL! You did hit the jackpot there! I had no idea there were such tissue boxes, and WHO would have thought to send those to you after that comment? LOL! My guy is awesome…but he doesn’t have that kind of imagination! Enjoy that fella, girl! (I can tell your family doesn’t have allergies…or there would be no dust on those tissue boxes!)
You know, there is a mid-place to live. I hate to be so ‘normal’ cause I know the disdain you hold for normalcy…..but its called a ‘life of balance.’ LOL…don’t hit me! I mean, nobody says you have to be PTA mom, who does book clubs, and washes the linens on Monday, scrubs all the floors on Tuesday, etc, etc, etc. You can choose exactly what you want a normal balanced life to look like!
You can be like Trisha…..clean something when its dirty, but change your ‘attitude’ while you do it. Look for something to enjoy while you do it. Really just try to enjoy whatever you spend your time doing, and quit beating yourself up for not loving what you think you are supposed to do. In the end, you are only ’supposed’ to do what you WANT to do.
And here is where I will be your ‘disagreeing’ person! LOL, are you surprised? “In the end, we all still die and none of it matters for shit.” It’s not the dying that is important, it’s the living. I think there is something that matters in the end. And it isn’t if you lived like someone else thought you should. It is “did you enjoy your life?” You have more control over your environment that most people I know. You don’t have to go to work everyday, you have a man who thinks you are a treasure, no matter what you do. You don’t have to please anyone but you. So maybe you should start doing that.
But like you have found, doing anything 24/7 is hard to find constant joy in…..even if it is something that tickles the hell out of you like blogging. Not because you are feeling guilty like you should be scrubbing a toilet, but because yin and the yang of it all. Like absolute power corrupting, absolute anything gets old, boring and not as much fun. So do like Amanda (or me)…write stuff, read it once and then publish it. LOL…your non-edited version will be better than most of us after hours of editing.
But then that means YOU have to actually set guidelines to live by, a schedule if you will….so you do some things part of the time, and others the rest of the time. Make it what you love, what serves you, and in the end, I am sure there will be just the right amount of cleaning in there. If you are the mom that is willing to do even half the things you have put on here for your kids, then in the end, you’ll actually WANT to do a little cleaning in there…..just for them! LOL! Happy Valentines Day, tell them, I dusted your room! LOL!
Now I admit it, this is MY judgment. But to me it’s hard to figure out how to live a life of balance, when you are watching a bunch of not so ‘balanced’ people trade wives with each other. Those shows are designed to cause chaos, not find peace or bring joy to your life. There is a motto that says what you surround yourself with expands in your life. Maybe you need to look at what you are choosing to surround yourself with…..media-wise, anyway.
Cause in the end, what matters is HOW MUCH JOY DID YOU FIND IN ALL THE DAYS YOU WERE GIVEN? To me, that’s the purpose of life. If things aren’t working how it is…..it wouldn’t hurt to try, would it?
January 31, 2009 at 9:29 pm
Damn! It’s way too long again! Sorry Pam!
February 1, 2009 at 12:22 am
I find that I have more time when I don’t leave 2000 word comments like the others above seem to do regularly.
I blog when everyone is sleeping…but there is no time for editing at all. Type and submit.
February 1, 2009 at 8:20 am
Argh…as cool as the tissue boxes were, they thwarted my efforts to check out the books on your bookshelf.
I had to cut back on blogging time a lot when I switched jobs this summer…no more tag surfing or obsessive stat watching. Sometimes I miss it, but my eyes feel a little better.
February 1, 2009 at 9:59 am
The OTHERS? The Others….MTAE…it’s only me….at least usually! And Pam ‘deals’ with me….ignores me when it doesn’t ’speak’ to her at all, or talks about the points she does agree with, when she wants to.
I don’t blog Pam, because I don’t have time for it. I do enjoy reading your posts (as well as a few others), but it’s easy to leave a comment when I am just ‘conversing’ with one particular person. I think it would be harder to form a blog when you have an audience to consider. That’s my thoughts.
For me, the bottom line is “I want to feel GOOD!” So I design my life around those five words. Yes, there are some things I have to do in order to pay the electric bill. But it turns out electricity makes me feel good. I just started evaluating what really served me, and quit doing anything else, especially because others expected it of me. I do things for my kids, my husband, etc. But it is because it makes me feel good to do it. Nuff said. And hopefully it’s only 1000 words this time!
)
February 1, 2009 at 4:32 pm
“How do you find time for both blogging and regular life?”
I don’t. I find “regular life” is totally overrated, so I live my life exclusively on the net.
I was afraid of getting exactly that answer!@!! It’s pretty much been my experience.
February 1, 2009 at 4:32 pm
The above comment is almost true.
February 2, 2009 at 7:43 am
Now now, he may not be COMPLETELY to blame, for CareerMom brought home a 3-pack of tissues the other day. Two of the boxes were completely innocuous, being of the swirly, color-netrual design we all love. But the third box, mostly covered by packaging, was a “High School Musical” box of Kleenex!
I laughed, I cried…I put it in the fancy tissue box holder to hide it.
February 2, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Those tissues are a riot! I think I’m going to take a picture of myself sick with cold or flu or whatever the hell has taken over my body right now and have one made up.
I suck at time management, am brought to tears by a full calendar, and I spend about the same amount of time as you on my posts, so I don’t have much advice for you.
With work, keeping the house picked up and the must-do activities of life, my sleep has suffered terribly since I started blogging. I’m just trying to walk away from it a lot more now.
February 3, 2009 at 11:14 am
Well, I don’t work, so I find the time to do it all. I am superwoman hear me roar….only, I am a shitty half ass blogger so that could account for the time crunch non-issue.
I totally LOVE that you got an extra kid on your Kleenex! I want to order just random people instead of my own family! That would rock. When people asked me who it was on my tissues, I could make something up, or just say, I have no idea, they just sent me these randomly….the possibilities are endless!!
February 3, 2009 at 11:53 am
During commercials when the boyfriend is out for a smoke. The dishes don’t get done until Saturday morning because that’s how I roll, yo! If I had the kind of job you take home at night, or had a bigger place, or at least a place I cared about instead of thinking “meh, fuck the baseboards, I’m moving out by the end of this year anyways” I would definitely feel the strain.
BTW, love the Kleenex boxes! I should order some vaguely naughty ones and scatter them about. My place needs some serious distracting
February 3, 2009 at 10:50 pm
I love that Brianna … damn she’s cute. Now I want my own tissue boxes. Way too cool.
I don’t think I have a regular life. I’m a little bitchy because of all my health stuff … so I take out that energy here on the blog. I posted like 356 times my first year … I blog at lunch and at night once the family is at home. On weekends I write more than one post per day so I have spares for when I’m having a sick day so I can just hit publish.
February 8, 2009 at 2:19 pm
As for commenting, sometimes I read a post and can’t think of anything to say… I’ll read it again a few times over the next few days as I read the comments. All of a sudden something ridiculous will pop into my head and I’ll comment on the fifth post back that’s three weeks old.
You’ve been prolific lately. Give me time, I’m busy being whiny over here. It’s getting better, BUT, and you’ll be happy about this, I’ve been watching tv (on hulu) for two days. (And eating brownies. My husband is out of town. I can feed myself, I just do it differently.)
Yea for Hulu!!! TV and brownies makes everything so much better. Well, except for diabetes. Motherfucking shit! Poor baby, I hope you feel better soon!!!
February 11, 2009 at 12:13 am
YOur an awesome writer. If only I was as good as you. I just posted something elts if you want to check that out.