Goals Update - One Word: Slow!
I have two words on the tip of my tongue lately when people ask how things are: "busy" and "slow."
That seems to be a contradiction in terms, but the pace is busy and the progress is slow. So I guess they go to together.
Or something like that.
I have had a number of set backs with this darn degree this semester and I only have one left to clear out and then I can begin rapid forward progress again. My goal is to get that one knocked off by Thanksgiving next week so I can go into the holiday without quite as much on my plate.
Teaching is going well, but it is keeping me busy - as it usually does. New preps (as in preparing for a course I haven't taught recently or at all before) are time consuming. So that is a problem. I am having a difficult time with a few things and I have a few students who have been a real blessing as well as a real challenge.
I have pretty much relegated myself to not getting much of anything on my giant home to-do list done other than the bare necessities - laundry, meals, dishes, and a clean bathroom (or at least one where I'm not embarrassed to let company in). Everything else is getting squeezed into the minute bits of time I have. If I have them. I find that terribly frustrating because I am longing for progress. I am longing to cross long time things off my to-do list and move on to something new. And I definitely need something creative and non-academic to do from time to time.
The one thing that is going well is cleaning out. I have been taking 15 minutes 4 days a week to clean out. I have long-admired the Fly Lady but thought that I was just too hopeless to spend 15 minutes per day. Surely I need more time than that! I have such a mess to dig myself out of, after all.
Since most of our main rooms are pretty good or even better than good, I decided I was going to tackle our hugely messy office - it really and truly is/was a single pile of junk with a path to the unusable desk from the doorway. It had become the catch all for the house and it was unusable. I did not even take 'before' pictures because I am so embarrassed!
Well, guess where I'm currently sitting. At the desk, in the office.
Yes, I really am.
And I'm not tripping over things to get here.
And I can open and close the closet door (where our fancy/dressy clothes and collection of gift wrap abide) without having to shovel a ton of stuff out of the way first!
The second desk in here is almost usable as well.
Quite frankly, I'm impressed with it all. And it has given me great incentive to keep at it. The part I'm dredding is next - the filing cabinet and the surrounding pile of 'stuff'. Hopefully next week I can post that I've made progress there too. We'll see.
In the meantime, I'll take any progress I make, however slow. Progress is progress after all.
And that darn turtle did beat the hare in the end!
How are you doing? Care to share?
That seems to be a contradiction in terms, but the pace is busy and the progress is slow. So I guess they go to together.
Or something like that.
I have had a number of set backs with this darn degree this semester and I only have one left to clear out and then I can begin rapid forward progress again. My goal is to get that one knocked off by Thanksgiving next week so I can go into the holiday without quite as much on my plate.
Teaching is going well, but it is keeping me busy - as it usually does. New preps (as in preparing for a course I haven't taught recently or at all before) are time consuming. So that is a problem. I am having a difficult time with a few things and I have a few students who have been a real blessing as well as a real challenge.
I have pretty much relegated myself to not getting much of anything on my giant home to-do list done other than the bare necessities - laundry, meals, dishes, and a clean bathroom (or at least one where I'm not embarrassed to let company in). Everything else is getting squeezed into the minute bits of time I have. If I have them. I find that terribly frustrating because I am longing for progress. I am longing to cross long time things off my to-do list and move on to something new. And I definitely need something creative and non-academic to do from time to time.
The one thing that is going well is cleaning out. I have been taking 15 minutes 4 days a week to clean out. I have long-admired the Fly Lady but thought that I was just too hopeless to spend 15 minutes per day. Surely I need more time than that! I have such a mess to dig myself out of, after all.
Since most of our main rooms are pretty good or even better than good, I decided I was going to tackle our hugely messy office - it really and truly is/was a single pile of junk with a path to the unusable desk from the doorway. It had become the catch all for the house and it was unusable. I did not even take 'before' pictures because I am so embarrassed!
Well, guess where I'm currently sitting. At the desk, in the office.
Yes, I really am.
And I'm not tripping over things to get here.
And I can open and close the closet door (where our fancy/dressy clothes and collection of gift wrap abide) without having to shovel a ton of stuff out of the way first!
The second desk in here is almost usable as well.
Quite frankly, I'm impressed with it all. And it has given me great incentive to keep at it. The part I'm dredding is next - the filing cabinet and the surrounding pile of 'stuff'. Hopefully next week I can post that I've made progress there too. We'll see.
In the meantime, I'll take any progress I make, however slow. Progress is progress after all.
And that darn turtle did beat the hare in the end!
How are you doing? Care to share?
