Mental Meanderings

A Plan full of Potholes

It's 9PM and I'm only just settling in to being able to work for today. *sighs* This is life tossing out the required potholes I guess. They're there to shake you up and make sure you're really living. They're also the best way to know that we're never on this road of life alone.

Today is Monday of course and my schedule has 7 hours of writing factored into it. It doesn't counter for my sister making weekday plans. I admit I agreed to the plans when I could have said no but to me time with my family actually comes before my writing and my career. I don't see my sister very often and the kids really love having a day out with her because it's always fun and interesting.

Today we went ten-pin bowling. Yes, it was fun and interesting and the darn two year old kicked our butts. He even got the first strike of the game. *pouts* Show off! I guess he really is a lot like his Uncle who was a league bowler in his younger years. I didn't however factor in how expensive bowling is these days. What happened to playing 10 frames for $2? $10 per person per game? That's what we pay to see a movie. *grumps*

Anyway, we did the family thing all morning, fed the ducks, spent time at the library, had lunch. Then did more family thing in the afternoon with my mother and getting some errands done and having a great chat. Overall it was a wonderful day out and well worth the sacrifice I made this morning.

The plan was to put this mornings work into the afternoon since I wasn't interupted with school at the moment but we actually didn't get home until after dinner. The kids haven't been in bed very long and so I'm out of time. The next few hours are supposed to be spent working on TDG. After blogging of course.

So I'm torn. Do I push TDG out for today and get the 5 other things wrapped up in those two hours or do I remain true to the schedule tonight and work 2 hours on TDG leaving me with four hours worth of work that didn't get done that need to get factored into tomorrow? Or do I stay up late and try and get as much of it all done tonight as I can? Which means I'll get less sleep and still have a busy schedule tomorrow...

*grimaces* Obviously some bad planning going on there and ultimately the hassles of having these unfinished tasks hanging over my head is annoying me. I think I'll go with putting off TDG tonight. *sighs* I feel like I'm letting myself down doing that but these other projects need to get done sooner rather than later and TDG will still be there, hanging it's axe over my head tomorrow.

Still, it's made me assess my schedule a little. What am I going to do if things like this keep happening. Today was something special, as I said, my sister doesn't visit often. But I might have to learn to respect myself and my work and learn to say, "Hey can't do it, working those hours, but perhaps we can plan to meet such and such instead?" *grins* Yeah a viable option. How about I try that next time.

Meanwhile, I still enjoyed my day out and have a few hours tonight to get some work done. At least I'll accomplish something which is better than the nothing I've been managing lately.

I enjoyed having the weekend off. It's actually quite difficult to NOT write when you've decided not to. lol Not that I had the urge to go nuts at the keyboard or anything, just that come 8:30PM I'm thinking about blogging then realizing that I'd given myself permission not to that night. Or I'd want to check back into email and forums during the day when I should have been stepping away from work completely.

I did however manage many wonderful hours with Neverwinter Nights and it was difficult this morning reminding myself that I can't play that today because I have work obligations to complete first. NWN's is something I can play outside of my sheduled work ours. It's kind of a reward for sticking to my schedule and a part of me is looking forward to playing a little more tomorrow. Hopefully that will spur me on through the mornings workload.

Tonight however I have a few things to get done so I better get to it. I can now however put a big tick next to 'Blog' *grins* Cause I've done that.