Tag: lists

Sabbatical anxiety and a to-do list

In a weird twist that comes from enjoying my job, I’m having a little anxiety about the whole “not working for three months” thing.

I’ll also admit to a bit of guilt that I have this opportunity at all. To put it in perspective, the last time I took three months off, I had a baby. There was the sense of having “earned it” by virtue of growing another human being in my womb for forty weeks, enduring a painful labor, and slogging through weeks of sleep deprivation.

For this? All I had to do was work at my flexible nine-to-five for five years. From home. In my pajamas. And occasionally travel to places like Italy or Hawaii.

So I’m feeling pressure to be productive, to earn my keep as I join Tim in temporary stay-at-home-ness. I wouldn’t want to waste the time off by, you know, relaxing. Heaven forbid! 😛

(My therapist will hear all about this, at which point she’ll probably roll her eyes and ask where to send the bill for the next six years because we’ve obviously made no progress whatsoever.)

(I’m kidding. She’ll be sweet and understanding and remind me that I’ve earned this time off just as much as I did when I had Gwen or Ellie. She’s a professional, she’ll keep the eye roll to herself. And maybe book a vacation on my tab.)

In the meantime, enter my favorite coping mechanism: list-making! An attempt to organize my thoughts and make some semi-concrete plans for the next twelve weeks.

  • Read 5 books
  • Catch up on fanfic reading
  • Draw 36 things (that’s roughly three things per week)
  • Lake time!
  • Footlocker coffee table project
  • Paint kitchen island w/ chalkboard paint
  • Ceramics painting
  • Girls’ weekend in Portland
  • Visit Halifax
  • Visit Fredericton
  • Visit Quebec City
  • Massachusetts trip to visit friends
  • XF cast at Comic Con (?)
  • 10th wedding anniversary weekend somewhere…?
  • Finish watching Breaking Bad
  • Meditate every damn day
  • Refresh my long-lost French with Duolingo
  • Various house projects that have gone ignored for many months

the obligatory year in review

a little holiday horror
a little holiday horror
I think I’m ready.  The stockings are hung, the tree is trimmed, and the office is overrun with high-calorie carbohydrates.  Bring on Christmas Chaos 2006!  We spent yesterday at my in-laws, and I can’t even begin to describe the joy that is hearing a three-year-old repeat, thirty-seven times in two minutes, “I WANNA OPEN ANOTHER ONE I WANNA OPEN ANOTHER ONE I WANT IWANT IWANT” at top volume.  Seriously.  It’s moments like this that remind me why birth control is a beautiful thing.

It’s been a hectic year, and I attribute that to coming down off the college trip and learning how to navigate the “real” world.  College came with a lot of firsts – first apartment, first self-sustaining job, first pet, first car, first 2 a.m. breakfast at Denny’s where you’re too drunk to get to the restroom without hanging on your (equally drunk) friend.  You know, the things that really matter.

But leaving the academic safe haven (well, almost – I still work here, after all!) also came with some pretty significant (if not drunken) firsts, too.

Memorable events in 2006:

  • The S.O. and I celebrated our 6th year together, and I figure another year where we didn’t kill each other is always worth a mention.  I kid, I kid.  I am continually amazed that we are so good together, and I couldn’t ask for a better friend and companion, especially in my most blanket-flingy moments.
  • I landed my first full-time professional job.  This was probably the most significant of all the years’ events, and also the most difficult adjustment.  As much as I want to be a starving artist, I don’t actually like to starve, and it’s hard to argue with money, benefits, and a Malaga with your name on it.
  • I spent a couple months in counseling, which was a major first for me.  Now I’m not sure why I ever shied away!  Counseling is wonderful, especially for people like me, who like to talk about themselves.  It’s like blogging, but to someone who HAS to listen to you!  Because it’s their job!  Sucker!
  • Photography and I had a falling-out, which hasn’t resolved itself even now.  Unfortunate, because I was pretty darn good at it, too.  Hopefully there will be a time in the near future when I can pick up a camera and not feel guilty of abandonment.
  • I broke my damn foot!  Ow!

Overall, it was a year of complicated (and sometimes disappointing) life lessons.  Hopefully the new year will find me with the poise, grace and maturity of an Adult-with-a-capital-A.

…

BWAHAHAHAHAHA.

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happy hobbles!

The Orange Bones
The Orange Bones

So, it’s been a few days… done some stuff… and I have nothing relevant to say.  Time for another scintillating edition of…

What is Caro thinking right now?

  • I busted into my first Diet Coke at 9:43 a.m.  If that’s any indication of how this day will go, I should go home.  Oh, and there’s a stain on my shirt.  Which is, surprisingly, right-side out.  The shirt, not the stain.
  • There are new-job-vibes in the works for the S.O.  My fingers have been triple-crossed for a full day now.  They hurt, and it’s hard to type like this.  New job, please come through, preferably soon, so that I can uncross my fingers.  Thanks!
  • I’m so glad for this NaBloPoMo thing.  Not because I’m participating (bwahahaha, the thought) but because I haven’t been for want of new material from some of my favorite bloggers since the beginning of November.  Please don’t leave me, NaBloPoMo!  Work is damn near unbearable without you.
  • In that vein, I’m tempted to start a new blogging event of my own.  Let’s call it… iBlogNazi.  In order to participate, you must blog every single day for the rest of your life, solely for my personal entertainment.  If you forget to blog, I’ll send out a vicious army of squirrels to nibble on your toes, and then you’ll have something to blog about, wontcha?  Dance, minions!  Dance!  … What, you don’t think it will catch on?
  • I’m adding a subscription to JPG Magazine to my Christmas wishlist.  You can still vote on photos for the next issue if you haven’t already.  *hint hint*
  • Thank you, Pilgrims, for coming to America and growing food and dying and sharing a meal with the indigenous peoples, all so I can have a four-day weekend and eat myself into a tryptophan oblivion.
  • And finally, to leave you in the spirit of the upcoming holiday, a joke by yours truly:

What does a turkey with a broken foot say?
Hobble-hobble-hobble!

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corruption of the innocent

I am not supposed to eat the frosted animal crackers sitting on my desk right now.  Why?  Because I made the mistake of looking at the nutrition information while I was noting future food consumption for the day over at fitday.com.

Autumn Foliage
Autumn Foliage

I figured, hey, they’re animal crackers!  With frosting!  Wholesome childhood good-ness covered with sugar and those hard little confetti candies that could cut diamonds!  How bad can they be?

Oh, I really didn’t want to know.  I really didn’t want to know, because even if I were to successfully ignore the small bag on my desk, there’s still a giant bag of them at home, purchased on one of those dreadful, “I’m hungry, let’s go grocery shopping!” trips.

Damn you, Keebler, and all your little elves.

On another subject, I’m curious and have a question.  What do you do at work when you have one of “those days”?  And by “those days” I mean, “I should be working, but I can’t bring myself to do anything constructive, so I’m just going to make myself look busy while I’m really ____________”.

Fill in the blank!  I’ll go first.

  • Browsing photography Web sites.  Right now I’m enjoying the works of Lovisa Ringborg and Janieta Eyre.
  • Browsing for new WoW mods.  Someday I’ll teach myself how to code my own.  Right now I’m stuck on Serenity and Tinypad.
  • Catching up on For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston.
  • Charting my course around campus on Gmaps Pedometer.
  • Cursing cookie-worshipping, height-disadvantaged peoples in my Vox blog.
  • If I’m feeling adventurous, I’ll hit the “Stumble!” button on my browser’s Stumbleupon extension.  You never know what you’re going to get, though.
  • If I’m in a really masochistic mood, I’ll see what’s happening on the official WoW forums.  In case of emergency, break glass, slit wrists – that kind of mood.

And finally…

  • Avoiding, at all costs, the bag of frosted animal crackers on my desk.

*twitch*

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I’m such a nerd because…

What’s the nerdiest thing about you?

“Nerdiest” would imply the one, most nerdy thing.  One?  Just one thing?  Well, okay.

Fishing in Feralas
Fishing in Feralas

Hi, my name is Sheara! I’m a 60 Undead Priest and a Blood Guard of <Grim Determination> on the Earthen Ring server.  For the Horde!

Need I say more?

Other nerdy facts about myself, because just one nerdy fact does not a good blog post make:

  • I’ve had an online journal/blog/personal Web site since before I hit puberty.  To me, Web design is an artform.
  • I use a Mac, and I like it.  No, I <3 it.
  • I went to a special high school for nerds called the Maine School of Science and Mathematics (alternately known as the Maine School of S & M).
  • I graduated from university with a degree in New Media.  “New Media” is Latin for “nerd”.
  • I’ve been known to abuse the emoticon.  🙂
  • Lists.  Lists everywhere.  Lists about anything and everything, as long as it’s a list.
  • Megapixels turn me on.
  • And finally… I’m spending my lunch break writing this instead of eating lunch.  That pretty much sums it up!

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