Thirty Something

The school district where I teach has a whole President’s Week off, so I had planned to do a number of things with my free time: learn a new recipe, paint the horns and hooves on my satyr doll, clean up my sewing room, work on some patterns.  Instead, the following happened:

Monday, Ben and I took Science to the dog park.  Afterwards, he played DDR at the bowling alley while I stayed home and built a mostly subterranean city in The Sims 3.  Then we went out to a late-ish dinner.

Tuesday, I took Science on a long walk, then played Sims Freeplay on my phone while watching re-runs of The Mentalist.  Around 3 o’clock, I realized all I wanted to do was continue building my subterranean city, so I did that until Ben came home (late, because he had to tie up some work stuff).

Wednesday, I built more things in the Sims 3 (not before Science’s long morning walk).  Eventually, I got frustrated that my city was nowhere near finished, and despite the fact that I’d invested many, many hours in building, I had not actually begun to play.

Thursday was when I decided to unplug.  I took Science to Petco, where I got her a retractable leash, which she seems to enjoy.  Then I took her to the town center, but the dog park was closed, so we just walked around the mall for an hour, enjoying the “freedom” of her new leash.  After we got home, I started re-reading Kafka on the Shore.  I know I liked it when I read it a couple of years ago, but could not remember it at all, so I was engrossed upon picking it up again.  Unfortunately, I lost the rest of the day and evening to it.  I really wish I didn’t burn through books the way I do… there are few that force me to slow down, but even fewer that can do that without killing my enjoyment.  I think the next new book I read will have to be a Cat Valente.

Today, Ben took Science to work, so there was no small creature trying to scale the kitchen counter while I prepared my breakfast.  I watched one episode of The Mentalist, which was a bit of an achievement since I often sit down meaning to watch one and wind up watching three.  Then I drew this comic. And the day is still relatively young!

But seriously…. I need to set more explicit goals and focus more on how to realistically accomplish them.  Clearly, there are some things not working well in my approach, so I ought to regroup.