Time and Procrastination

Geez! Time simply gets away from me too quickly. I think I've blogged about the nature of time before, but I'm continuously amazed by how fast it goes by . . . and how subjective it can be for such an objective measure. The length of time passing doesn't really change, so how can it speed by so fast when I need more of it, and drag by when I'm waiting for something? It's not time itself that changes, but my perception of it. Hmmmmmm. But that's not all. I could do my best to perceive it going by slowly and still have it rush by when I'm stretched to get things done.

*laughing* This is all stemming from the fact that I have six lectures due at the end of the month and I'm not making as much progress as I would like to be making on them. Because I haven't been able to make decent progress on them at work, I've been working on them at home in the evenings and brought them home with me to work on this weekend. So what am I doing? Procrastinating and writing a blog post!

This morning I've been having internal arguments with myself. "I need to get to work on the lectures" vs "I need some downtime to myself since it's the weekend". And of course since I need to be working on lectures, I've come up with half a dozen projects that I should spend some time on ... THIS weekend. Like going and getting some potting material and pots, going through my collection of old computer games and seeing if any of them still work on my current computers and getting rid of ones that don't, re-arranging my bookshelves and moving books I'll never read again to a pile to give away, cleaning out my cabinet where I throw all my bills, etc. etc. All of these things can be done at other times, but my procrastination tendencies make them all very attractive prospects right now. I only know one person who's better at procrastination than I am, but only by a little. Amazing.

It's cold today. Gorgeously sunny but too cold. It's been below freezing every night since Wednesday night and that trend is supposed to continue for this next week. That means the aloe vera are once again garage residents and I'm leaving lights on in there since it's an extended time in the dark. The cats are curled up in their favorite places. For Addy that's on my lap, where she is right now, but when I'm not sitting down she's been in this spot in the picture above. Zoe is in the red chair, except when I had this cabinet in the picture below open earlier. She loves open cabinets with places she can occupy.

Anyway, as long as it stays dry and I can stay inside, the cold is okay. Last time I blogged it was fairly warm and gorgeous, and the day afterward it snowed! Pretty because it didn't accumulate much or stay long, but the next morning the bridges were iced and the commute was horrific. My usual 30 minute commute took me 2 hours. One entire hour of those two I spent just sitting still on the highway waiting for them to clear a wreck and get traffic moving again. It was NOT pretty. Traffic is this area becomes like that every time we have snow or ice, simply because we have it so rarely. Don't get me wrong. I'm glad we have it so rarely and am not wishing to see it more often. I'll take horrific commutes a couple days a year and nice weather and commutes as the rule.

My shopping personality is voting for the shopping trip, even if it is just to get pots and potting soil. She figures (probably correctly) that if she gets me out into a store we'll come home with more than just pots. And she reminds me that we currently have no on-line orders pending. We haven't spent any noticeable money in a couple weeks. I was hoping she wouldn't be noticing that, but no such luck. My shopping genes are twitching. "Stimulate the economy!" she tells me. "Pay some bills down!" I reply. *laughing and shaking head* My internal arguments are too damn personality-differentiated.

*sigh* I suppose I've procrastinated enough today. Time to be a responsible adult . . . or at least I'll give it a shot. Later.

Nice Saturday

I couldn't decide on a picture for the blog today, since this is just a random blog, so you're stuck with a picture of my Duel of Dragons sculpture.

It's a gorgeous day outside, beautifully sunny although too cool for this Texas girl. I think it's supposed to only get to 60-ish, and then a cold front comes in sometime tomorrow. Still, days like this make me generally happy with the world. I love the bright sunshine and crystal clear blue sky. Even though everything is brown or bare and dormant, the sun never fails to lift my spirits. If it's sunny, I'm happy. Plus it makes me want to do odd chores around the house.

Today my odd chores are including things like, going through all my books and pulling out any I won't re-read. I'll give them to charity. I'm also doing random straightening of shelves and counters, putting things away, throwing things away. It's like a weird nesting instinct, to putter around the house and clean up and make the house just right. It hits me occasionally.

I've gotten through the first week of the new year at work, and damn, I have a lot to do. Periodically I get a mild panic-attack feeling, of not being able to get it all done. Then I have to take a deep breath and calmly consider how things are going. I did finish one manuscript this week, so we'll make the deadline on that. And I finished one out of 7 lectures that are due by February 1st, and started the second. And there's good news in that next Monday the installation is scheduled for the first new amino acid analyzer. The second one will be installed a week later. Then validations will proceed as quickly as possible. The bad news is that I have a manuscript that's now past it's deadline. That's the bad news about having a co-author. Even though I met the deadline with my half, he didn't, so our manuscript is now late. I'm going to have to nag him this next week and hope for the best. Another one of the million and a half reasons I'd rather do things myself than trust other people to get them done.

Over-functioning, over-functioning. That's what the lab administrative director calls it. I should delegate and hold people responsible. Only if they're not responsible, it becomes my problem when things don't get done. This is my toughest dilemma as a boss. If I do it myself, I know that it will get done, and get done right. If I delegate it, I then have to make sure the delegee performs, because ultimately it's still my problem, with me getting the blame if it's not done. The dilemma? How do you make someone perform? I've tried so many tacks: what can I do to help you? what can I do to make sure you have time to get this done? daily emails asking for progress on the issue. And still it's not done, and comes home to roost on my desk.

I will say, I've developed a new personality to deal with some of the people in my lab. The trick seems to be not just to do my job, but to do it loudly and ostentatiously so that everyone is aware of every aspect of what I do. It seems that all some folks understand is that the person who they see making the most noise = the person getting the most done. I took a long time to learn this basic 'truth'. When I just quietly go about my job, some people really think that I'm not doing anything! Thus all my hassles back in September. So my new personality goes by the name of "Diva" and she's an in-your-face, look-what-I've-accomplished-now personality. She gets along well with my other alter egos, and is invaluable in dealing with people. They really seem to think that I'm doing a whole lot of work that I wasn't doing before. Sadly, I am doing more work, but most of it is in sustaining Diva's personality. Yes, it's true. I'm working hard to show people that I'm working rather than just doing my job like I used to.

*shakes head* Here I am complaining about work again. Considering all that, it's amazing that I still like my job, isn't it? Weirdly, I'm no more fond of certain people, and less fond of a few, but I still love my job. And even more weirdly, Diva is fun. She's so outspoken and so 'blow-your-own-horn'. I didn't even realize I had that type of personality in me. Maybe I should change my name to Sybil, huh? That's four personalities now. Me, ET (evil twin), cst (chibi-shopping triplet) and Diva. *laughing* Probably normal people deal with things as a whole person rather than splitting themselves into different egos to deal with different aspects of their lives. Sounds boring.

At any rate, guess I'll go back to puttering around the house and see what I can actually manage to accomplish.

2011 is here!

Hmmmmmm. I wonder if I should make some New Year's resolutions? *laughing* I BRIEFLY considered one while I was out shopping this morning. Yes, cst went shopping. "cst" in case you're interested is "chibi shopping triplet", or small shopping triplet (chibi = slightly derogatory Japanese term for a short person or kid). I have an evil twin, and a shopping triplet. cst is who I blame for all my shopping.

cst loves Christmas time. She can shop non-stop, and with even less feelings of guilt than usual. It doesn't even matter that she's shopping for other people . . . just as long as she can shop. She went out this morning. She didn't get much, caulk, hair gel, but she got to shop so she was a little happy. Driving home I was bemoaning the fact that I hadn't found the pajamas I like and wanted to buy, and was soothing myself by thinking that I didn't really NEED them, when all of a sudden I thought: maybe I should only buy things that I actually really need. *laughing* I could almost hear cst wailing in horror. I decided NOT to make that a New Year's resolution.

The rest of today I've been straightening up the house, putting up 2011 calendars, putting away Christmas stuff . . . just your basic New Year's things. I also sorted out my family Christmas pictures and decided to insert a couple below in this blog.

I'm not sure why I'm blogging again so soon, other than I had forgotten that I enjoy doing it. I've been so busy that I've been ignoring it, but last night it was nice to just talk about all that stuff in the blog. I forgot that it's sometimes nice to just talk to yourself, which is what blogging feels like to me. So maybe I'll try to do it a bit more frequently in the future.

This year I went to Colorado for Christmas. I dragged my friend along who's back from Grenada. We spent the 13 hour drive catching up on stuff so it was nice. I was hoping for some snow since she hasn't seen much snow in her life (Texas girl), but the snow stayed in the western half of the state. We weren't far enough west. I was both happy and sad about that. Sad because it would have been nice to have some snow, but happy because I've driven up there and back in some really horrible ice-and-snow road conditions at this time of year. I was happy not to have to do it this year. We spent Christmas morning at my sister's place and Christmas afternoon with my nephew and his wife and daughters in Denver. It was so much fun. The girls are 2 1/2 years and 7 months old, and we had a blast with them. This picture is their dad playing 'horsey' with the two of them at once.

We stayed in Colorado for 5 days then came back to Texas. The week between Christmas and New Year's, I met my parents over at my brother's house for a Christmas get together with them all. My brother's kids, including his son, son's wife and their new baby were there. So there was a house full of family including my newest grand-niece who is just 2 months old. Basically, over the Holidays I got to see most of my extended family, which was really nice. This nephew and his family live in Virginia so I was really delighted to catch up with them while they were here visiting my brother. The picture is of my Mom and baby Libby.

Interestingly, just before the Holidays my parents got on Skype so we spent some time video calling on Christmas Day. That makes you feel not quite so far away since half the family is in Colorado. I should be long past being amazed that my 80+ year old Dad keeps up with the current (and often the newest) electronics and gadgets. Usually he's ahead of me on stuff.

I need to remember to pull my aloe vera into the garage this evening. I've managed not to freeze the ones that survived from last year so far, and it's supposed to drop below freezing tonight. I've been dragging them into and out of the garage this year as we do our usual cycles of below freezing, then 80, then below freezing, then 75, etc, etc. There was ice on my birdbath this morning although my thermometer was reading 37 F. The aloe vera should be all right from that, but it's supposed to drop to near 20 tonight.

I guess that's all for now.

Later!