Fitting Everything into the Schedule

What a title!  I can't ever fit everything into the schedule.  If there's free time then I have something to fill it with.  Each weekend I make a list of about 20 things.  I'm lucky if I accomplish half.  But, I'm realistic and know that I won't actually finish it.  I don't feel bad at the end of the weekend because of the unrealistic list.  If I did then I'd cut down the list.  After all, if you feel like you aren't accomplishing enough you become less motivated. 

I think the less motivated part has happened to me lately on weekdays.  I feel overwhelmed when I get home from work. It's still light out and not too hot so I should be taking advantage of the time and DO SOMETHING.  Lately though, I come home, make dinner, and sit down and sort of read. Just sort of, because it's taking me forever to get through my book.  That makes me feel bad because I won it from Apartment Prepper and I wanted to write a nice review.  I will, just really late.

This week I decided to make a change. I'm not going to put off all my chores on to the weekend.  I WILL accomplish something when I get home from work.  It won't take up too much time and I'll still be able to end my evening reading. 

Yesterday I stopped at Home Depot and picked up another gallon of paint. (After my typical 12 1/2 hour workday including commute, spending an hour running into the big city to pick up paint is an accomplishment!) Today I finished painting the mud room.  I started the room on Sunday and would have finished except Girl helped roll out the walls and knocked over the paint can in the process.  OK so knocking over the paint can didn't help... Tomorrow the coat hooks and shelf go back up on the wall. 

Girl has been behaving very well the past couple of weeks.  She is even being nice to her brother, in an almost 14 year old sister to 12 year old brother way.  Why?  Her birthday is coming up and she has planned a party for herself in town.  I told her that she could invite 7 friends, plus herself, Boy, and me.  She knows if she isn't good I will have no problem cancelling her party.  Too bad she can't have a birthday every month or so! 

Our division's new VP started today.  This is the 3rd VP in my 2 1/2 years with the company.  Our supervisor has been put on leave of absence for the past two weeks, as well.  Who knows if he will get fired.  The first one I had did.  So glad I am no longer a supervisor!

Work was crazy today.  I was told about a project over one year ago.  About 2 months ago the company had a job walk so everyone involved would be on the same page. They are in a huge "rush" to get this done because it's mandated by the state regulators.  At that time I found out that it wasn't my project, I was just supposed to provide support to the other specialist.  Great!  Then I was asked to actually take the lead because I had more knowledge on this topic.  I've been asking for specific documentation since even before the job walk.  Every week I get a different story about what their project is, which then changes what I need to accomplish.  Last week I got what was supposed to be their final decision of how the project was going to take place.  So, I again asked for a copy of their documentation.  I can't do my work without including a copy of what they said.  Just today at noon they finally emailed it to me.  Then one person wanted to know if I could get my work completed either today or tomorrow.  Sure, even though I had something else planned for tomorrow, I could start today and finish up my document by tomorrow.  Then someone else emailed to say it has to be in the mail today.  This was at 1:00!  I only had 3 1/2 more hours to work and I didn't feel like working extra. Normally I say sure but my response was I'll try.  Then I realized their documentation was flawed so I asked more questions.  They got pissed and someone else sent me an email and asked if I wanted the original person to take over this project.  Of course.  After all, it was supposed to be that person's project and I was supposed to be the technical expert.  It wasn't supposed to be dumped on me at the last minute.  Anyway, our local post office closes at noon.  Even if I had finished my part today it wouldn't have made it into the mail.  I didn't see a copy of the other person's report tonight, so I wonder if it got done.

I have two fun days for work tomorrow and the next day.  Tomorrow I have to go to a federal office to look at some of their documents.  Oops, the company planned a project and I realized that part of the project is ok and the other part is would be breaking some federal regulations.  So we are going to work out a deal.  We will do the federal government's work at no charge to the government.  They should like that.  It's reasonable so probably not!

Then on Thursday Boy, Girl, and I are going to drive for two hours to get to another project.  This project isn't mine to work on but it's at a facility that I'm responsible for so I need to do a double check.  If I recall right, I saw something a little over a year ago there that wasn't documented.  On the other hand, I keep thinking that maybe I'm imagining that I saw something and I really didn't.  After all, if it's been inspected a dozen times and nobody else has noticed then does it exist?  Perhaps I'm just that good at my job?  We will see on Thursday! 

The apples are almost ripe on the trees.  They are very early this year.  I will be doing a lot of canning.  We only have two jars of applesauce, four jars of cinnamon apple slices, and three jars of apple syrup left from last year.  That's pretty good planning.  But now should I make double the jars of apples because I doubt I'll be wanting to can apples next year right before we move.  If I make lots of applesauce the kids will be happy.  One thing I do with the apple sauce is put it into the dehydrator (on plastic wrap) and make fruit rollups.  I can add a tablespoon of any flavor jam to about a cup of applesauce and it will change the flavor.  I like blackberry and the kids like strawberry rollups. 

I think the pears are going to be about a month early also.  That's too bad because we always have pears on the trees at Thanksgiving and I doubt they will still be on at the end of October if things progress like they are.  But canning a bunch of pears will be good too, so I'm not complaining!