This is 29.

I can’t believe it’s June. I know I say that all the time, but this time more than ever time has really gotten away from me! Here’s a quick recap on the last month or so.

I finished my last class for my MBA in Mid-August! SUCH a relief.

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Sorry about that.

But. I’ve not properly celebrated yet. The immediate weekend after the semester ended I wanted to jump into some projects and began an early AM workout schedule (which for me, is a big deal, waking up extra early). But by the next Tuesday (yeah, day two of my school free existence) my plans were foiled due to a series of unfortunate events. First a throat infection, then an eye infection (that had me stuck wearing outdated glasses for a week). Then the best of all, I somehow tweaked my lower back swinging a sledge hammer at concrete last weekend, and as I’ve been coughing so violently I kept aggravating it. To the extent I was unable to walk on Saturday. I am that awesome at life right now. Three doctor visits, four prescriptions, and one shot in the hip later, and I’m on the road to recovery and I’ve been able to do some work from home. But seriously. Let me recap this for you. At the apex of this really fun ailment combo, I had 90 year old smoker voice/cough, swollen red eyes, glasses I can barely see out of, no makeup, could barely move, and when I did have to walk, it was a 3-inches-at-a-time hobble. Oh, and my back is shaped like an S now. So that’s awkward looking. Not how I pictured my last month in my 20s. I should be out finishing my list, or at least making lots of bad decisions to blame on my youth before it’s too late.

What I’ve actually been doing in my down time is less than exciting, but I’m sharing anyway.

1. Collecting shiny old things via Ebay. Search “vintage estate jewelry lot” or “wear and repair jewelry lot” and you’ll find tons of great things for next to nothing. Getting an 8lb box of weird and broken mismatched earrings, buttons, brooches and chain is my idea of a great time.
2. Watching The Vampire Diaries on Netflix. That Damon. Rawr.
3. Also watching Dive!, a decent documentary by dumpster diving hipsters who delve into America’s food wasting problem.
4. Reading A Discovery of Witches. I hope it gets better because I do love a good series. Except when they end and you feel like you’ve lost a part of your life and can’t remember what you did before you began them.
5. Trying out Jamberry Nail Shields. Not toxic like nail polish or as spendy as a manicure or pedicure, they are pretty fun! They take a while to apply, but there’s no dry time like polish so I think it’s a wash. They have some really cute designs. I don’t recommend the glitter styles though – they are thicker and don’t lay flat and bond as well as the others seem to.
6. Tending the garden. I haven’t spent the time I’ve liked out there, but it’s coming along nicely for early June. The lettuce, kale, peas and turnips especially are taking over the place. I picked my first strawberries today and pulled up about 15 decent-sized radishes!

There’s still time (barely) to work on some other items on my before 30 list and I feel okish about my progress there. Right now I am just trying to get better and start my 30s better than I ended my 20s!

What are you all working on/reading/watching/making these days?

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priorities & pie charts. {& unplugging the television}

This week I start my very last class in my MBA program. By mid-May I will be school-free. That doesn’t just mean less time in class and studying and writing papers. It also means enjoying things more because the should-be-studying guilt won’t be there. Or planning things I really want to do because I won’t be worried if my next class will be too time-consuming to add another commitment to my plate. I am SO ready to move on to the next phase in my life. It got me thinking about how I currently structure my time, and how that could potentially change.

Which of course means pie charts. Naturally.

I thought about all the things I currently do with my time in a week, and estimated the hours spent. I even added some things to the list that, while I do them, it doesn’t really factor into my weekly average significantly. Of course, everything’s a guess, but I imagine it’s pretty close to this.

Anything of note? First, with sleep and work taking up over half of life, everything else is crammed into the other 43%. And that’s with not getting enough sleep. While I do appreciate my employment status and a dual income, my job is just a job to me, and that’s a bit depressing to think about.

Taking care of the household cleaning, cooking, grocery shopping, meal planning, yard work, etc. takes up a lot of time. I feel like it’s about the second priority in my life – making sure the house is clean is second only to work (because I have to be there) and comes before school (because I can’t focus on studying in a house that needs cleaned). So it’s really no wonder social time is rather low on the scale of importance, including time with the hubby. Although we have been hitting the gym together lately in a sort of multitasking scheme of mine to spend more time together, really it’s only the drive to and from that we spend any time talking. And TV/movie time is usually husband-adjacent.. but that’s all it really is.

Probably my biggest revelation was my estimated 16 hours a week spent on entertainment-related screen time (blush). That doesn’t account for my office job (in front of a computer), homework time (in front of a computer), and gym cardio time (in front of a bank of ~20 televisions). I’m far too wired in. It is so easy to fall into mindless leisure time, then wonder why I never feel truly recharged. I wonder if I could talk husband into unplugging with me…

This exercise actually made something very clear. It’s no wonder that my life often feels out of balance. I spend 65% of my waking hours doing things I dislike, and the remaining time is comprised of things I feel really neutral about (like watching tv)!

In fact, if I made a list of the things I think about while I’m supposed to be working, studying, sleeping, cleaning, etc, it’s more like this:

• Opening my own shop. Maybe online first?
• Planning a garden.
• Traveling.
• Books I want to read.
• How can I be a better Earth citizen? Help people? Help animals?
• Friends I never see anymore.
• Immersing myself in ____ (insert random creative hobby here; currently I’ve been wanting to try stained glass).
• Saving money.
• Throwing parties.

That in mind, I decided to do the same thing but allowing more time for things that make me happier, move me towards my actual life goals. Here is my near-future ideal state (because my distant-future ideal state is TBD):

Sure. My ideal state still includes work and laundry because those things are necessary. But I would love to eventually work fewer hours while I devoted more time to planning for my future possible business (more later). More of my work hours would actually point me in the right direction. This could take some real negotiating to make happen, but my place of employment is more flexible that it’s ever been, in part because budgets are tighter (and fewer hours are easier to negotiate than more money).

With school wrapped up, working fewer hours, and devoting less time to mindless time wasters like watching TV and reading blogs (ha!) I could theoretically get more sleep, do more creative things, spend more time with my husband and be more social in general. I also have worked in more fitness variety, some volunteer work, and time to read/write, which, I currently only really do in theory but not practice (sad).

Of course it’s simple, and embarrassing that it took a pie chart to realize why I am stressed out. I started to think about balance. Remember Freshman Psych? Hello, again. Which facets of life balance are missing in my life, and why doesn’t watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer seasons 1-7 really fit in any of them?

There are things I feel are actually missing from my life.. appreciating nature, helping people, and putting the ideas in my head into something concrete. Creating. Spending more time on meaningful relationships (rather than avoiding all people because I’m so burned out from dealing with the few who suck the life out of me). Reminding myself that it’s ok to work towards making the things on my happy list mesh with the things on my to do list. Figuring it all out is something worth working towards and constantly improving on.

More to come..

stuff 1 heart sunday – vol. 3: office supplies

Since I’m starting another class tomorrow, I thought it was a good time for a post honoring one of my favorite guilty pleasures – office supplies! I am such a sucker for little notebooks, colorful pens, paper organizing systems, planners/calendars/to-do lists… I love them! When I cleaned out my office closet a couple months ago, I discovered about 30 little notepads {which are now all in one place so I don’t feel like I need to buy more any time soon, but I will want to!}. My all-time favorite thing is a new Sharpie. I love to doodle on everything. I even made our Halloween photo booth by doodling with a GIANT SHARPIE. They are classic and work on everything.

My other obsession is my day planner. I’ve been carrying the same red Franklin Covey planner for about 4 years. I love it. It’s fat with info, coupons, notes, doodles, lists, calendar, post-it reminders, etc. I write my resolutions/goals, keep track of what I buy and what I want to buy, and make lists of everything and keep it all in that book. I am terrified of losing it so it’s always in my purse which means my purse weights 15lbs and any that I buy have a size requirement to fit my day planner.

How about you, any other office supply junkies?

thought process

The other day I was totally irritated to find out that my Marketing class that starts next week is going to be on Wednesday nights, from 530-930, because that totally overlaps the yoga abs class at my gym, which is from 630-730.

That I barely ever go to.

Then today I saw that they moved yoga class to Tuesday nights. And then I was secretly bummed because I no longer had an excuse for skipping yoga.

This sums up my life.

fashion distraction

Don’t you think one of the best things about winter is getting to wear crazy tights and awesome boots?

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It is SNOWING today for the first time this season and I’m pretending to hate it. I mean, I will hate it by tomorrow for sure. But today it’s inspired me to drag out all my tights and hats and scarves. And read lots of fashion blogs. Because suddenly I get to wear MORE LAYERS! And incorporate OUTERWEAR! And if I skip the gym and drink too much spiked eggnog NO ONE WILL KNOW UNTIL SPRING! So yeah, ok, I totally hate winter but I love putting away the shorts and tank tops.

And also…. I should be plugging away at cramming for my Accounting midterm, but I’ve got a 20-minute attention span for things I hate. One positive of homework-avoidance is I get lots of other undesirable tasks done when I should be studying. Like grocery shopping, cleaning the floors, getting an oil change, marathon-cooking? CHECK. Those all suddenly seem less horrible pitted against the alternative. My fridge is full and my house is clean but reeks of pot roast and potatoes.  Pot roast and potatoes I can now EAT and hide my sins under wool and corduroy for months.