7,401 / 30,000 (24.0%)

Tired and out of sorts today, which particularly sucks since yesterday should have felt more productive and positive. I felt overwhelmed and scattered yesterday—I’d make a list of things to do, most of them fairly small and easy, but perhaps they were too all-over-the-map in terms of focusing. I did get a fair amount of work-type work done (and since I was working at home, that was a requirement!), and I got two stories back in submission. I’m just not sure where-all the day went, you know? I felt like I was working and working and working, but had little to show for it.

One mistake, I think, was not having a cup of tea in the afternoon. I wanted one, but didn’t get up to get it, and then suddenly it was late afternoon and I feared it would affect my sleep. I’m getting a little disgusted with having become re-addicted to caffeine (after almost completely removing it from my life), but I’m not sure if I can afford to cut it out again, not just yet. I’m always tired and there aren’t enough hours in the day… (And to add to that Better Living Through Chemicals, I’m sleeping better, which is likely to due to a glass or two of wine in the evenings…)

I’m feeling particularly distressed and sad about something, and I know it’s in part due to the fact that I’m tired and stressed. I feel that I’ve been missing out on something, probably because I missed the crucial e-mails/notices when it was first being arranged. I’ve been trying so hard to pare down e-mail lists and websites-to-read to things that I either need (e.g., writing info) or truly want (friends’ journals, things related to interests/hobbies that I really, really, really don’t want to cut out of my life). Maybe I cut too far. I don’t know how to tell. It’s that whole balance problem again.

The bigger picture is more than my tired brain can handle right now, so I’m going to focus on the little things. I’ve got a list of things to do at work today, all easily accomplishable. I have a few things to do tonight that I have to do, and I hope to get a few additional things done as well. Saturday is an herbal guild meeting—one of those things I wonder if I should trim out of my life to have more time, but it’s one meeting, and just a few hours, and something I really am interested in—and then a birthday party (the cool presents I ordered arrived! I’m so excited! Tomorrow all will be revealed!). Not sure what’ll happen Saturday night; given how much socializing I’ll be doing during the day, I should devote the time to writing. Sunday also needs to be a writing day, but there are various household/personal things that ought to be added in there as well. I think I need to look at that household/personal list and see what can be set aside until Ken gets home, because then he’ll take over the shopping and cooking and cat care again, which theoretically will give me a little more time…

Oh, I don’t know! Brain tired and full. And ya’ll no doubt just want me to stop rambling…

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I was so tired and cranky last night that I decided to read something comforting, so I grabbed a children’s book. Somewhere as a kid I acquired four books in the Maida’s Little… series, written in the early 1920s.* They’re about a terribly rich little girl who befriends a group of friends, and they all end up having adventures together. Well, not huge adventures, but for example, in Maida’s Little House (the second of the series), they all go to spend the summer living in a farmhouse on Maida’s father’s estate, so they all get to hang out together without many adults around. As a kid growing up in a nice house on a lake, but without any other kids around, I was lonely in the summers, and thus the books really appealed to me. It’s interesting to re-read this one now; there’s so much I’ve forgotten, or never noticed. But as a comfort book, it works well. :-)

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And you say alright
These things will pass
Nothing can last
At least not like this I think
But how does it feel
Pulled apart by horses that’s how I feel

~~Bob Geldof, “Pulled Apart by Horses”

(Yes, overly dramatic. Past bedtime, and all that.)

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Currently Reading: Always a Bridegroom, Tesni Morgan; Maida’s Little House, Inez Haynes Gillmore Irwin
Lately Listened To: Styx, Cyclorama
Recently Watched: Styx concert online (yeah, I know, but it’s yet another addiction); “CSI”

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*Hm, I see from a websearch that the first one (which I don’t have) was written in 1910, the second in 1921, and the rest followed along until 1955!