I’m burning the candle at both ends and some in the middle. School has only been back in session for two weeks and I’m already struggling. Working until 6:00 at night is starting to get the best of me, as well as a gaming schedule that I haven’t tapered back on — which leaves all of my other extra-curricular activities vying for any spare minutes I can possibly give them. The kitchen face-lift has to be done before my parents fly out in April, and I only have a few hours on Saturdays to do it — and that’s going to change since a friend wants me to start recording my vocals to his songs, and that will take place on Saturdays, as it’s my only free day. Needless to say, there’s no way I can get the kitchen done without paying someone to come in and help me, but I think that’s out of the question. Writing has completely fallen off my radar. I don’t even pretend that I’m going to get time to write anymore. To make myself feel better about not writing, I tell myself that I don’t like it and that I suck at it. It’s working (sort of). My pumpkin-time, which is the hard stop that I reach every night and head up to bed, was formerly 10:00 pm. Now it is “whenever.”

I can always tell when I am reaching the point of exhaustion, because I say the opposite of everything I am thinking, and this is been becoming more and more frequent. “Widen” becomes “narrow” and “hard” becomes “soft” and “north” becomes “south” — you get the picture. Tom has been correcting me a lot these past few days. “Did you mean to say (insert word here), honey?” He will ask. Now I am to the point where I can no longer speak my thoughts coherently, and it’s getting worse. Late last week, while I was emailing someone, I realized I had started doing it in my typing. I’m no longer coherent.

I’m crashing and burning. I can feel it. It’s in the headache I’ve had every morning for the past week. Not sure what I am going to do. The obvious answer is to start cutting back or completely cut things off of my schedule, but I’m pretty passionate about everything that is on my plate, even the gaming. I want to keep the gaming on my schedule because I have worked so hard for this guild and making sure there are events and people are happy. But then, a close friend of mine said to me a few weeks ago that Ed would be the perfect guild leader. I asked, “Is there something wrong with the way I have been doing things?” He said no, because we absolutely need someone to schedule things, but Ed would just be perfect…”

So I’m the guild secretary. How quaint. Now that I have this hurtful comment to deal with, I think I should just cancel my WoW subscription until school is over in June. I don’t know, maybe I’m just feeling unappreciated again.

I’ll get back to you. For now, I’m drowning and there’s no rescue in sight.

My honey-do lists for Tom are usually computer-related, and last night I asked him to make a couple of changes to the ol’ blog. As you may have noticed (or not, if you’re viewing this in a Google Reader type program), the menu on the right side has changed. The list of archives by month has been replaced by a single link that takes you to a new page. There, you will find the list of archives by month and you can search. There’s also a search bar up at the top, and to be honest, I don’t know if it’s new or not. Since this is the first time I’ve noticed it, let’s say it is new. Also, I have a hard time noticing if there are comments to my posts, so Tom has added a section for recent comments. So from now on, if you post a comment, I will see it and be able to respond.

Thanks, Honey!

The first snowstorm hit. We didn’t capture shots of what the back porch looks like (about three feet deep in snow) but we caught a bit of the front before the storm kicked in. If you add another two feet to what you see, it’s pretty accurate to what is going on out there right now.

And yes, our house is mint green. Like the ice cream. And do you notice the ginormous rock in the front of the house? That was the deal maker for Tom.

And, of course, the Christmas tree that Tom and I had allegedly agreed we wouldn’t buy, but I did anyway:

I love my house.

As I’ve said previously, I love to write. Unfortunately, I struggle with the idea of a blog. Blogs are cool. They’re in. They’re hip. These days, everyone’s out on the “blogosphere” (sorry honey, I know you hate that word) giving the world their two cents. I love this blog, but I often have a hard time writing on it because I can’t help but get the feeling that there’s a lot of flatulence involved in blogging and I don’t presume that everyone is so enamored with everything that I say, or that I even have anything interesting to say. This thought alone is demotivating, and I stop writing altogether. It’s mostly the fear of feeling overly pretentious when I write what I like, think about, care about, or presume to know. Are the blogs of strangers even remotely interesting? Do we pick up those blogs and think we’ve read something interesting? I have no idea. Why does anyone read this blog? Why do I read anyone else’s blog? Is it because I care about the person and want to know what they’re doing, or am I combing for something that holds a deeper meaning?

Philsophies of blogging emerge in my head, but I dare not bring them up at dinner time or Tom won’t stop talking about logic and existentialism…

A friend sent an email to me that had the following riddle enclosed:

For those of you who excel at logic questions…….. Can you figure this one out? The answer will be in numbers, not spelled out.

There are 7 girls on a bus

Each girl has 7 backpacks

In each backpack, there are 7 big cats

For every big cat there are 7 little cats

Question: How many legs are there in the bus?

My answer: Why the hell are there so many cats stuffed into backpacks and why isn’t PETA assaulting this bus to free these poor cats?

I guess I’m not “logical.”

One year ago, Tom and I bought our first house. It needed some minor fixing — tacky wallpaper in the dining room and kitchen needed to go, wallpaper in the downstairs half-bath needed to go, the kitchen cabinets are old and dated, and the master bedroom is painted with a hideous neon yellow. To rectify these four things was my priority.

And so I began. Wallpaper in the dining room was ripped down and replaced with a neutral taupe wall color, and earth-toned accents of various reds and greens were introduced. The dining room is connected to the kitchen, so the dated cabinets and horrid wallpaper was still visible. In the meantime, we had also removed the wallpaper in the downstairs half-bath, but nothing else had done.

This has all been sitting, unfinished, for the past year.

Now, I could give you plenty of excuses as to why this wasn’t finished but none are really that good. What I will say is that sometimes it’s hard to get this stuff done because my wonderful husband always has a comment about everything and those comments are always negative. So when I start work, I already feel the oppressive comments of Eyore, the Agent of Negativity.

This morning, Agent Eyore is stuck upstairs on the computer, on a conference call with his coworkers. He will probably be there all weekend.

Now’s my chance. It is now 10:55am. I have showered and dressed. I have a big cup of coffee and a granola bar. The primer has been opened and stirred, and is waiting for me to pour it into the paint tray. The bathroom will get primered. Next, I have already started unloading some of the dishes from some of the cabinets. Crap is everywhere. I still have to pick out the worship for tomorrow and email the bulletin to my pastor, but I think that should wait. Time is of the essence and I must get this stuff done before Agent Eyore spots me.

More updates to come. Will edit this post with my progress.

Edit: 11:08am Agent Eyore came out of the computer room. I quickly shut the bathroom door behind me and he never saw what I was doing. He didn’t even notice that I have primer all over my arms. Speaking of which, he will probably be pretty mad when he finds out I was using the laptop while covered in primer. Cats are staring at me from the doorway, looking at me like I’m some sort of alien.

More updates to come.

Edit: 11:45am Almost finished with primer in the bathroom. Agent Eyore was reading his blogger during a conference call and caught me. Also does not like being referred to as “Agent Eyore.” I don’t think he’s figured out my master plan, so for now I am safe. Going to take a break and get tomorrow’s worship set done. More updates to come.

Edit: 3:50pm I had to go dark for a couple of hours. At first, I thought Agent Eyore was on to me, but I was able to divert his attention elsewhere. After I went out and got him a large sub, he seemed satisfied and returned to the computer room. Mission progress: I have removed the kitchen cabinet doors that face the dining room and have given everything a good coat of primer, except for two cabinet doors. Will give a second coat of primer in a few minutes. Will provide more updates later.

Edit: 5:40 Primer in the bathroom and kitchen is complete. Paint is scheduled for tomorrow… woo!

Coffee Stalker just popped by my desk to tell me he requested to move his desk to the other side of my cubicle wall. Apparently he is doing this so he can be nearer to his co-workers and get a little more peace and quiet. I explained that the last four people who have sat by me requested to move because my boss and I make so much noise (there was a fifth, but I had her moved) but he seemed determined! He’s on the other side of my wall right now, plugging his laptop in…

September has arrived and I’m off and running. Officially speaking, I am burning the candle at both ends. In the last three weeks, the following has happened:

– My boss has been promoted to CIO and has taken me with him. Promotion for me.

– I have taken over the worship program at my church.

– School has started.

All this, and I’m still writing.

To bring you up to speed, my boss did not OK a change in work schedule that would allow me to take Fridays off. The reason for this is, while I was on vacation in Ocean City, the other assistant sent an email out that informed everyone she was cutting back her hours to a 32 hour week, and would be taking Fridays off effective while I was on vacation.

I never even had a chance.

Really, it’s ok because I think it worked out nicely: What my boss did agree to is letting me take the Monday & Wednesday morning drafting class, which runs from 9:00am - 11:45am. This class is very project oriented, and I must admit that I was actually really nervous about doing well.

Normally, when faced with a challenge where I think I will end up doing quite poorly, I will usually choose the “flight” of the “fight or flight” reaction. Something in me wouldn’t let that happen this time, and I registered for the class. Today was the first full day in the class and, even though I was initially freaked out about the whole thing, I’m now very, very excited. We even started drawing today. Sure, we only drew lines and boxes, but I’m still feeling pretty determined to be good at this. So far, so good. I’m really, really excited to be in this class.

More on this later.

I still love my job. My job is awesome. My boss is awesome. There is an incredible amount of satisfaction I get from what I do. Granted, I don’t work as hard as some people do, because my work isn’t a real mental challenge. It’s people skills, organization and efficiency. Before I became an assistant, I was an overworked, underpaid and stressed out. Retail will do that to a person. Managing retail will accelerate the process and leave you burnt out on life.

That’s the great thing about being an assistant. Sure, you have deadlines and responsibilities, but it’s not “real” work. Not to me, anyway. I help my boss meet his deadlines, get his work done, make it from point A to point B in the most efficient way possible. The stress and real work belong to him, so I don’t really have real work.

I can also update my blog from work. How cool is that?

The worship program at my church has been lacking since the church’s inception. It’s another church plant.

Yeah. I know. Another one.

Since I moved here three years ago, I’ve been avoiding church. Tom has wanted to go, but the problem is finding a church where there aren’t a significant amount of people who annoy him. We tried a few and they were all no-go’s, even the little Foursquare we went to for a while. So Tom and I prayed about finding a church. Then we prayed some more. One day while we were in the car, we got this idea that God was talking to us about some “Martial Arts Church.” Or maybe I got that idea, and Tom was looking at me like I was a crazy person.

Later that week I was surfing the Vineyard website and I came across a local church plant that was located “inside the Martial Arts building.” Serious as a heart attack, that’s what their website said. So excited to charge off to the church God had called us to, we made excuses for another two weeks before going. LOL Finally we went.

The worship was the most awful thing I had ever heard in my life. Yes, I feel like a jerk for saying this. It was so bad that people would wait to come to church until after worship was over. The woman heading it up, bless her heart, is not a great singer, nor a strong pianist. And that’s putting it nicely. I’ve been hiding out in the church for a year, not saying anything.

The weekend before last was my first week as the worship leader. Well, it wasn’t supposed to be that way. Originally my pastor told the other worship people that I would be helping out, but apparently when they showed up to church they volunteered to step down since I seem to know what I’m doing. I’m flattered, but now we have a long road ahead. This past weekend I played a lot of ancient Vineyard songs - songs so old that they’ve been around the pentecostal circuit and back again and yet the congregation knew only one of them. So now we’re in remedial worship mode. I’ve been doing a lot of praying about this and so far I’m still feeling good about it. It’s great to be doing something music-related again.

I’m still writing. My book has taken a back seat and I’ve been doing other things, including the LoO story. Funny thing about the LoO story: I find it quite satisfying. I was having a lot of problems with it (mostly mental) but Tom emailed a link to me by a guy that I had never heard of before. It’s mostly about the fears of writing, writers block and hacks to overcoming these things. If you’re at all interested, you can find the essay by Scott Berkun here. After reading it, I deleted everything I had written for LoO Chapter 4 and started over. To my utter amazement, I finished it in record time. It wasn’t the most exciting of chapters, but it was very, very satisfying. I wish my writing was better. I wish the style was better. I wish my writing was professional. It isn’t any of those things, but at least I find it very gratifying.

Which brings me to the final thought. Last weekend, I read on a friend’s blog that she has decided to quit her job, raise her kids and focus on becoming a professional writer. My first thought is that a true friend isn’t only there for you when things are bad, but they’re also happy for you when you’re happy. It’s surprising how true that is. I am now focusing on remaining happy for her without being insanely jealous.

So far it’s not working!

It’s not like I should complain. After all, my situation is completely different from hers: She has two kids. I don’t. I have a lot of time to pursue all of the things that I want to do and more. She doesn’t. I really do hope that she will be happy and successful… although if she ends up being a wildly successful writer I will be incredibly jealous. LOL In the meantime, I’m going to continue pursuing the things that make me very happy: LoO chapter 5! More plot building! More adventure! More characters! Another action scene for Arcadi, Emberchill, Thundrax and Sabe!

Oh, and did I mention Tom and I will be celebrating our 3rd year anniversary on Wednesday? It’s been a very, very good year. I am blessed.

Let’s start by talking about how I’m feeling. Yesterday afternoon, one of the girls from HR called me to say, “I’m sending an email to your boss that is about you and confidential, so please do not read it.”

I knew it was about my promotion, but I still stressed out about it for three hours. My boss finally came back and told me how he was working out details with HR about the promotion, and in the end HR was going to formally tell me — we don’t know why they wouldn’t let my boss do it. Doesn’t make a lot of sense to my boss or me, but HR doesn’t normally make much sense.

This morning, I saw the HR chick on the escalator and she said, “Hey, I have to talk to you today. I’ll call you!” And she made that phone-call-signal with her hand to her ear. I knew it was about the promotion, and I know I already have it, but fifteen minutes later the stress-induced migraine came on anyway — the kind that screws up your vision for the next 45 minutes.

It’s two grande coffees and four Advils later (2:00pm) and she still hasn’t called. And I know she hasn’t forgotten about me, because she was up at my desk around 11:00am chatting with me about hairstyles and the pants she’s wearing and the necklace she bought to go with the pants, and one or two work-related topics.

An hour after she left, I succumbed to the curiosity and stress and tried to open the email she had sent about me, but it is encrypted so I can’t read it unless I go to my boss’ computer to read it. Which I could, but I won’t.

I don’t know why I’m stressing out about this.

In the meantime, I’m still trying to finish up one of the chapters that I’ve been working on for the WOW/LoO related guild story.

It was a good idea to start with. The whole point was to practice my writing, by just forcing myself to pound out whatever came to mind quickly, in short, stupid chapters. No plotting, no planning, just writing.

I’m on chapter three, and I’ve been staring at it for nearly 3 weeks now. It’s not going the way I planned - and that’s where I’ve gone astray, I think, because the point wasn’t to plan. It was to write something funny and stupid. Unfortunately this is not the way chapter 3 has gone at all. It turned out a bit more serious than I wanted it to be, because it’s developing a plot. It’s also developing the characters and some of the character interactions, but it’s gotten longer than I wanted, and more serious than I wanted.

No, that’s not correct either. It is what I envisioned, and maybe that’s what is bugging me. But it’s longer and now I’m feeling the pressure to put out another chapter that is as good as the last one. And it’s different than the chapter 2, which was totally different from chapter 1.

I’m afraid of this sucking.

Now I’m about two and a half weeks late in getting this thing out, and I’m paranoid about the writing itself sucking. Now I stare at the page, the sentences that I want to put down are running through my head, but I can’t force them out. I can even envision the words in my head - I know exactly what sentences I need to type out, but I’m so afraid of it sounding like the writing of a second grader that I can’t force myself to type. So I sit and stare at the page for an hour, loathing the chapter itself. And there’s some good stuff in there, I’m totally happy with a lot of the content because I need it for other chapters later, I just can’t continue because of stress and worry and self-loathing. I’m sick of looking at this chapter and I just need it to end.

Meanwhile, my head continues to run ahead and cook up the story. Now I have enough information in my head for a few chapters, but I can’t get past chapter 3 because I’m too worried about it sounding like garbage.

Does this flow? Are the sentences too basic? Do I suck with the language and grammar? Maybe my style is horrible! I don’t know. I wanted these chapters to be no more than 5 or 6 pages, but I’m already on page 7 (3000 words) and I am worried that it’s too long.

I hate this chapter. I want it to die.