Framed Foundation

Hair of the Dog

I know caffeine affects me. I know that it makes my nightmares ten times worse. And I know that Dr. Pepper tastes freakin' fantastic. So when my friends were over, popping open cans, I reflected on what I knew, and then I took a can.

I was wired until midnight, and then my dreams were vivid and brutal reenactments of Game of Thrones, et al., which I haven't read since 2003. When I woke, my eyes were bright red and my entire body cried out for more sleep.

"The caffeine was a bad idea," I mumbled to Kevin, several times.

"To be fair, you knew that going into it," he said.

And if I hadn't, he had reminded me. So that was his way of saying, I told you so.

I just groaned. I knew it was my own fault, but I also knew that I had to get through the day ahead. So I grabbed another Dr. Pepper on my way out the door. No cure like the hair of the dog that bit you.

Who Is John Galt?

what he said

Spam

I got a spam comment today:

"Finally, an issue I'm passionate about. I have been searching the internet for hours looking for information of this caliber..."

They posted this on Post-Extraction Beauty.

I'm so glad my puffy face inspired passion in someone!

Before

Construction begins on our home on Monday. So today we drove out to the site to take Before pictures of our lot.

Post-Extraction Beauty

Saving Time in a Bottle

Until our vacation in July, I cannot take any time off work. As long as I hit 39 hours each week, I will accrue enough paid time off to take a week for California. And after that, another six months of saving time so I can take a week to Illinois for Christmas. With that end in sight, I have worked my time despite dentist appointments, an oil change, surgery, and now a cough. I am a miser, counting and recounting my hours in lieu of gold coins.

When Heather gets married in May, I will take a day off, but only after working 39 hours over a four-day period. By the time July 2 comes, I will have 45 hours of vacation at my disposal...unless something goes wrong and I am forced to use any of that extra 13 hours over the next 3 months. It is against those unforeseen emergencies that I am saving now. I am coughing at my desk against the day that I can't get to work for being too sick.

Besides, I will only have 4 hours with which to play this fall. If I lose 4 hours, I lose my Christmas vacation. Again. So that blessed 13-hour safety net will be a source of comfort during football season too. It's a stressful way to operate, but I do at least get a few paid holidays along the way. And let's not forget that I get every Saturday off this fall. Every single one. That's almost as good as a vacation.

One Year

I have struggled to sum up a year of marriage, to write any ode to my first year with my husband. Dickens beat me to the words, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times," so I am left empty handed.

Trials:
dealing with depression
being accountable to someone else for my use of time and money
moving twice
realizing after the wedding that I no longer had a plan or a specific goal
Kevin's month-long absence
feelings of inadequacy

Blessings:
our cruise
shared love for budgeting, macaroni and cheese, and Castle
attending the temple almost every month
establishing habits of daily scripture reading and prayer together
spending evenings with my best friend

The most difficult and rewarding part of the past year has been the ongoing undertaking of learning to communicate more sincerely and openly. Turns out, it's hard to do.

March

In March, I changed my Focus and Project goals from what I had originally planned in January. I had planned to focus on my sabbath observance, and my project was to schedule appointments I had been putting off, such as my oil change and dental exam. The appointments took care of themselves and, since I had begun working on sabbath observance in February, I decided to add a new focus and project: prayer and housekeeping, respectively.

A week from the end of the month, my grade came to 43%. I was failing in my time management despite having worked productively and conscientiously all month. So what had I done with my time? Well, I had been focusing on keeping the sabbath holy, and during my project time I had been learning to sew. So what did I do? I changed my goals retroactively. Kevin calls it cheating. I say I was merely reverting to my original January plan. At any rate, my grade jumped from a 43% to a 63%.

I was so motivated by my instant success that I went through my spread sheet and randomly changed numbers to see what of all I could do in the next week would raise my grade the most. I focused my time accordingly. For the first time in too long I completed my visiting teaching in entirety. I was looking at a good solid 79%, and I was pleased. Then, by some crazy twist of fate, I spent seven and a half hours writing, six of which came in one day. Those hours and other last minute meeting of goals brought me up five percentage points to a nice solid B.

One thing I learned was that Housekeeping is too vague of a goal for a project. I put my photos in an album in January. February and April, I scheduled for canning food storage. These are measurable, completable goals from which I could step back and say, I finished. I need to remember to be thus specific with future goals.