Comments (24)

By kilax, December 30, 2009 7:48 am

It seems like I am making a New Year’s Realization instead of a Resolution. Ha, ha… ha?

I keep putting myself on ridiculous schedules because I think it will help me out, when really, it just hinders me.

I have to STOP doing this. I have to.

Today is a perfect example. I am having lunch with a coworker and I also want to get a run in. I obviously can’t do it during lunch time anymore, so it would probably make sense to do it in the evening. No, that makes TOO MUCH SENSE, let’s get up at 4:30 so we can get to the office gym at 6:30 and put 6 miles in before work! Then, you get to run, see your friend for lunch, AND spend quality time with your husband when you get home!

It sounds so perfect when I write it all out, but Steven can tell you which one of these things doesn’t happen. By the time I get home, I am so tired from getting up so early that all I want to do is eat dinner and go to bed. I try to “relax” (how does one do that?) by sitting on the couch watching a movie, but I just feel exhausted.

And I keep doing this… why? It’s like I want to prove to myself that I CAN fit it all in to one day – working out, lunch with a friend, time with Steven, 3 hours commuting and 9.5 hours at work.

I can’t do it all. I can’t have it all. I have to prioritize. I have to be flexible/less rigid with my schedule. Ugh. I just need to learn HOW TO RELAX.

Friends, I have been fighting this for a long time. It’s what causes me to get burnt out and give up. I don’t want that to happen anymore. I am sick of yo-yoing with my weight, and really, with my life.

Do any of you ever feel like you are doing this to yourself? How to you stop/slow down?

Comments (39)

By kilax, December 18, 2009 5:35 am

How do you find new blogs to read and what makes you subscribe to a blog? Or is your feed reader maxed out with “no vacancies”?

I love having a lot of blogs to read. I spend 2.5+ hours on the train on weekdays and it keeps me entertained.

And I feel like I have been finding a lot of great ones lately! My method on finding new blogs is by reading the comments on the other blogs I subscribe to (when I have time or the topic is really something I want to see what people are saying about)… if someone is saying something I can relate to, I go check out their blog. And often, when I am there, I may find links to other blogs I may enjoy. Sometimes, I can’t even remember how I ended up at a blog in the first place!

The first thing I do when I go to a new blog is check out their “About” page. Then I usually check out their writing style and see if the topics they talk about interest me. If they do, I put their blog in a “TBD” folder in my reader to check out for awhile and see if enjoy their blog.

Of course, from time to time, I get new commenters, and I always go check out their blog as well, and often, I end up subscribing.

I go through phases where I am looking for new blogs to read, just for fun, and then I go through phases where I cannot stay caught up with reader, and am not looking at all. And of course, I continually purge – I unsubscribe to those that ended up not suiting my taste. If I didn’t do that, I would get way too overwhelmed. Reading blogs is supposed to be fun, after all!

I have been continually updating my blogroll, and may move it to its own page at some point in time. I’ll keep you posted. (Does anyone else look at blogrolls besides me?)

Comments (18)

By kilax, September 9, 2009 12:25 pm

When I clicked on yahoo’s “Most Stressful Cities” article yesterday, I expected Chicago to be on the list, but I didn’t expect it to be #1! (Duh, it was last year too. I am just a bit slow. A bit.)

I think this list is kind of bullshit, but it did get me thinking about what stresses me out about living here*, and that is the COMMUTE. 50 miles and an hour and twenty minute train ride both ways to the office.

Yes, it is my choice to live far away from my office. Yes, I could move. Yes, I could (try to) get a new job. But I don’t want to. I really like the area we live in. I really like my job. If we move, it won’t be closer to Chicago. It will be to a different state.

So, I don’t really have any room to bitch. It’s my choice. I understand that. And I don’t want to move.

But jeez… am I ever worn out! How do people do this their entire life? I don’t view this as a permanent situation for me. I can’t continue to waste three hours every day in transit, and try to get by on less than six hours a night of sleep. That is TRULY bullshit.

Do you find the area you live in stressful?

I DO NOT live in Chicago. So I am aware that I cannot truly understand the stress of living in Chicago.

Comments (5)

By kilax, May 31, 2009 8:34 am

This post is a reminder to myself.

Slow down. You keep “going going going” and you are going to CRASH.

Quit packing your schedule so full. Take time to RELAX.

Ha. Who am I kidding? Even as I write this, I know I have a FULL day ahead, and at least two full weeks. Busy all day at work, busy all night at home. Too much to do.

And about the super long post below – just a Target rant and some food reviews I wanted to share. It ended up super long, so read it only if it interests you.

Comments (16)

By kilax, May 14, 2009 5:54 am

I was flipping through an old issue of SELF magazine (July ’08) at the gym last night and felt like the blurb “Prevent summer letdown” was speaking directly to me:

(In fact, that entire page – front and back – may have been speaking directly to me. The article next to it was titled “How I stopped cursing a blue streak” and the one on the back side of the page was “Be a good gossip.”)

I spend a lot of time during the winter and spring fantasizing about the summer. A LOT. Steven can back me up on this because he’s had to listen to me talk about it all winter long.

What am I fantasizing about? Weekends spent at the cabin in Guttenberg (Iowa), boating, swimming, eating, lounging… and also nice summer days, with long runs in the warm sun.

Steven and I have coordinated our schedules so we have a quite a few 3-day and 4-day weekends this summer. But, who’s to say that we will be able to stick to our plan of getting away to Guttenberg 100%? I know we won’t. We already have weekends filling up with plans that require us to stay home over the weekends, and who knows what the weather will be like anyway. Oh, and it would be good to get some chores done and not abandon Data completely.

The article recommends keeping an element of reality in your fantasy. And isn’t that good advice for any fantasy? I would say so. It seems our fantasies become more attainable (and turn into goals!) when we DO give them a sense of reality.

So I am going to follow some of the tips when I feel like I am “stuck at home” this summer. We have an amazing forest preserve system in the county I live in that I have really been wanting to explore. We have a grill, and neighbors we like to spend time with. And we do live “close” to that wonderful city of Chicago – there might be something to do there!

Maybe I should have saved this for a Friday Question (since I seem to have trouble coming up with them), but do you have summer fantasies? Do you usually see them out? Or do you need to prevent summer letdown as well?

Comments (19)

By kilax, January 21, 2009 5:57 pm

Last November, when I was offered a new job, I decided to ask my boss out for “coffee” (I don’t drink coffee) to discuss the situation. I wanted to give him a heads up of what was going on, as well as ask his opinion on what I should do. I felt like he was a mentor, as well as a boss, and his opinion was (still is) highly important to me.

Of course… he thought I shouldn’t take it, that I would hate it, and it would ruin my career. Oh well. You’ll have that.

Anyway, we started to discuss my performance in the office. He had a lot of very nice things to say about me, but did mention one thing that bothered him – that I didn’t seem to be doing much research on my own about our profession outside of the office. That I wasn’t reading the trade magazines or coming up to him saying, “Did you read about that project at such and such location? What did you think about the glazing system they used? Blah blah blah.”

He was/is right. I’ve received an issue of Architectural Record every month since I’ve graduated. I never finish reading an issue. Sometimes, I don’t even open it! And I feel kind of guilty. And I feel kind of… not guilty.

I was so burned out at that job that I didn’t feel like devoting any extra time to personal, self-enriching career-related research. I often worked through my lunch break so that I would only have to work an 9-hour day. The last thing I wanted to do was spend what little free time I had thinking about work-related topics.

I kind of asked him when he expected me to be doing this research… because if he wanted me to sit around at work looking at trade magazines and websites, I would be more than happy to. But that wasn’t the case. I explained to him that I got home around 7:30 each night, ate dinner, exercised then went to bed. And yes, I do spend almost 3 hours on the train, but a lot of the time I am sleeping, because I only get 6 hours of sleep a night. So… wah. Wah wah wah.

I didn’t say it to him, but the thing is, I don’t want my career to define who I am. I want it to be a part of me, and I want to discuss it with people, and I want to love what I do (which I DO), but I don’t want to be… THAT architect. The one who lives for architecture. The one who devotes ALL OF THEIR TIME to being an architect. That’s just not me. I have too many other interests in my life that I want to devote my time to: travel, running, bowling, volunteering, restoring the Datsun (are you reading, Steven?), spending time with family and friends… you get the idea.

The funny thing is, now that I have a new job, and don’t feel so overwhelmed all the time, I think I COULD find time to read those trade magazines. And maybe I will.