When it rains it pours

Came back from Independence Day long weekend to learn I need to put together a Business Development plan, I was picked for Taekwondo demonstrations in August and put on UN project. While fishing trip and a trip to Vancouver coming up within same 4-6 weeks.

There’s no way to arrange everything back to back, and no way of rejecting an opportunity.

I completed my first scuba dive in 5 years.

Since 2012 I was in a constant pregnancy-breastfeeding-pregnancy-breastfeeding mode, and then Chills were too little, and now, years down the road, I managed to schedule a dive and what's more important - during Chills' day nap time. Priceless.

Surprisingly enough, not all the skills were lost. Actually, none of the skills were gone but a good chunk of the vocabulary was. I could do the basic exercise, assemble my scuba set, but a regulator... what the heck is a regulator?! Oh, that stuff that was in my mouth for the past 45 minutes? Oh, thaaaat regulator!..

 So, my wetsuit soaked the water of the Caribbean once again and later, on the boat back to the shore, I noted the dive did not trigger my asphyxiphobia and muscle memory serves me well. Indeed, when I was last diving I might have been thinking that was the most insane thing I had ever done. Did I have a clue that I would soon have 2 kids back-to-back, pass CPA exams, switch from Global Mobility to PA, become a columnist on time management and efficiency, start learning martial arts and would go through a good dozen of other life-changing revelations? Every experience changes me. I am a different person from the one I was 6 months ago, let alone 6 years. And yet - here I am, my wetsuit, aviator sunglasses, salty breeze and sun in the face, wide grin and salt in the hair... That indescribable state of being - not "me" but still me...

Working for a month with no days off.

Unless 4-hr work days count as days off.
My job requires 60+ hour work weeks for another 6 weeks, and given that between dropping off and picking up Arthur from daycare I physically only spend 8-8.5 hrs in the office and all my time home before kids' bed time is devoted to kids (including cooking and some chores) - it's easy to picture what my nights are like. Or what my life is like. Actually, what is my life like now?

Third priority after family and work is workout, just as I planned. And it works well, and without physical activity nothing will work at all. Maybe that explains the reason I am able to keep mental sanity and work productivity :)

Pressure cooker is a life savior. Once a week I load in chicken or turkey legs ("drumsticks"), mix some basic sauce and pour over, set the timer for 15-18 minutes and leave off to play with or read to the boys. Other days it's baked or fried fish, quickly fried steaks, beef stroganoff in yet again pressure cooker (better than in the frying pan and no mess!) and - veggies. Lots of veggies! Salads, steamed Normandy mix, baked with fish, quickly sautéed with steak. Thank Buddha, all 3 guys in my family are happy with good veggie eaters! Non cooking every single evening, but not less than I was planning.

House cleaning -  falling a little behind, although it's not on top of my priorities list. Doing a good job not having any heavily messed up zones in the house, any piles of dirty laundry or mess in the kitchen.

As days get longer and warmer - I will need to start plugging in some work in the backyard too. Will have to figure exactly how :)

Grocery shopping and errands are done on Saturdays after work: manage to pick up all necessary stuff and not run out of anything essential in the middle of the week (although picking up fresh salads, fruit and veggies during work week is a must, yep!)

Last year at about same time I was past 2 exams and had 2 more to go - a pretty challenging period still, if not by such drastic lack of time then by psychological pressure. What's good about leaving this year behind - I'm still good at self discipline and self-organization and will pick peace of mind over calm lifestyle anytime.

The past week went under the motto of "buy a goat - sell the goat". Just as I suddenly got a goat on my plate - well, 3 actually - and then got rid of them life became much more tolerable.

Although I'm still contractually obligated to produce 50 hours a week, and although I'm used to working an average of 50hrs/week at a full time corporate position, I am somewhat slowing myself down from recording all the time I spend my reflections on whether my time spent was indeed 120% productive. Need to pretend I am a bog important lawyer and start billing every 5 minutes I spend on a client, and stop shaving off 1-2 hours a day already, before I fall behind on hours.



A new experience that came into my net this week was a sudden promotion within one UN upcoming project: they offered me to review and proofread. Walking around happy and proud of myself at a mere thought of it! I was just wondering how it happens than when I translate 4 simple lines from English to Russian I end up with 8! But looks like I'm on the right track.

Two little conclusions of this week

1. When you're planning to paint on glass it's best to to buy special paint for working on glass :) Otherwise the paint smears and looks diluted and uneven.

2. When you're buying a pot to be painted, for another plant - get into the habit of buying the saucer at the same time already!

A good way to lose 40 minutes

is to "just stop by Hobby Lobby for a second to get a flower pot".

And in 10 minutes find yourself standing in  Scrapbooking section and 1/2 of the store is on sale.

In another 30 minutes I realized apart from the flower pot I was also holding some clear files for scrapbooking pages and a notepad for sketches. A crazy girl in a crazy world... From teh other hand, this is somewhat an improvement from about 5 years ago when I walked out with 10kg of pottery clay...

But now I start thinking of my Granny's rough amber necklace that could use a leather string, and maybe a few other deco pieces.
And I'm running out of some colours of my acrylic paint supply. And those pastel crayons looked great.
And then there was that acoustic guitar on sale in Costco...
Does this condition have a cure, I wonder?

Getting my hands on paint - September project.

One day I'll get to the Christmas ornaments and the rest of the glass candle holders.