Work Hard, Play Hard | Weekly Snapshot

Where did this week fly off to? I know I generally feel that way at the end of each week but this time I sure didn't anticipate how busy work would get, especially as we approached the end of the week. At work, a few process changes were introduced that makes the focus of the next couple of weeks very different from what was initially planned. As always, sudden pivot in direction tends to come with very little notice or time to prepare, so by 2pm on Friday, having delayed lunch and forced to delegate most of my work for the day, I was still scrambling to adapt to the change. Needless to say, I didn't manage to finish my work and will have to spend some time tonight, taking care of whatever needs done before Monday. All I can say is, the long weekend cannot be here soon enough.

Currently

After the mad scramble on Friday, I wasn't sure I would be able to unwind enough over the weekend, but thankfully it has been relaxing. Yesterday, the girl had her gym and swim lessons, and I had my hair appointment. Today, we are planning to hit the mall for some window shopping, mostly because last week has been somewhat dreary due to the mix of cloudy, rainy, and snowy days. Speaking of, we had a minor snow system pass through between Friday and yesterday. Although it was barely more than a dusting, schools were surprisingly called off. That's very unusual for here. While snow continued to fall lightly on Friday morning, by afternoon the sun had come out and melted it all. If you peeked outside right now, you couldn't say that it snowed at all.

The girl is still hoping that she will get to build a snowman this winter. I doubt she'll get lucky though - while we've had several frigid weeks here in Southwest Ohio, it has been a mostly mild winter.

Work

Work's going to be intense this week. I know I'm not looking forward to it. We've had a few challenges over the last few months and much of that is going to come to focus this week. We'll see how it rides out.

Looking ahead

I'm honestly dreading my to-do list. I've let it slide for a few weeks now, taking care of only what's necessary. Some wise person did say somewhere that that was a good way to tackle your to-do list - since it ensured you took care of what's needed and let the unnecessary slide. (Sorry I don't remember where I read this.) But I'm not too sure. True, I'm more efficient at last minute. That adage of a task taking up all the time you give it is certainly true in my case. So I tend to give myself very limited time to do something - much to the angst of the husband who is so punctual that it isn't unusual for him to arrive somewhere before even the hosts have arrived. But, always watching the clock is also stressful. I don't seem to ever be caught up, to the extent that I joke it's never really possible to be caught up. There must be some truth there, right? If you are done with something, wouldn't you find something else to do, and thus create more deadlines for yourself?

Later this Spring, we are considering making a trip to India to visit family. However, before that, we have a lot of paperwork to take care of, it's daunting. But we do need to get started on it or we will be late beyond recovery. I'm hoping we can at least take stock of what needs to be done and plan it out.

Reading

Despite the busyness of this week (or maybe because of it?), I had a very good reading week. It took me years to realize that if I pick big wordy books to read, I need to read them in big chunks. So I devoted much of my week to verse and short books. It's funny - books written in verse never made my TBR in the past. And yet, I've been devouring them this week.

Yes - I have been mostly reading African American authors. It wasn't entirely planned - typically I try to bookmark many African American books I come across this month (courtesy of the countless reading lists that's published to celebrate African American History Month), with the intent of referring through the rest of the year, but there were a few I simply couldn't resist.

Garvey's Choice and Who Was Sojourner Truth? were both wonderful reads and are highly recommended. As for Brown Girl Dreaming, I'm halfway through this book and will hopefully finish this week.

Funnily, my library hold for Such a Fun Age came through last week but I'm not sure I'll finish it in time. With the huge waiting line for the book, I don't want to chance having to returning it halfway done, so I chose to pass over this book for now. It's killing me that I had to do that. Has that ever happened to you with a top TBR book?