Reflecting on the embers

‘Oh, I know how ridiculous you are.’ – Quote from my beautiful Katja (correctly noted and lovingly said).

When did it get to be September?

I once made a comment in a letter to a friend (I thought it was recently, but I am pretty sure that it was at least four years ago, maybe five) about the embers of the year.  I thought I was being very clever, but I am pretty sure that it’s been said before and I was just ripping it from beautifully talented poet.  I really should have said it more poetically here, just in case I was the first one to make it up but…yeah, I’m not feeling terribly poetic today.  AND I guess there is an ‘ober’ ending October and not an ember…

Maybe that’s why no one has said before that September begins the embers of the year.

I’m still left wondering where this year went.

A friend of mine is fond of telling me that life is like a roll of toilet paper.  In that the closer that it gets to the end of the roll, the faster it spins as you pull it off the tube.  (Personally, I’m not a big fan of putting the toilet paper on the little holder in the first place, as I feel I’m always replacing it.  So, why bother?)

My mind is racing this morning.

Apologies.

Perhaps I need coffee?

Right, so…the embers.  Poetic or accurate or not, it is coming to the end of the year.  (2012…wasn’t the world supposed to end this year?)  I just finished pulling August’s unfinished tasks onto September’s log of ‘to do’ and I’m once again overwhelmed.  I have another post about my little black book (which isn’t actually little) that I have been meaning to type up for some time.  I won’t spoil it, as it is on my ‘to do’ list and I will do it, but in order to recap and explain the little black book and the ‘to do’ list, I need to admit that it is never-ending.  I put things on the list sometimes just so that I can cross them off and feel some sort of satisfaction because the majority of things on it I have written over and over again, from month to month.  There are things on the list that have been on the list for years.  YEARS.  So I always get a little depressed when I have to transcribe it to another month and realize that I haven’t accomplished, yet again, what I intended to do.

Since the beginning of this whole ‘declare your five passions and work on only them so they grow,’ I have been consciously aware of not starting any new projects.  I won’t say I haven’t started anything new.  I have.  (I have also not finished any of these new things.)  But every time I find myself getting excited about something exciting and new I remember that I am not allowed (and this is my own limitation, not someone else’s.)  Then I get mad at myself and look at my list of ‘approved’ projects so that I can do SOMETHING creative and realize that I am bored with them and depressed and tired and never get anything done.  Then I exercise a bit and go to bed.

This is my life lately.

Not really something to blog about.

We recently had our appraisals at work.  Life is good and I enjoy my job.  I believe I have grown considerably this year.  My tasks are more clinical but I think I am also better able to switch between the front and the back.  I am (don’t laugh) more focused.  I have learned how to use the R2D2 ultrasound machine to locate fetal heartbeats and I am working on interpreting (unofficially) fetal monitoring strips.  I, undoubtedly, have more confidence and knowledge than I did last year…but I still didn’t finish a goal.

So I changed them.

Is this cheating?

They are in the same spirit of things, but are more concrete, measurable things that can be actually (hopefully) completed in a year.

Hopefully.

I have taken to heart the ADHD book recommendations…break tasks down into reasonable steps that can be completed.  So rather than ‘Nursing school?’, I have:

– (hang on, I have to look)…register for one pre-req at the local community college, save money for this class, find out what the pre-reqs are, contact an adviser for advice, continue personally driven education with one topic a month

They’re a bit backward.  I have no problem with starting from the ground up though.  I’ll update my ‘gaols’ now and try not to be depressed that it is almost time for end of the year festivals and a possible apocalypse.

My children have learned how to brew coffee.  I am very proud.  I am also very awake now.

I feel wrong not being at work on Monday.  It’s probably time to get something done…other than enjoying pretending that I am alternatively a goth chick with a chainsaw and a waitress on roller skates (also with a chainsaw) and hacking my way through the zombie horde.  I should be able to do something more productive.  Shoo the cat off the pile of papers I have to go through, figure out what I did with my brain (I woke it up with the coffee…then it wandered off) and try to work off the carbs from this morning’s breakfast (white chocolate lemon bread bought yesterday from the farmer’s market)…

Yum.

x.