So much to do, so little time

I have become a Busy Person, and I don't like it. I also don't really see a way around it for the moment. I am trying to keep a lot of plates spinning, and the net result is a lot of broken crockery and the occasional moment of juggling brilliance. Feel free to skip most of this, I'm just trying to get things down for my own records.

Here's what I've got going on, commitment-wise. (This is just for my own benefit, so that I can see it all written down.)

• Work, which is ~60 hours a week these days.
• University, starting up again after September 4th, 2 classes 1 day per week (plus readings and coursework(
• Dog training (once a week, but the new trainer I am looking at is quite far away, so we shall see about the frequency, I may try to arrange for every two weeks)
• Being the Clerk of Children's Meeting for Quaker Monthly Meeting
• Being the (temporary) clerk of Peace and Social Concerns for Quaker Monthly Meeting
• Streaming (this is on hiatus until I figure my shit out, but I really want to get back to it)

Other than my outside commitments, I still have to get my personal shit together. I am something of a human dumpster fire on the personal front these days. In no particular order, these are the personal projects I wanted to work on this year (and in general).

• De-clutter the house. The Great Marie Kondo Experiment of 2019 came to a grinding halt after I got the puppy (especially at the beginning she was NOT conducive to getting anything done beyond Pay Attention To The Puppy and basic chores), and then once that calmed down there always seemed to be a reason/excuse to not keep going. Still, my house is full of crap I don't need or even particularly want anymore.
• Related to above, get the house back into good enough condition to have people over again. I think I've already posted about the Basement of Neverending Cat Pee, and all summer I've been trying to get hold of a specialized cleaning company to come give me an estimate to rip out the basement carpet, get rid of the smell, etc. That finally happened this morning, and they are scheduled to come in on September 11th. With that in mind, I want to get rid of as many things that are taking up space in the basement as humanly possible. I have a stack of things packed into the boiler room (several stacks, if we're being accurate), and I am confident I can get rid of at least 1/3 of it all, possibly 2/3 if I am stern with myself. The cleaning people need unfettered access to the whole floor, and I don't want to just haul things upstairs and have them clutter up the house.
• Organize my clothes/laundry. I Marie Kondo'd my clothes, but still haven't got them all organized into a nice, usable system, mostly because I got distracted. So, that's on the list.
• Improve my mindfulness practice. By which I mean, remember to practice mindfulness more than once every two weeks. *rolls eyes* Ideally I'd like to do one mindfulness meditation every day, even if it's only for a few minutes.
• Walk every day. This one has been a little hit and miss, more hit than miss, but taking the dog for walks has been less effective for me than I'd like. Peggy doesn't really walk politely on leash yet, although we are working on it, which means we don't actually go very fast. Every time she pulls, we stop, so she learns that pulling won't get her places. Combine that with the natural stops she makes (to pee, sniff, and generally do dog things), and it essentially means we're going at a snail's pace. Normally I can easily walk about 5 km in roughly an hour, but now I'm lucky if I get 1 or 1.5 km in an hour with her. Is it better than no walking? Absolutely. But it's not quite where I want to be. Hopefully I will start to see more concrete results soon with the training. Ideally I'd like Peggy to become my running buddy.
• Be more present at Quaker Meeting (both physically and spiritually), especially when it comes to the Children's Meeting.
• Start living more in line with my values, which means a few things:
  • Being thriftier with my money. I have been terrible about budgeting, pretty much as a direct result of a) not managing my time properly, and b) not correctly anticipating several large expenses since May. I am trying to put money aside to buy my own place, and have the financial wriggle room to be able to afford the move, the closing costs, and not be house poor once I'm in the new house.
  • Drastically reducing the amount of waste I produce. I've been trying to limit plastics, and eliminate single-use plastics wherever I can, but I haven't been consistent about it at all.
  • Actually have people over. I enjoy entertaining, and I haven't done that much at all because of the Basement of Neverending Cat Pee. I really hope that after the work gets done, I will be able to invite people for tea or a meal without cringing in embarrassment at inflicting one of the grossest smells in the world on them.
  • Cook everything from scratch, and start making preserves/canning food again. That practice fell very much by the wayside, and I need to figure out how to carve time out of my schedule to get that done.
  • Practice self-care. I suuuuuck at that. What I'm focusing on as much as possible is sleep. There isn't enough in the world, and so I've been trying to incrementally increase the amount of sleep I've been getting. I will never, as long as I am at my current job, get an average of 8 hours a night. It's just not going to happen. 12 hour shifts guarantees I can't get all my stuff done AND get to bed in time for 8 hours, so either stuff doesn't get done or I don't sleep, and it's not like you can tell a puppy that she'll just have to wait another 8 hours to go pee and have food. That is just cruel. However, I've been aiming for 6.5-7 hours a "night" ("night" meaning "the time when I sleep," regardless of the actual time of day), and I've almost sort of got it, on average. I have lots of nights of 4-5 hours when I'm working, but when I'm not working it's more like 8-9, so it's been averaging out to about 6-6.5. Not great, as I always do much better on 9 hours of sleep, but that's a pipe dream.
  • Finding some kind of volunteer work to give back to the community. I am living a deeply selfish life, tbh, and it bothers me. I used to love working at the soup kitchen a few years ago, but had to stop because that and work was exhausting me. So I have to find a different way to give back that doesn't involve a fair bit of physical labour for 8-9 hours, especially after my night shifts. I don't have any ideas on that front yet, and am open to ideas, if people have them.

That's about it, for me. Peggy continues to be a delight, and is growing so fast she's unrecognizable from when I first brought her home.

In other news, the outside world is a shitshow. The Amazon rainforest has been ablaze for three or more weeks, and fuck-all is being done about it. Refugees and migrants are being detained in literal concentration camps in the USA. Citizens are being illegally detained without recourse primarily on the basis of their race "just in case" they're undocumented. Canadian politics are taking a hard turn to the right, and a lot of the rhetoric is scarily similar to what we're hearing from south of our borders. Racism, xenophobia, unfettered capitalism, deregulation, and catering to the one percent.

You kind of have to go out of your way to find news that isn't horrifyingly depressing. Speaking of which, there is now a cure for Ebola! Isn't that cool? That is some really nice news in the sea of shit in which we've been swimming for the past three years. I'm trying to channel Mr. Rogers and not only look for the helpers, but also to BE a helper, and it's that latter bit that so far has been my main challenge.

So, onward!