Corner of Bourbon & Division

Holy hell am I in a mood today. Probably not the best time to start posting on LJ again, but oh well.

My day started off poorly with a phone call to the SAAQ, and we all know how well Phnee reacts to being told how to live her life by bureaucrats. *stabbitykill*

Anyway, I am in a mood. Probably hormone-related, but that knowledge somehow does not make me feel better in the slightest.

I'm in a weird place, head-space-wise. I am mostly okay. The job is fine, finances are okay, cats are in good health, parents are doing well. Actually, the job is being unpleasant in one respect, but I keep putting off talking about that too. It needs to go under f-lock, because it's work, and I don't feel like dwelling on it, especially since everyone is making a mountain out of a molehill.

I'm just feeling a bit stuck. The career plan isn't going as quickly as I thought it would, which is partly my fault, and partly my being unrealistic about how much needed to go into the process. Not my fault, I just didn't have all the facts to hand. I'm currently revising my expectations. Stay tuned.

The new work schedule is good in terms of how much sleep I'm able to get now, but sucks on every other level. I don't get to see people anymore, and I miss my friends. There are people I only talk to online with whom I haven't spoken in forever, as well. This is mostly my fault, although in one case the last time we spoke it was a little unpleasant and I'm kind of worried that I've been written off and I'm too chicken to email and ask if that's the case. (Phnee is an emo princess, we get it, let's move on)

And to top it all off (and this I ascribe mostly to hormones and lack of sleep in the past few days), my cousin got married this weekend (she's a few years younger than me) and there are batches of new babies all over, and while I am thrilled for everyone, all it's doing today is reminding me that I am all alone and will probably never have children and will definitely never get married in my church according to the mysteries of my religion. The kicker? All of that is no one's doing but my own. In short, fuck me.

Right. I am off to find a ladder in order to get over myself. Carry on, nothing to see here.

So the next three days involve me and work and very little else. Joy.

I still hate November. It is kicking my ass hardcore this year, and I'm not entirely sure why. I am all paranoid and anxiety-ridden lately. It's not crippling or anything, but I would very much like it do be over and done with, THANK YOU.

On the plus side, my stomach is no longer trying to stage a military coup, and so for that I am grateful. Small mercies, and all.

12 hours of night shift.

Don't wanna.

If it's quiet, I will be writing. If not, well, who knows?

It is WEIRD not to be at work today. New schedule has started, so I only work on Wednesday this week. A two-day week, imagine. The mind boggles.

Novelling has been a hell of a slog today. So far I'm clocking in just shy of 3,000 words. Maybe I'll be able to make it to 5K by the end of the day, but maybe not. Oh well. I refuse to angst about it. I have to get over this little hangup I have about producing the same wordcount per day as I did in 2006. I think that was a one-time fluke. NaNo is a marathon, not a sprint.

Otherwise today has been spent sitting quietly with the cats. They are all sleeping, doubtless plotting nefarious evilness telepathically. No good can come of this.

I just realized that apart from one errand I'm going to run with a friend Saturday morning, I have the whole entire weekend to myself. That hasn't happened to me since... *checks agenda* July, or thereabouts.

Yeesh.

I'm going to take this as a sign. Once my errand on Saturday is done, I am going to stay home all weekend long and catch up on the quiet stuff that I haven't had a chance to get to for ages, if ever.

I need to put the garden to bed for the winter, finish putting together my shelves, and set up my new office space in the basement. Oh, and I need to do some cooking. November is right around the corner, and I'm going to need to make sure I have plenty of food to see me through the month.

I am also going to go to bed at a decent hour, watch some TV, and generally enjoy my alone time with the cats.

We're getting a new schedule in November. I've probably written about that before, not too long ago. I think the new schedule will be better for me, overall. I'll be working twelve-hour shifts, which means fewer days at the office, but longer hours. It's a trade-off. It means I'll never have the problem of having to work seven night shifts in a row, which is a HUGE bonus for me. Night shift does nothing good for me.

Near as I can figure, the pattern is as follows: three days on, two days off, two days on, two days off. I spend two weeks a month doing that pattern on day shift: 07:00 to 19:00, and two weeks on night shift: 19:00 to 07:00. It's going to take some serious adjustment, but I think I can do it. For one thing, I'm going to end up working only about half the days of the year, which is really awesome. I'm a bit worried about the two weeks' worth of night shift, but I'm told by people who've worked twelve-hour shifts before that it's way easier than seven nights in a row.

The other bonus is that every six weeks or so I'll have "earned" a day off, by virtue of having worked a few too many hours. So I'll end up with a four-day weekend roughly every month and a half, and that's without touching my vacation time at all. I've already got a pretty significant backlog of vacation time anyway, by virtue of having worked so much overtime in the past couple of years: I took all my vacations from my "banked" time rather than my annual vacation, and my bank is still pretty full.

Yet another advantage is that, unlike my current rotating schedule, which varies all the freaking time, I'll be able to time myself like a metronome. The schedule will remain fixed, with no variation at all. That means I might actually be able to get a routine going. I like routines: they make my life go much more smoothly.


For the moment, I'm stuck on the current schedule until October 30th. That means that in the meantime I have to do all the turn-of-the-season stuff while still working ridiculous shifts. I'm sure I can get most if not all of it done, but I do wish that they'd decided to start the new schedule in October.

I just got a pressure canner! I am very excited, although my enthusiasm was dampened by the *expletive deleted* extra shipping charge that got tacked on AT MY DOOR. Gnarr.

So now I have to get my act together and start canning like a mad canning thing. For one, all the tomatoes that were likely to ripen have ripened, and if I put it off much longer, then they will go bad. In fact, I should freeze 'em, so that they don't go off before I can can them. *goes to do just that* I'm not sure what to do with the rest of them. The poor Brandywines haven't ripened, and I'm not sure if I can mix the green Brandywines with the other green tomatoes in order to make chutney, but I don't see why not.

I want to start canning in larger quantities this year. I've been poking at the Bernardin book and Ball Blue Book of Canning, and with any luck I'll have a lot more homemade food this year. I want to try my hand at canning soups and stews and the like, which ought to make bringing lunches to work much easier. I hope.

Most of the plants in the garden have bolted at this point, but overall for a first attempt at a garden I'm quite pleased. I have to put everything to bed in the next few weeks, and I'm going to try to get my hands on some fertilizer to spread on all the beds for the duration of the winter. Next spring I'll put in some more, and with any luck the weather will be better and I'll have a gorgeous new crops. There's a lot of planning in my future, and, with any luck, with the new schedule at work I'll have time to implement it all.

I slept in today. Didn't get to sleep until very early this morning, which was likely the result of all the caffeine and sugar I ingested last night. Since I'm starting a night shift this week I'm not overly fussed. Flipping my sleep schedule around won't be much of a problem.

I'm finishing up the second season of Prison Break, which has resulted in some pretty intense dreams. In some ways the show is even more violent and horrific than 24, and that's saying something. I think it's probably not a coincidence that these two shows aired back-to-back on Fox.

Sometime in the next couple of days I am going to get my act together and try to get a proper routine started again. I had one going in July, but after WorldCon I never got back on track.

Starting in November, I will be starting a new work schedule, based on twelve-hour shifts. It means fewer days spent at work in a given week, but it also means that I'll be working one weekend out of two for the foreseeable future. So, good news and bad news. On the whole, though, I'm pleased about the change. It means that I'll never have to work seven days straight on a night shift anymore, for one thing, which is awesome. It also means that I'll be able to take a bit more time off, due to various administrative curly-cues. Good times.

With the new schedule in place, I'm hoping that I'll be able to get my life back into a semblance of order and productivity. Right now I feel like I've been at loose ends forever. Sure, stuff has been getting done, but not nearly at the pace I would like.

Updates as events warrant.

Three more days of night shift. Tonight, and then two twelve-hour stretches this weekend. Yechh.

I have been reasonably productive today. I did a load of laundry and hung it out to dry, which is more than I usually get done during my night shifts. Actually, this whole week has been pretty good, productivity-wise. Either I'm getting used to night shift, or else it's because there's so much extra light out there and I'm just not sleeping as much this week.

I really ought to do my dishes. Don't feel like it. :P


sandman7's concert was last night. It was charming, and sandman7 himself was great, as usual. He performed from Phantom of the Opera, Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, and Le Blues du Businessman, all of which were a pleasure. I had lots of fun, and it was great seeing everyone again. Plus, owldaughter gave me a lift to work after, which was awesome.


Now I have to have "breakfast" and get going. I have an appointment at the gym, and after that I'm due at work. Busy, busy, busy. I just wish I was less tired.

Tired!Cat is tired.

This doesn't bode well for next week, when I get to do seven night shifts in a row. Tomorrow there's a wedding, which is going to be wonderful but not exactly restful. Oh well, after next week I have time off, so it's all to the good.

My supervisor called this morning and asked me to work overtime today, and I said no. Did I mention I was tired? 'Cause I am. :P

June is right around the corner. It feels really weird to have the year be half-over already. Time keeps going by faster and faster these days. Because it'll be summer and I always have a bit more energy in summer, I have made plans to get stuff done and start some new projects. Hopefully I won't be too burnt at the end of my night shift to get anything done.

If all goes well, June will be an exercise in balancing mind, body and spirit over here at Casa!Phnee. I have a few ideas about getting in more physical exercise, including getting back up on the bike, which has been neglected of late. Then there are a couple of creative projects I'm getting all cranked up about, and of course there's the ever-present nesting thing, which hasn't abated in the slightest even though I've stopped writing about it for fear that my entire flist will lapse into a coma from boredom. ;)

The trick will be to get enough sleep and still muster all the necessary energy and motivation to start on my projects and keep going with them. One thing I'll have to avoid is the television: it's a motivation killer. So I'm going to put a moratorium on all DVDs for the month of June, which ought to help in that department. No new DVDs (bought or borrowed) will mean no New!Shiny to distract me.


On a side note, to whom have I promised correspondence?

bodhifox, sirena73, chasingthenuns... anyone else? I'm making a list. I have Plans (Capital "P") for some of the correspondence, which is getting me all cranked up about it.

Did anyone else want a letter/postcard/something? If I forgot you, or you want in, let me know and send me your mailing address via email.