Work, Work, Work, and play….
It’s been a busy month and we’re quickly approaching the end; and that means getting the publications up and ready to go live on September 1st. “What publications,” you ask? Why SFRevu and Gumshoe Review.
Time usually seems to compress near the end of the month, but it seems like I had even less time than usual this month. Well, I did go to the World Science Fiction Convention in Denver. We drove and that add an extra 5 days to the trip. We had a heck of a great time and brought the laptops and wireless card. Then coming home to over a weeks worth of snail mail — that took up a lot of time. Then there was the server crash that our ISP had. Followed by a loss of data from our database of reviews and books when we found — or discovered accidentally — a bug in the interface software to the database (not our homegrown interface but another package) . That meant contacting reviewers and others and checking shelves to make sure we recovered everything that we lost from that three days between the restored backup and the day we got them restored. Whee — that was so much fun.
But it did make me think that somehow the month shrunk when I wasn’t looking. Luckily, other than a few days of feeling like a wet noodle (and about as aware of my surrounding) this has been a productive month. Just think what I could have done if I’d really had all the days rather than only about half of them to devote to what I was supposed to do. We will get the zines up on time and there’s going to be some great content but I can’t help thinking I could have done more. Three days left and about ten days of work to do in them and one of those three days has been commandeered for another purpose — which will be lots of fun but will take away from being able to tick items off my To Do list.
I keep wondering how other people budget time. Do you get stressed out when life and planning come up against chaos and the unexpected? Does opting for fun in the face of a towering mountain of work seem like a cop out or a self-destructive impulse to failure? I mean I could have turned down the fun but you can’t live for work alone now can you?
Life goes on and I had an acupuncture appointment today. So, you see, I’m all set for stress and the push to the finish line of getting the zines up on the 1st. And before you ask, I did finish the socks I was working on, I’ll get a picture up next month and I’ve got to start another pair of socks as soon as I figure out the number of stitches to fit on my feet versus the number needed for the pattern I want to use (more on that later too).