Last night after a long work week I ignored all the grown up responsibilities and kicked it on the sofa with the cat and watched The Italian Job while the kids are off with their dad for the long weekend.
Today I made up for last night.
All three bathrooms fully cleaned top to bottom. Also the kitchen, dishes, appliances, cabinets done. All floors vacuumed and steam mopped. Stair handrails and windowsills washed. Aquarium fully cleaned. Five loads of laundry washed, folded, and put away. All three beds stripped and re-made. Trash and recycling taken out. I even opened a bunch of mail, paid bills, and designed a custom desk for the new house that will be ergonomically better than what I'm using now, and will only cost me $250 in materials.
No wonder I'm tired. But I have to admit I am feeling pretty damn accomplished. Tomorrow I tackle sorting and inventorying the charity stuff in the garage. About 15 garbage bags of children's outgrown clothing. Ugh. Ozomatli and Pentatonix helped keep me motivated today, hopefully I can keep the momentum going tomorrow with the help of more upbeat tunes.
Helping my productivity... I'm a week into dropping off of Facebook, though I still haven't broken the habit of reaching for my phone to check what is going on or to post some trivial status or lyric. I've complained about Facebook several times before, both about how it fosters empty calorie style communication and about its lack of privacy. Lately I'd been bitching about the UI and how they kept reverting to "Top Stories" despite the fact that I keep reconfiguring my settings to "Most Recent". I even logged a bug even though I don't believe Facebook gives a damn about how annoying they are so long as they are profitable. As I was logging the bug I decided that continuing to complain was ridiculous. I have many times been a sympathetic listener to friends who were complaining about one thing or another... and years later still been complaining about the exact same thing without having done anything material to change it.
Embrace it or change it.
But one way or another, stop bitching about it.
So I took my own advice. I deleted the Facebook app on my phone and only check FB once a day (or less) on a PC now. Sometimes I don't even read my news feed, I just check messages and notifications. I'm doing more texting and phone calls to friends and family. Right now I'm feeling pretty disconnected from a lot of my friends and family, but I am also aware that experiencing an almost entirely virtual social life was preventing me from having a real social life. I'm optimistic that when I get through this transitionary period and settled in the new house next month, I'll have a less gadget focused life that is fairly devoid of actual social engagement with people. Part of my 2014 lifeplan is investing in me and my local social connections (i.e. making friends). Based on the last week I have a hunch that eliminating social media will actually improve my social life. Huh. I have to admit, I did not see that coming.
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