One of the major issues I’ve had lately is finding a balance between work and ‘play’. I don’t knit nearly enough for the stash that’s the size of the one that I have, and worse than that, right now I’m just too tired to enjoy reading on my Kindle.

Last week really highlighted now bad it was getting – I was up three times in the space of ten days either all the way overnight, or till at least 3am. Augmenting that disturbed sleep pattern was the fact that I was taking Oxynorm on a regular basis (Vicodin) because my side and stomach, all the way down into other regions were hurting badly. I stopped the painkillers about 4 days ago, and spent most of the last four days either in a daze or unable to sleep properly. Not good, basically.

But, I took the weekend off – a long weekend at that, so I could catch up on some of the stuff I’ve wanted to get on with for the last few weeks/month – and because my lovely fiancée decided to set up an extra monitor upstairs to make it easier to write and work (though, I’m writing this on my laptop still, because I still prefer this keyboard for now. Typical, huh?) and to reexamine my priorities.

I finish Uni permanently in July. My graduation ceremony is in November, which means technically, in less than three weeks time, I’m going to have 20 hours – or so – of study time back in my pot of ‘time’. Which has been bled dry these past few months, it has to be said.
But this weekend, I was entirely ‘off’. Friday was spent mostly cleaning out old short story snippets, and working through the heavy thinking that I’ve had to get done to work out ‘where next’. Saturday was a mix of the once monthly deep housecleaning I get up to because I’m ittitated by the piles of kids stuff all over the house, and seeing my younger brother, who stopped by for a visit, and Sunday was this indolent day where I caught up on reading, reorganised my tbr piles into something a bit more equitable, and sorted out the last of the cleaning ‘stuff’ I wanted to do. All of it accomplished while spending more time downstairs with the kids, knitthing and generally relaxing.
The truth of the matter is I have an amazing job as a full-time SEO copywriter with Apple Copywriting. The owner of the company gives me plenty to do and likes to shake things up for me once in a while, and while I’m certain I’m doing ok, I could be doing better, but not while I’m feeling this burnt out and irritated with the slightest wrinkle. It’s not – really – helping that I’m a full-time moderator on about 12-15 writer’s groups now (three are one week on, one week off).
So. I now have plans. My plans are still at least predicated on working with other writers for a bit, and keeping up mostly full-time copywriting work, but I have an idea, and I’m getting there, slowly. As for what they are?
Watch this space!

Kai

Kai is a writer, author and avid reader.  A mental health advocate, Ludosport athlete and coder. She’s the mother of two young adults, owned by two cats, and lives with her beloved in the Cotswolds.