Filling the Advent Calendar: A Metaphor For Managing a Busy Life

3 years ago, I bought an adorable Advent Calendar from Pottery Barn. 

Paul opening the first drawer in 2020.

It was a way to add some more excitement to the season of Advent. Each drawer is filled with 3 m&ms, and then every 1-3 days there is a slip of paper in the drawer that says "pick a present." The presents are a Christmas-themed book. 

December 1st came very fast this year. Last weekend was filled to the brim with activities, and last week was a very busy week with several evening commitments. I got home for book club at 9:30 on Wednesday. As a reminder, I usually turn my lights off at 9:30. So getting home at 9:30 is like getting home as 11pm for a more normal person who doesn't keep the hours of a senior citizen. 

The thought of filling the whole Advent calendar was so unappealing. So what did I do? I just filled the drawer for day 1. I did not need to fill the whole calendar because those drawers won't be opened for some time. The next day was busy, too, so I filled day 2 on the night of day 1. Luckily, I had wrapped all the presents 2 weekends ago so the biggest tasks was already done.  

It made me think - how often are we putting pressure on ourselves to do the equivalent of filling an Advent Calendar in one fell swoop, when we can just tackle a day at a time? I think many of us do this quite often. Or we think about alll the tasks that need to be done over a span of a month - like the busy winter holiday season - but much of the tasks don't need to be done at the same time or on one day.

This is the mindset I'm taking as we enter the busy holiday season. December is kind of nutty for us. I travel Tues-Thur of this week, have book club Friday, and then we drive the boys to my parents lake home on Saturday. We'll spend the night there, come back on Sunday, and fly to Mexico on Monday morning. We get back from Mexico on Friday, go to the lake on Saturday, have an early Christmas with my parents, and come back on Sunday. I have surgery on Tuesday, December 20th, and then we'll celebrate Christmas days later. 

That's a lot of coming and going and disruption to schedules. But I'm living life one week at a time, just as I filled the Advent calendar a day at a time - until I had time to fill more drawers on a quiet Friday afternoon. I'm not reading/absorbing the pre-op instructions for my surgery on the 20th. That can wait until Monday, December 19th. I'm not thinking too much about what I'll serve for our small family gathering on Christmas Day or what I'll buy for the dice game we play on Christmas. I'm trusting that my future self will figure it out - my present self doesn't need to worry about it now. 

What do you think? Do you have a tendency to let the cumulation of multiple tasks/commitments in the future get to you when it's not today's problem to solve? I am very much a planner, so this can happen for me but I'm learning to not look so far into the future! 

Making Adjustments

Happy Wednesday!  Today is more of a "Thursday" for me because tomorrow is my "Friday" since I have Friday off in recognition of Veteran's Day.  This week is a-flying by.

I had an appointment with an ENT (Ear Nose & Throat doctor) on Monday.  That pesky sinus infection just refuses to go away.  I have been sick, off and on, since the last week of September.  This time I am going on a significantly stronger antibiotic for 2 weeks, and the doctor is confident it will do the trick - and I am, too.

As I said in a previous post, I think part of the reason I keep getting sick is because I am just plain worn down.  My life has been very full lately - and I am not complaining. I feel lucky to have been able to do and see as much as I have done and seen in the last 3-4 months. 

But I need to start listening to my body.  And that meant making some adjustments.  One is a situational adjustment and I don't know that the others will be permanent, but for now, they are changes I need to make so I can get back to full health!!

• Cancelling a trip.  It pained me to do this, but I ended up cancelling my trip to Des Moines to see Amber.  We had plans to see Wicked and I had already bought my ticket to the show...  But I looked at my calendar and knew that yet another out-of-town trip was probably not the best thing for me right now. I felt horrible backing out of this as I was so excited to see Amber, take in a musical, and check out more of Des Moines. 
• New bed time.  For months, I had been going to bed at 10-10:30 and getting up at 5:15-5:30.  Which meant I was getting 7-7.5 hours of sleep a night.  I know that is enough for some people, but it is not enough for me.  Now I force myself to shut the lights off at 9 pm each nights so that I can get at least 8 hours of sleep.  It has really helped!
• Social Butterfly Sabbatical.  After having only 2-3 free nights in the months of August, September, and October, I decided to cut way back on the planning for awhile and to leave some week nights free.  I have taken it to the extreme right now and rarely have social plans on week nights - I expect that to change in December, but right now, it is working really well for me.  I really enjoy having most week nights to myself.  I've been running, catching up on some knitting projects, and playing piano. 

I am a work in progress and am still figuring out what my limits are in terms of scheduling and hours of sleep. Again, I want to stress that this is not a 'woe is me' post.  I really, really love my life and enjoy having a full schedule!  I just need to take a step back right now and take a bit more time to myself!

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That said, I am excited to announce that tomorrow I kick off my Ten Days of Thanksgiving post series!  It's hard to believe it's already that time of year!  I am excited to spend 10 days focusing on the things in my life that I am thankful for!

On Being Back

A couple of Fridays ago, the weather was cold enough to warrant the wearing of a winter jacket.  I scanned my collection of coats, picked the least dreary one, and headed out the door.  As I waited for my bus, I put my hands in my pockets to shield them from the cold wind. 

My left hand closed around a small piece of paper.  I pulled it out of my pocket to see what it was and found that it was the metro ticket from my return trip to the Paris airport.  Truthfully, my heart sort of sunk at bit as I pulled it out my pocket and looked at it.  Yes, I smile when I think of that trip, but I can't say I really smile all that much about being back in Minnesota.

This post has been brewing in my mind for awhile now.  It's been over 2 months since I returned from Paris and I keep waiting for the post-vacation blues to fade away.  It sure doesn't help that this has been an especially cold/dreary spring.  Spring is slowly making it's appearance, but it's taking it's sweet time.

I fully realize that my week in Paris does not = reality.  Living there would be much different than vacationing there.  I understand this.  I am not trying to figure out a way to move to Paris - I know that is not realistic or feasible at this time (hello, I do not speak French, that would be a bit of a problem).  So instead of fixating on Paris, I have asked myself this:  Aside from being in a beautiful, charming city, what did I love about that week in Paris?
 
The answer is this: I loved not driving.  I loved taking the metro everywhere. I loved going out to dinner and walking home afterwards. I loved shopping at the outdoor market and in smaller format grocery stores with 4 aisles instead of supermarkets with 10 aisles and a ridiculous assortment of processed foods.

So over the past 2 months, I've pondered changes I could make so that my lifestyle would be more similar to that week in Paris.  Here are some of the options I've mulled over, with differing levels of risk/change. 

Short-term Option:  Rent out my condo and move into an apartment downtown.  I am sure some people read that sentence and think:  Way to move backwards in life.  But here is the thing - I HATE LIVING IN SUBURBIA.  Hate it.  When I bought my condo 6 years ago, I NEVER thought I'd still be here.  I thought I'd live here for 3-5 years, build up some equity, and move on.  Then the real estate market crashed and I am now stuck with a condo worth less than 1/2 of what I paid for it.  I'm stuck with this place for now, but it doesn't mean I necessarily have to be stuck living here.  By moving downtown, I could walk to work (and say good bye to my 1.5 hour round trip commute to work).  I could dine out and walk home.  I'd have access to a lot of great running trails.  It would be easy to walk to a coffee shop and study for the CFA.  Right now I do almost all of my studying at my kitchen table, so I spent A LOT of time alone in an empty condo

Longer Term Option:  Look into moving to a larger city in the US, such as Chicago.  I need to establish some stability on my resume, so this isn't something I could do in the near future.  But in ~2 years, if my attitude about living in Minnesota has not changed, maybe it is time to move.  Especially if I am still single.  Trust me when I say Minneapolis is NOT a great place to live as a single person in your 30s.  If I moved to a larger city, I wouldn't feel like such a pariah.  And I could possibly get rid of my car and rely on public transportation (or at least drive it very rarely).  Of course, the possibility of this move assumes I can find a job, but I guess I will cross that bridge when/if I get to it.  Chicago is a viable option since I have a brother in the Chicago area, there are cheap flights to Minneapolis so visiting family would be easy/affordable, and my employer has a sales office there so I could possibly work out of that office.  Oh and Nora would be a relatively short drive away.  Lastly, Chicago has a really strong running culture, so by joining a running club, I could probably make friends somewhat easily. 

We'll see what the future holds for me.  I don't plan on making any quick/rash decisions.  I do feel a little better listing out my options, though - it gives me more of a feeling of control.  One of my pet peeves is when people complain and complain about something in their life, but do nothing about it.  I refuse to be one of those people.

Have you ever reached a point of your life where you recognized that you need to make a change in order to be more happy? 

These days...

These days, my life is feeling very full. I'm spending time with family. I am meeting new people. I am being challenged at work. I am tapering in preparation for the marathon.

A full life means that I am not home very often. I look around my little shoe box condo and wonder how it is possible that it is so disorganized when I am home so little. I feel a tad bit guilty when I choose coffee with a friend over an afternoon spent cleaning.

But then I read this little passage by one of my favorite authors, Mary Anne Radmacher, and I feel a little bit less guilty...

"chances are... forever is... sitting outside my door. why am i doing the dishes? days speedily tick past, my future, in, pours from this pen of today, written with apparent ease. a precious vapor disappears. in the clearing of it i shall see that i am aged. i shall wonder how i could have dedicated so many days to the pursuit of nonessential things. what of all those days can i recall? as i learn to embrace the gray and the wrinkle, i open the door to chance. i whisper to forever, "let's now go dance and leave the dishes for later."

I am a bit behind right now. I'm behind on cleaning my condo. I'm behind on projects I want to tackle this fall. I'm behind on reading. I fall into bed each night feeling exhausted - but very fulfilled.

My life is full right now and I know that when I look back, I won't regret the fact that my condo isn't spotless. I will be glad that I let things slide a bit so I can do the things I really enjoy and see the people that I love to be around.

Do you ever feel guilty when you let certain responsibilities slide a little bit?

Lessons Learned

While the last couple of weeks have been difficult, I have also learned some valuable lessons. I know that we grow the most when we are challenged - and I have definitely been challenged.

As much as I wanted to summon "Chicken Little," crawl under my covers, and proclaim, "The sky is falling, the sky is falling," - I knew that would not do any good. Plus no one would hear me. I live alone after all!

Instead I got out of bed each morning, put one foot in front of the other, and started working on re-shaping my life into the kind of life that would be more fulfilling. The kind of life that would make me more happy. I called my mom every day for a daily dose of her 'you can do this' medicine, and picked the pieces up and put my life back together.

These are some of the lessons I have learned, which I would like to share with you. Maybe some day you will find yourself in a similar position - although I hope that is not the case. Plus, it will be helpful for me to have them written down so I can come back to this post and read these lessons when I am questioning whether I have made the right decision.

Here is what I have learned over the last few weeks:

1. It's not all about the Benjamins. Puff Daddy, you wrote a clever song, but I do not agree. Life is not all about money. I made a very healthy salary at my previous job, but I had no life. I did not see my friends very often. I did not call my mom and dad very often. I did not even really have time to spend the money I was making. I will be taking a sizable pay cut when I go back to my former employer - but I am regaining my life. And my sanity. And my happiness. And you can not put a price tag on those things!

2. What you do does not define you. Just as it is dangerous to place your worth in your relationship status, it is also dangerous to place your worth in your job. Because jobs can come and go. And while it is important to find a job that challenges you and is satisfying, it's not the only thing or even the main thing that should define you. We are are so much more than the jobs we do. People will not love me more or less based on what I do for a living - and if they do, they are not the kind of people I should have in my life.

3. Never burn bridges. I really learned the value of this lesson. I was able to secure a position at my former employer because of the connections I maintained after leaving the company. I am actually returning to a department that I left 3 years ago. Over the last 3 years, I have maintained the relationships with my managers; now I am reaping the benefits of the relationships I have fostered.

Have you ever gone through something similar - an experience that is very difficult but teaches you so much about yourself? What lessons did you learn?

Starting a New Chapter

"There are chapters in every life which are seldom read and certainly not aloud."

~ Carol Shields, Pulitzer Prize-winning author

Greeting readers. After a two week reprieve from blogging, I am ready to return to the interwebs.

That quote above perfectly sums up how I have felt about the last couple of weeks of my life. It's been a tough two weeks (and will probably continue to be tough for an undefined amount of time).

Truth be told, it's been a tough five to six months. When I started my new job back in October, I slowly morphed from this calm, confident woman to a woman that was virtually unrecognizable. No matter how much I tried, I simply could not find my way back to my old self.

I tried, and I tried, and I tried to succeed in this job, working as many as 80+ hours in a week. Sleeping 3-4 hours a night, due to a combination of working so many hours and being awakened by bad dreams. Or I would awake in the middle of the night, start thinking about a model I was working on and how I could revamp it, and I could not return to sleep.

I was miserable. Simply miserable.

Life is too short to be so miserable. To worry so much about work. To be treated like I was by some of the managers.

A comment made by Nilsa of SoMi Speaks on this post really struck me:

In a lot of ways, jobs are like relationships. Something attracted each of you to each other... and you have to figure out if going through rough patches are worth it in the long run.

I determined that this rough patch I was going through had no end in sight - at least not in the foreseeable future. We simply were not compatible - nor would we ever be.

So I made the decision to leave that company.

Once my background check goes through, I will be returning to my former employer.

Over the last 2 weeks, I have learned about humility. And frugality. And the unconditional love of family and friends. I am blessed with so many cheerleaders - family and friends who have believed in me when I couldn't and didn't believe in myself.

I'm focusing on this quote that one of my best friends sent to me (she finds the best quotes, most inspirational quotes).

It sure feels good to be back, dear readers!