Reorganizing my life...

Seems like I tend to live in chaos every day.  The only real structure is getting up, tending to the dogs' needs, going to work, coming home to tend to the dogs' needs, cook/get dinner, then bed.  By the time I get home at night, I am so worn out that even now, I no longer want to work/play on the computer.  I have movies/games that I haven't even taken out of the shrink wrap.

The whole thing disgusts me to no end.  I know it is an unhealthy way to live because it is the constant stress.  Now, I love my dogs - more than anything in life.  They bring me such joy, but can also be a real hassle.  That is why I tend to compare them to children.  Most people will tell you how much joy their children bring to them, but there is always that "dark side" they never tell single people. 

My plan for this past week and half from work was to "clean."  Due to issues out of my own control, I spent a good deal of time "working", rather than "cleaning."  I need to sort out how to address those work issues and make sure that this never happens again.

I did make it a point to make sure to get as much laundry done as I possibly could.  Right now, I have loads and loads of laundry folded on my dining room table and in various small plastic baskets.  Today, I plan on putting away that laundry.  I also plan on cleaning up my two bathrooms, utility room, and kitchen.  I will leave the living room, "office area", and my bedroom for this coming weekend.

More importantly, I need to design a schedule that will get me into making sure the place stays clean.  I know I let a lot of stuff go when my mother became ill and needed someone to help take care of her and the house.  Also, I put myself into a deep depression when she passed away.  It is difficult to conceive how much one can miss just the daily phone call to talk.  I knew she would always be there for me and now, she is gone.  It was more than I could really take, I suppose.  It is not her fault that there are so many unanswered questions regarding her health and some of the strange and cruel things that occurred.  Still, there was so much pain.

At this point, I am working on shedding my financial burdens.  I was able to cut my current debt in half and actually see some light at the end of the tunnel.  I only charge if it is an emergency.  So, for that area, I am starting to feel better about myself.

Health wise - I am a total disaster.  I spent the past month suffering through bouts of allergy attacks and some sort of infection caused by the attacks.  It pisses me off to use everything on the market and get no relief.  However, now, I am suffering with some sort of knee problem.  I think we all know the right way to cure that problem - drop weight.  I suppose, I will try to start off with some low impact exercises and try to build up from there.  I know I will never be model thin, but I no longer care about that.  I want to lose weight and be healthy.  Also, be able to go to Six Flags for a day of pure fun.

Maybe I cannot do it all in one day, but I can try to do a little bit at a time.

Melissa's work is never done...

Oddly enough, that seems to be the story of my life.  I manage to get some things done, but a majority time, I have projects that are constantly "works in progress" and takes time to get back around to completing.  The most frustrating part of all of this is either becoming ill, dealing with the dogs, and work.  There is very little "me" time and the sick part of it - I actually want to get these things completed.

Right now, I am trying to reorganize myself and my time.  I see things that take more time than they should and I want to locate ways of streamlining those tasks.  One such task is doing my weekly status report.  On a daily basis, I get over 400+ emails.  It is a daunting task to go through all of that just to put together "everything I did this week and here are my projects."  I found a couple of applications that I am going to try out to help me out.

First, Task Coach.  I came upon that when I was running my Fedora Core 14 instance.  I found that there is a Windows version as well as a portable version that I can put on my portable drive.  I downloaded the Windows version and started playing around with it.  I think that might help a lot with the projects and such at work.  The nice part is I may be able to copy and paste a lot of that I put in Task Coach and place into the group's status report format.

For my summer continuing education courses, I have started setting up MS OneNote.  I have played around with OneNote, but really have not put any "effort" into using it.  I am also toying around with the idea of setting up a "Health Notebook" to keep up with my diabetes and track what I eat.

Right now, I am trying to work on my most major of projects - cleaning my apartment.  Talk about an overwhelming task.  I was doing pretty well with keeping the place clean on the weekends, but "life" got in the way.  Now, I am trying to do what I can to straighten up and make it less messy.  Wish me well - I know I won't get it completed as I spent most of my time being ill or having to check on work issues.  However, I am going to give it a damn good try.  Maybe, when my father comes to visit, he will notice a difference.

Talk about letting go...

Since my last post, I basically threw everything out the door.  Version releases are always bad times and large ones are even worse.  Needless to say, I never recovered from the BS.  To compound matters, I got a serious dose of allergies and tried to shake it off, but could never get any down time.  I need to figure out what to do about that.  I need to be able to get some rest.  That part is important.

For some reason, I have the weekend blues and that should not be the case.  I took a week and half off from work.  I hope to get some cleaning done this week.  I had plans on getting stuff done during the half week, but work seemed to have other ideas. 

Now, I am trying to get my mind back into eating properly.  I need to do this for me and I just do not see the motivation to do it.  That for me is such a downer.  It is a horrible feeling to feel that low.  There is so much I can see myself doing, but my energy levels are so low.  Maybe I just have left myself get overwhelmed too much.  I would hope that is the case.  I am trying to take a step back and re-evaluate.  Maybe this time off from work will help me figure it out.