I took a random day off of work this week. It wasn't something I planned far in advance, but it was definitely something that I needed. Even though I didn't really get any extra sleep thanks to the Lena's bladder schedule, it was still a very restful time. We went for an extra long walk, vacuumed the house, finished homework and washed some sheets. By my standards, that is quite productive.
My real purpose for this day of rest is because I often find that my weekends are increasingly without them these days. For example, this weekend I have school from 5 to 10 p.m. on Friday, school from noon to 5 p.m. on Saturday, and then I am going to lunch and a chocolate-tasting/arts benefit on Sunday. Oh, and Lena has her first grooming appointment on Saturday morning. I almost forgot - my parents are going out of town on Saturday, so I will be in charge of the entire herd of dogs (at least when I'm not at school). All in all, it's a lot to complete and I highly doubt that I will emerge from the weekend feeling fully rested.
But such is life, right? I can hardly believe that a year from now that I could possibly be doing something completely different, but the reality is that this is a distinct likelihood. In fact, if I'm NOT doing something different in a year, I am going to be very disappointed.
Why? Well, if all goes according to plan, I will be graduating from my grad school program in December of this year. In order to do this within this time frame, I must take one summer course and two more classes in the fall. While this isn't exactly pleasant (I would love to just take my summer off), I really would prefer to be done as soon as possible. In case you haven't noticed, the job market is a bit uneven nowadays, and I am anticipating that my career change may take some time and patience.
On a different note, I have suddenly realized that I have been proven wrong in a recent assumption. Last May, one of my close high school friends got married. While she is certainly not the very last person from my graduating class to wed, of the good friends I have kept in touch with since high school, she is the only one (except for me) who was left. For some reason, I thought that this wedding signified the end of my major wedding-attending days.
It's almost funny to say, but I have more weddings this summer than I have ever had in any summer (or year) before. In fact, I actually have three weekends in a row of weddings starting in mid-August. They're all for different groups of people, so there will not be much by way of overlap (except for me and my parents). Of course there is always the faint possibility that I will have a date to bring by that time... or not. Unless my mom kicks her matchmaker schtick into high gear before that time.
Which reminds me - my mother is going to bite the bullet and take her big test to become a legal/legit/certified counselor this summer. This means that she will/should be studying in her free time. Why is this a big deal? Well, if all had gone to plan and our lives hadn't been twisted and turned around by my brother's sudden death in 2007, she would have taken it then. About a year later, she decided to get back on the horse and signed up to take it. Then fate decided to take another peculiar and painful turn and she fell on the ice and had some pretty major head trauma to deal with.
Now that we have gone a couple of years without any more major catastrophes, she is going to do it. Of course, I am very proud of her and I'd love to take credit for being the big source of encouragement and the impetus for change, but I think that it really comes down to the fact that she started working at a coffee shop and now realizes that she wants a different type of career. She does have her master's degree, after all. So perhaps there will be TWO major career changes in my family over the next year.
This has been a very disjointed entry and I sense that I have not been quite as funny or entertaining as I would have hoped. But when your major conversations of the past 24 hours have been with a 14 pound Rat Terrier/Papillon mix, it's hard to share humorous conversations. Lena might have something to say about that, but I'll get back to that later.
No comments:
Post a Comment