I know the heart of life is good

I was trying to think of a word to describe how I'm feeling - busy, too much to do, over-stressed, but yet feeling something that isn't exactly "everything for the best in this best of all possible worlds" optimism, but is a certainty that things are going to be OK. Then I remembered this song.

Sabbath

I seem to be getting into a habit of writing these blog posts on the bus to work - hence the lack of links or pictures - basically because it's free time with an internet connection. The fact that I don't seem to have time during the rest of the day struck me particularly this morning, because I was already thinking about Sabbath.
My Bible reading this morning was the passage in Exodus containing the 10 Commandments. Now it doesn't matter if you think that the 10 Commandments are the actual words of God, or if you think they're a Bronze Age social code with a tag saying 'And by the way God says this, so you'd better do as you're told'; the point is the same: a day of rest is not recommended, but mandated.
I don't keep this commandment. Over the years I've broken them all except for one, but right now the issue for me is that I don't have sanctioned, agreed, planned-for downtime. Instead what I have is a never-ending to-do list, and hours or days when I think 'I'm too tired, I can't be bothered, I've had enough of this,' and I then do what should be leisure activities while feeling guilty for wasting time.
Of course this isn't good, and I know I should make a change, give myself permission to chill out, even plan a deliberate Sabbath, but the truth is that even thinking about it makes me begin to panic that I have too much to do and not enough time. Planned rest may be such a good idea that ancient societies (or even God) said we should do it, but there are too many things I've got to get done.

All work and no play (well, panto)

The last couple of nights I've woken up worrying about the panto - nothing major going wrong, but I'm very aware that there's a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff that needs to happen, and that it's down to me to make sure it does. Unfortunately at the moment I seem to be pretty bad at prioritising my time, so that I never get past the 'Urgent do it NOW' stuff that keeps the household running, and the 'Important do it soon' stuff gets put off again and again and again...

Real life

For the last week I've been meaning to post something about how astonishingly busy I've been. I expect it would have been a lighthearted look at how many different things I'd been involved with, with a serious undercurrent to make the reader think "Hey, this guy really is incredibly busy."

Unfortunately I haven't. And the not very lighthearted reason is that I've been busy, tired, and procrastinating. When I used to be employed full time - especially in the months before the NHS and I parted company - I imagined what life would be like when I was having to do all kinds of things to try and raise money/get people off our backs about debts. In my imagination I would get up early, work hard all day, and then when evening came and my loving wife and family beckoned me to come sit with them and maybe watch a movie, I'd ruefully but resolutely smile and explain that no, I had some more work to do.

Reality (as is often the case) is somewhat different. Yes, I do get up early. Yes, I try and work hard to get some money. But I don't work hard enough or for long enough to get sufficient money to stop the graph on the household budget looking like the advanced slopes at St Moritz. Because in real life there are lots of other things that need doing, where a smiling refusal doesn't make any difference. And come the evening, frankly I'm so exhausted that I've hit the settee before you can say "Why don't you come and sit down?"

Part of wanting to be a writer is the discipline of writing when I don't want to, or when I'm tired, or when there's too much else on. This blog ought to have daily entries, except in extremely unusual circumstances. Right now, I need to get my act together.

Hello again

One of the (several) things that I was going to do today but didn't get around to was giving this blog a bit of a makeover in preparation for starting a more regular posting schedule again. Unfortunately, as so often happens, life got in the way (in this case, my phone started playing up - freezing, saying I had texts but not displaying them, etc.) so I've spent the time that was earmarked for blog renovation trying to avoid doing a hard reset and then doing it anyway. But I decided that I'd get a quick post on here anyway, even if it's only this.