the work/life balance

... still working on that one. the plan is to work efficiently in the day and leave evenings for play. if only things worked the way they should. or work was a little more sympathetic to my plight.

last weekend was spent in bed with a cold but i do learn from experience. this time i dosed myself with cold medication and limited the damage to 3 days! i even managed to catch up on work and do some chores.

Valentine's came and went. We celebrated on Saturday; Lunch out was yummy followed by The History Boys at WY Playhouse.

We must be getting jaded; we didn't exchange cards this year - at least we remembered not to forget to celebrate love.

listening to: Even though

that's just the way it goes

Saying, "Knitting keeps me sane." probably comes across as a cliché but it's true. I know I'm not alone in this regard. 

In any case, the message boards on Ravelry let me know that I am not alone. Chances are that whatever feelings one is experiencing, whatever one is going through is being (or has been) experienced by someone else - at times to a much worse extent. 

As if to reinforce this belief, I stumbled upon the following during a low;

"My institution’s mental health department claims 80% of grad students wind up there at some time or another during graduate school. You are not alone! And I think everyone always feels like the dumbest person in their department. When I was considering dropping out I was sitting in my pastor’s office talking to him about it. Our church is right across the street from the University and he’s had a congregation that was at least 50% Yale-affiliated for the past 16 years. When I told him I was sure I was the dumbest person in the whole city and they made a mistake letting me in, he told me that I was easily the hundredth person to sit in that same chair and tell him that. He hears it every year, from multiple people, and disconcertingly often in February and March. They’re just hopeless months for many. You aren’t the dumbest one around and even if you are, you’re just surrounding yourself with people who are helping you become better, so you can’t be terribly dumb? No one gets as far in a program as you have by dumb luck. No one."

Then there followed replies. Replies in which people posted about best friends and family members passing away, and how they coped with those losses; some wrote about getting through life-altering illnesses, losing their homes, livelihoods and a lot more than any one person should have to deal with.

Perhaps I've been crying over having no shoes while some have no feet.