One Block Lifted

No point in pretending that these past few weeks have not been very difficult. This weekend's weather wasn't great (in fact I had to ride my bike through the hail, but I was determined to get in at least some exercise!).  It's still quite chilly out, considering it's the middle of May.  It should probably warm up this weekend, but for the moment I'm having to bundle up in the house, particularly when sitting in the back room.

I've generally been ok, but not great about doing my morning exercises (crunches and push-ups), but I missed a couple of days because I was up late and then slept in pretty late and didn't have the time to do it before I had to start working.  I've always had a running problem with insomnia, but it is much worse in this timeless time when there is so little to look forward to.  But today was a bit better.  I did squeeze in my exercises in the morning, and I made sure to change into clean clothes.  It's still chilly but warming up a bit, and I went out for a walk after work with my son just to get some fresh air.  It looks like it should warm up more by the weekend, though it might rain quite a bit over the next week.

Anyway, I generally can get a fair bit done work-wise from 8 to 7 and am only slightly worse about checking the internet.  (It's probably not the worst thing in terms of my productivity that Slate and the Chicago Tribune and the New York Times have all gotten more serious about paywalls.  I'm only willing to subscribe to the Toronto Star and I also made a donation to the Guardian UK, so basically that is where I get my news nowadays.)  But there are always a few tasks that I push off because they are just too much of a drag, and I can always find something more interesting to do.  In one case, I pushed off reviewing a couple hundred pages of documents for well over a month.  I finally got the word that this had to be wrapped up, and I stayed up quite late to finally get through it.

So that is one fairly significant mental block that has been lifted, and that also meant I felt a bit better mentally today (though still dog-tired).  I have one more administrative task that I would prefer to avoid, but this one has to be wrapped up by the end of the week, so it won't be something that hangs over my head, getting heavier every week.*  I think for the next couple of months, most of my main work tasks should be a bit more up my alley, so I suppose that is something to be looking forward to.  Here's hoping anyway.


* I did manage to get this out the door as well, though it wasn't until about 7 pm.  Still one less thing to be fretting about.  I have a lot still on my plate, but most of it is intellectually interesting, so that helps a great deal, no question.