After whining my way through my last entry about gaining balance, I decided I need to pull an Oprah-style makeover of my daily life. If only I had Nate and Peter and the other experts to just come over and do it all for me ...
In the past, the first step of any makeover would have been weight loss; this time, I'm taking a new direction. I'm going to get back to reading. When I traveled a lot in my former job, I was a reading fiend and blew through stacks of books. My latest travel schedule inspired me to get back to it, and hopefully continue when my travel slows a bit.
I mentioned before that I read God Save the Fan and Eat, Pray, Love. I also recently finished When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris, Company by Max Barry and Love is a Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield.
I enjoyed them all, and now you can see how seriously behind I am in my reading stack: the Sheffield book is two years old. At least the Sedaris is new.
It feels good, as a former English major, to be reading again. Reading is absolutely helping my writing -- I write A LOT for my job and things finally seem to be falling into place after a bout of writer's block. It's probably no coincidence that I started this blog when I started reading again.
So yay, reading. Especially now that I'm reading something more challenging than Sandra Boynton board books. Although I do like the twist ending of But Not the Hippopotamus.
Showing posts with label business travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label business travel. Show all posts
Friday, May 8, 2009
Monday, May 4, 2009
A Hamster in a Wheel
I'm starting to feel like that lately: a hamster in a wheel. Going fiercely, but going nowhere - or at least not accomplishing much.
I'm headed out for another business trip, this time to Philly. While I do love biz travel (as previously documented!), between the flights and driving trips to our sales office, I'm starting to grind down. It didn't help that my trip to the sales office last week was for the purpose of dismissing one of my employees.
We've also been spending almost every weekend at my parents' house - we still have friends and activities in their 'hood, plus we like to give them lots of grandparent time with our son.
Don't get me wrong - it's great to be busy (especially in this economy), social, and family-oriented. I have a TON to be thankful for and I do appreciate what I have.
BUT.
I'm exhausted. There's no balance. I feel like a hypocrite when I read Eat, Pray, Love and find so much to relate to, especially the drive to find peace within yourself. Of course I want inner peace and balance -- but I'm doing nothing to accomplish that right now. I need a year off to hit some cool countries and Om my way to inner peace and beauty.
I know -- we're ALL busy. Quit whining. I'm really trying to. Hopefully after this trip I'll have a bit more personal time to actually get my life back in order. I just want my son to stop saying "Bye bye, Mommy!" when I'm playing with him on the weekends. I'm not going anywhere right now, bud. Sigh.
But first, I've gotta get to the airport.
I'm headed out for another business trip, this time to Philly. While I do love biz travel (as previously documented!), between the flights and driving trips to our sales office, I'm starting to grind down. It didn't help that my trip to the sales office last week was for the purpose of dismissing one of my employees.
We've also been spending almost every weekend at my parents' house - we still have friends and activities in their 'hood, plus we like to give them lots of grandparent time with our son.
Don't get me wrong - it's great to be busy (especially in this economy), social, and family-oriented. I have a TON to be thankful for and I do appreciate what I have.
BUT.
I'm exhausted. There's no balance. I feel like a hypocrite when I read Eat, Pray, Love and find so much to relate to, especially the drive to find peace within yourself. Of course I want inner peace and balance -- but I'm doing nothing to accomplish that right now. I need a year off to hit some cool countries and Om my way to inner peace and beauty.
I know -- we're ALL busy. Quit whining. I'm really trying to. Hopefully after this trip I'll have a bit more personal time to actually get my life back in order. I just want my son to stop saying "Bye bye, Mommy!" when I'm playing with him on the weekends. I'm not going anywhere right now, bud. Sigh.
But first, I've gotta get to the airport.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
At Least it Wasn't Woody Paige.
I'm reading Will Leitch's God Save the Fan and really liking it. Will is the founder of Deadspin, one of my favorite sports blogs. The book is perfect business trip reading: funny, interesting, and most importantly for my ADD tendencies, written in easily-digestible essays so I can flit in and out of the book as needed.
But his book took me to an uncomfortable place. A place I had tried to ignore for a long time.
In a few of his essays he mentions crusty old-school sportswriters and how they've brought themselves over to a variety of ESPN's shows, most notably Around the Horn. Leitch can't stand AtH and talks about how many of the panelists went from engaging (or at least half-interesting) in print to scripted, screaming banshees on TV.
I used to watch Around the Horn almost every evening - my husband likes the show and again, it had that great ADD-friendly format. The point-keeping, yelling, and Tony Reali were tangential to the whole point for me: finding out, in a nutshell, what's up with sports for the day. At some point, we stopped watching because now my son is obsessed with Yo Gabba Gabba! and now that's the way we roll with our evening programming.
So anyway I'm reading this book and something popped into my head that I had kind of forgotten - but was no less embarrassed to remember. When we used to watch AtH, I kind of sort of had a tiny crush on Tim Cowlishaw.
I KNOW.
But he was so rumpled, and he had the salt and pepper hair thing going, and he wasn't as loud as the others, and he kind of looked like your friend's rumpled and kind of cute Dad. I couldn't help it. So I'd watch AtH and while other women my age were probably liking that little slice of intern Tony R., or that nice boy J.A. Adande, I was thinking that Tim was cute. Yeah, I'm not proud of it.
But hey, in order to make myself feel better, I read the title of this post. Repeatedly.
But his book took me to an uncomfortable place. A place I had tried to ignore for a long time.
In a few of his essays he mentions crusty old-school sportswriters and how they've brought themselves over to a variety of ESPN's shows, most notably Around the Horn. Leitch can't stand AtH and talks about how many of the panelists went from engaging (or at least half-interesting) in print to scripted, screaming banshees on TV.
I used to watch Around the Horn almost every evening - my husband likes the show and again, it had that great ADD-friendly format. The point-keeping, yelling, and Tony Reali were tangential to the whole point for me: finding out, in a nutshell, what's up with sports for the day. At some point, we stopped watching because now my son is obsessed with Yo Gabba Gabba! and now that's the way we roll with our evening programming.
So anyway I'm reading this book and something popped into my head that I had kind of forgotten - but was no less embarrassed to remember. When we used to watch AtH, I kind of sort of had a tiny crush on Tim Cowlishaw.
I KNOW.
But he was so rumpled, and he had the salt and pepper hair thing going, and he wasn't as loud as the others, and he kind of looked like your friend's rumpled and kind of cute Dad. I couldn't help it. So I'd watch AtH and while other women my age were probably liking that little slice of intern Tony R., or that nice boy J.A. Adande, I was thinking that Tim was cute. Yeah, I'm not proud of it.
But hey, in order to make myself feel better, I read the title of this post. Repeatedly.
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