Resolution Status

You may remember my semi-resolution resolution of cutting down on the unpaid overtime. As I left today I decided to count up exactly how I did being that it is the last work day of the month. This is not as difficult as one may think becuase I've gotten into the habit of writing down my hours in my planner at the end fo the day. This dates back to my initial months with DNR when I was hired after thinking I wasn't going to have a job until the end of the summer and therefore planning 3 vacations in 3 months. This didn't bode well for someone who has zero annual leave hours, so Phil had me work some extra hours while I was in SC and keep track of my hours. Eventually I would catch up to the hours I should have worked by that point and I would be all set. It took me about 4 months to do that, so by the time I did I was used to writing down my hours at the end of the day and figured I would keep doing it for purposes of justifying leaving early on Fridays if I was going somewhere on the weekend.

As I mentioned in my earlier post that whole 'using extra time to justify taking time off' hasn't really worked out becuase there is no way on earth I can do my job to my satisfaction in the number of hours that I'm technically supposed to work that day. Shut up, I'm an over-achiever and I've made peace with it - just like I made peace with the double digit pants sizes and now I feel much better about myself. But I digress.

So I determined that I succeeded in keeping overtime down to 15 hours over the course of the month, which is quite commendable for an overtime junkie (reference my reasons for being such if you are confused why I don't just stop cold turkey). I have yet to determine whether this is actually cutting down on my stress level - so far I don't believe it is. It is improving my time to do other such things, which was the main reason for doing this. I've restarted the quilt, played ball with Kaylinn multiple times throughout the week, and gotten 5 spreads of my scrapbook done. Overall I think it's been a success. I am a wee-bit concerned about February, however. I have two events, plus I'm facilitating a meeting for fisheries and helping along the process to develop key messages for the section. I just keep reminding myself - baby steps...

the pupster playing ball - I tried for 5 minutes to capture how incredibly happy she is playing ball, and finally settled on this. it still doesn't fully capture it, but it's a start

the quilt restart - I forgot how much I liked the fabric on this

one of the pages - yes I realize it's Christmas pictures...and it's from 2007 - just proof that I need to make more time for doing things I enjoy!