Voices In My Head

I have a metric shit-ton of work to do around here this weekend but at the moment I'm doing my best to chill out and not think about it. 

The list, if anyone is interested, includes:
Cleaning the gutters
Weeding the flower beds
Putting down fertilizer
Putting the veggie garden to bed
Cleaning out the container garden
Cleaning the house
Shopping for books on Six Sigma (business process stuff)
Doing eLearning on Business Process Management
Re-reading two functional design documents for The Project From Hell
Doing a business requirement document on Web Integration for The Project From Hell
Doing a business requirement document on ETL (data movement) for The Project From Hell

Obviously not all of that will get done this weekend.  I did the gutters and weeding last night when I got home from work.  I was thinking about doing the FDD reviews after my shower but decided to leave them for later once it became clear that I was brain dead.  How did it become clear?  I was trimming wicks before lighting the candles when I realized that I did not in fact have an ashtray in my left hand but had for some reason picked up the box with the free sample of Purina Moist & Meaty dog food that came with the paper the other day.  Considering that the box was across the kitchen on a completely different counter from the ashtray it wasn't just an honest mistake of picking up the wrong one.  At that point I figured I'd had enough for the week, ordered pizza, cracked open a beer and read through collections of the comic strip Stone Soup until I decided to go to bed at 8:30 PM. 

So far today I haven't had any obvious moments of brain fatigue although I didn't sleep well.  My dreams kept circling back to work - The Project From Hell, the Informatica training I had last week, Web Integration, etc.  A never ending loop of weird dreams where work stuff and programing concepts kept creeping in.  I lost track of how many times I woke up. 

The plan for today, if I can stop obsessing about the list above, is to let as much of that crap go as I can and just relax for a while.  Meditate for a bit.  Maybe go to the bookstore and wander around.  I might do yoga later.  The house desperately needs cleaning so I expect to lose the relaxation battle at some point and just freaking get it done.  Until then I'm trying to just forget about it. 

Slightly less than four weeks before the big vacation.  I. Can. Not. Wait.

You know how sometimes you just grab hold of a day and kick it's ass?  Yeah, today not so much.  It hasn't been a terrible day or anything but I'm cranky and the storms last night kept me awake.  Leaving me with a very short fuse.  I'm not sure how I managed to get through the day without taking someones head off.  I did lose it earlier in a meeting but not with anyone in particular and in a way that everyone else seemed to find quite enjoyable.  I guess I was the day's amusement - which doesn't really make me feel any better. 

I picked up two more projects today, both of which need to be done by the first week of July.  And both are nothing but big black holes where specs are concerned.  And a third project that I was supposed to start two days ago but just got around to today is already stalled because the zip file from the vendor is corrupted.  *sigh*  Can I give up now? 

I need to shake this mood.  I have it way better than some people - I'm healthy, I have a job, I have savings, I'm loved, I like my life.  Things most definitely do not suck.  But when I'm cranky like this it is hard to put (or keep) things in perspective.  I get cranky about having to look at cars to replace mine (lease is up in a couple months) when I should be thankful that I have the money to buy a decent car in the first place.  I get aggravated that I still need to go to the grocery store when there are people who can't afford food.  Perspective, girl.  Get some. 

So, I am going to head to the gym and spend as long on the elliptical as I possible can and try to sweat out some of this mood.