So Much To Do, So Little Time!

There never seems to be enough time in life to accomplish all the things that we want to accomplish.  Whether they are big or small it forever seems that there are goals on our to-do's lists that seem to be difficult to complete.  When a vacation is added to the mix the ability to stay on top of things seems to get even worse.  So much so that often we feel more stress returning from a vacation than when we left.  There is no thought in my mind that I would have ever traded our vacation to Iceland for anything.  But there are a lot of things to catch upon given we were gone for 10 days.   Today's blog post is about all those things that have occurred and have been added to my to-do list.  In most cases all of these have been very good, so in fact there isn't a bit of complaint from me.  I just hope I can get caught up on everything sooner than later.

The biggest thing I have to do is of a personal sort.  The day that we left for Iceland I got final clearance from my surgeon to resume all my normal activities.  There is a full course of physical therapy that I need to go through over the next 2 months.  However I am allowed to start getting back to my normal activities like hiking, biking and going to the gym.  A slow start to all these things is very important as my back is still definitely healing.  On a day-to-day basis the level of pain I am experiencing is still pretty significant.   It takes a good part of the morning for the pain to finally subside after I have taken 4 Advil pills.  The week before we left on vacation I purchased an inversion table and also seems to be helping the pain.  Regardless of the pain, I am going to go full-steam into my physical therapy and resume my full active life!

Work on our kitchen has continued while we were gone.  It is definitely taking longer than expected as we are now into the 3^rd month of the reconstruction.  But there is light at the end of the tunnel as all the structural work is done, the cabinets and granite have been installed and final carpentry is taking place now.  With any luck all the work will be wrapped up within the next 1.5 to 2 weeks.  It is starting to look awesome!  Can’t wait to share the pictures of the completed kitchen as I am really in awe at what has been created.  I know I have spent too much on it, but every time I had to choose a kind of material or make some kind of stylistic decision I just went with what looked the best.  Unfortunately, this also usually meant it cost a lot.  We will have all the options in the world if we want to stay or if we decide to sell some point in the near future after this work is done.

Lastly I have major changes in my work that have impacted me substantially.  As the unemployment figures show, companies are not hiring new workers.  Instead they are just giving the existing workers more to do.  I recently received a set of new responsibilities in addition to the responsibilities I already have.  For the next 1 – 2 months at least I will be working 2 full time positions.  I am not exactly sure how it is all going to work out, but I will give it my best shot to do all the work I need to do.  The biggest change with this new set of responsibilities is that I have now inherited a standing operations delivery team in India.  In terms of their working hours as related to Mountain Daylight Time they work from 12:30AM to 10:30AM.  To match the team’s hours more, my working hours now run from 4:00AM to 2:00PM.  In that way, I can have a much larger overlap in working hours with them as opposed to my normal working hours of 8:00AM to 5:00PM.  Though my work hours are supposed to end at 2:00PM they usually end at the normal time of 5:00PM which just means I am working a much longer day. All of this is making for one tired existence!

The other aspect of my new responsibilities is that they will herald my return to India for the first time in 6.5 years.  Timing wise this is coming at a particularly bad time as there is so much going on for the rest of the summer, but there isn’t anything I can do about it.  I am trying to postpone the trip until mid-August, but I don’t know if I can put it off that long.

Speaking of travel, there are a number of things that are yet to be published regarding the trip to Iceland.  I have been working through all the approximately one thousand pictures that I took while we were there, selecting the best for posting to Facebook and Picasa.  Hopefully these pictures will give all my friends a more comprehensive idea about Iceland.  Also, work is about 75% complete on an article I am writing for potential publication in a travel magazine or a major travel blog.  If I am successful in my placement of the article, you had better believe there will be a link to it on the blog.

With the change in status from my surgeon this weekend might involve a hike and bike ride!  It has been so long since I have done either of these activities, I can’t wait to get back to them!  Hidden Mesa or Devil’s Head look like good possibilities for this first hike.  As for biking riding, whatever ride I take will be kept less than 10 miles.  Though there is still a good bit of strength in my legs despite the 8 month lay-off from activity, it will be beneficial to take things slowly.

I hope everyone is looking forward to the weekend ahead!

Thanks and peace to all! ~J.