I just want a month off

211 (bleh)

I've decided that I need a month off from work. If I had a month off, I would spend the first week sleeping extra and reading for pleasure and the rest of the month doing all the things that I don't have as much time to do as I'd like because I'm working full time. Things like finishing up unpacking and organizing my house, getting my car detailed, dropping off my dry cleaning, assembling furniture.

I truly believe that if there were a viable alternative, I could return to work after my month off refreshed and ready to bill clients like a mo-fo. . . . rather than coming to the office each day with the lack of focus that has been apparent for some weeks now.

Alas! I do not think I can convince the partners in my firm to allow me to take a month-long sabbatical for no other reason than "I'm f&#^in' tired and need some time to catch up on the rest of my life!" And I need my salary. So no month off for me. :-(

I still plan to post photos of the landscaping at some point. The reason I haven't done it yet is that at the moment, I essentially have no home computer. Although my computer and internet connection are both in fine working order, I disconnected them on Saturday evening so that I could move my cheap Ikea desk out of the home office to make room for the very nice, new desk that MM bought for me.

When I read prior to ordering the new desk that it had "assembly required," little did I know what exactly that meant. I did not realize that the assembly would involve connecting at least 85 pieces of wood and pressboard in varying sizes, using various types of fasteners that are ill-identified in the assembly instructions, or that the assembly instructions would have been authored by someone who is clearly not a native speaker of English. Ahem.

An hour plus into starting assembly, I now have many, many pieces of desk laid out in the home office and living room. I am on page 6 of a 20-page assembly instructions manual. (Did I mention that I'm convinced the person who wrote it is not a native English speaker?) The pictures in the manual seldom match the actual items that came in the two large boxes that claimed to hold a desk.

I am not the handiest person in the world, and MM is even worse (so he says). Because MM abhors clutter, and because I want my home office back, I have committed to spending at least 30 minutes each evening on desk assembly. (Which is obviously 30 minutes less each evening that I can spend on anything else.) At this rate, I *might* get the desk assembled before we leave for Maui! ;-)

My mom arrives in town on Thursday. She is staying at my old apartment for the first few weeks she's here--it's still technically still my apartment until November 30th--and I spent a few hours there on Saturday getting the place ready for her. . . . cleaning bathrooms, throwing away trash, packing up more of my stuff to go to the house. (With the exception of three small boxes, I am proud to report that I have now gone through all my stuff left at the old place!) I still need to return to the apartment either tomorrow or Wednesday to drop off clean sheets, a quilt, and plates; and to mop and vacuum and clean out the refrigerator.

I'm looking forward to seeing Mom. And to tell the truth, she really won't care whether the place is clean for her, though she probably will appreciate the sheets, quilt, and plates.

This week should be pretty typical, except that I will be out of the office for a half day and one full day attending continuing legal education programs. Friday is Halloween, and I have yet to even buy pumpkins for us to carve or put out the Halloween decorations that my future MIL so generously provided. In addition to being ready for our expected trick-or-treaters, we are supposed to put in an appearance at a block party one street over on Halloween night. Saturday night MM wants to go to a Coyotes game, and Sunday evening we'll be having dinner with his parents. At some point over the weekend, I need to do some extra work to make up for the slacking I've been doing most of the month of October. And oh yeah, try to finish putting my desk together.

Back to billing. . . .