Baby Steps to Quality of Life

I began a weekly program last weekend to advance my quality of life by a little bit each week. I think this will mostly mean buying stuff, but instead of it being dumb stuff like huge chocolate bars (we'll keep that in the list just in case, though) it's more about buying stuff that enables a better lifestyle. So, for example, last week I purchased both a toaster oven and new coffeemaker, as I felt that using my broiler setting on the oven to toast sandwich bread was... very lame. Also, I've always seen drinking coffee on the patio as a life goal. Sadly, on the latter part, I found out this week that my consumption of caffeine was destroying my quality of life by making me very, very anxious, so that purchase in particular was not well timed. I'll need to invest in some decaf grounds.

So, I write this now from my canvas porch chair on my patio/porch thing. This week's purchase was a wireless router, so I am no longer tethered to my desk next to the cat shitbox if I want to surf. I firmly believe this will allow me to write more often as well as be outside more often, both things I consider important to my quality of life. Next weekend will be a biggie: I plan to go couch shopping. As yet I am still enjoying my digital cable and DVR from a folding slingback chair which was never intended as the sole sitting device for a 2BR apartment. So within a couple weeks, I will have a new couch on which I can stretch out and be a human being. Of course, this will give me more reason to be unhappy with going to work.

Yes, the job... I'm trying to be upbeat and reserve judgement here, because I recognize that my current heinous situation is not really anyone's fault but is rather a fluke of really, really shitty timing. Allow me to explain: I arrived at the new job with the understanding that I'd be working on one project but was quickly diverted onto another that had an even more tragically-scheduled deadline. So right from day 2 I was in the thick of a very stressful deadline-powered hell that promises to only get worse up until Labor Day weekend, which is the primary deadline. Being out of practice with work in general and architecture thinking in particular, I've felt like dead weight since I started. And yet I've still been putting in extraordinary hours for a newbie nonetheless. So not only do I feel like shit, but I also feel like shit more hours of the day than seems reasonable. The really sad part is that my work experience thus far has really dimmed my enthusiasm for being here in Raleigh, as my job is about all I have time or energy for when it's this demanding.

Now that I've had a few hours away from it (I worked a half day yesterday as well), I realize that it's not a good idea to be judging my overall relocation experience based on a few weeks of one project that isn't going well. My hope is that once the deadline has passed and I get out of town for a day to visit the family up in Virginia, the heat subsides (it's begun to already), the couch arrives, late summer spiritual doldrums pass, new shows start cropping up on TV again, then I'll start seeing the benefit of being here. Until then, I have to grow up a little and just slog through it.

Wish me luck.