Vacation always goes by too quickly!

I know, I know, who takes vacation in January?

People who don’t get their first choice off in the summer, that’s who.

We were majorly short staffed prior to and during the first block of my vacation, so I ended up working part of it anyway. Then I said no to a bunch of OT, so hopefully the worst is behind us. We have a pretty strict sick policy, which is necessary, but it sucks when a bunch of people are off at the same time.

It’s always so bizarre going back because I get to put in next year’s vacation requests pretty much next week until the end of the month. I always hate putting the following year in, but now I’m on the home stretch until they refresh. The other bad part, is my birthday is literally two days after they reset, so if I want it off I need to use vacation to get it. There’s no using stats or banked time, everything resets. I’m on nights, but it’s also Easter weekend, so I’ll put in for it. The weather has been super nice for the most part, but with the lockdown restrictions, probably be the second year of no birthday party, but lah-dee-da.

I feel like I got plenty done, although in hindsight I probably should have focused on the art: Inking, painting, etc. Lots of working out and ice skating, not so much on new writing so much as editing. I finally found a copy editor for a middle grade novel I would like to self-publish, and we seem to jive well, so that’s good. Very little in the art and painting department, but I got myself an awesome new sit/stand desk. I’ve been wanting a writing desk since before I got my house, and I figured I am the sort of person who gets up and walks around when I’m writing an action sequence.

Could have used those days I worked to finish projects, but I did house repairs, I swapped with Ron the last part of Titan’s Ascent (and it’s in huge revisions, the 160k+ beast is being split into two books but I am letting it sit until next month at the earliest) and the two reasons I’m so ahead on my reading list is 1) Youtube is terrible for advertising. Audiobooks and podcasts aren’t making me get my messy hands on the screen every 7 minutes. If I’m listening to anything other than a long music session – and even then, I get super long ads as opposed to the short little ones – I should be able to paint a picture and not have to give the ‘are you still there’? after 20 minutes. Oil paint is messy, or maybe I’m dicing veggies or whatever, it’s a pain. and 2) Once again, I worked on my ‘vacation’ so my idea of taking it easy during down time at work is reading. I think I read 3 books in one day, which sounds like a lot but “One Book” can be a Wheel of Time Title (approx 30 hours audio books so far, each) or something that would more likely qualify as a novella/novelette and, I think in 24 hours we ‘worked’ (were in station/in a truck geoposting) for just over 20 hours. I was on call and had a day to recover, but I needed that day to recover, and then I was back at work again.

Ah well. I gave myself some more modest goals to work on revising some projects that have been sitting for way too long. It’s nice because it feels like things are starting to come together. I’ll be honest, the work I have set out for myself is ambitious, and I’m not afraid of work, but one step at a time.