2.5 Hours of Sleep Does Not a Complete Night Make

GAH! What a week. I get a big FAIL in the "Successfully Manages Work/Life Balance" column, and we aren't even two weeks into the new year yet.

I do get an A+ for successfully demonstrating that my skillset does NOT include project management, however. Something I pretty much knew already, but greeting a boss's request to take over the reins of a large project with, "meh, I don't think that's really me, you know?" is quite possibly a career-limiting-move. So, I muddled through the best I could, which, for the delightful combination of procrastination and perfectionism that is Peitricia Mae, usually means being so disorganized that I can't even begin to think about how to delegate tasks to others and just doing the work myself at all hours of the night.

But it's done and out the door. And with job security somewhat tenuous these days and upcoming performance reviews, there are worse things than adding 20 hours of overtime to one's weekly tally.

In addition to spectacular gains to my mighty Programmer's Hump (you know - that Quasimodo-ish mound on the upper back that ripens over time on those of us whose day jobs consist of hunching over keyboards), my week also included an ESL class and hosting supper for 10 when small group was at our house. Again, not a total loss, as I now have a wicked recipe for spinach lasagna with bechamel sauce.

But, of course, the Littles don't care one bit about my work to-do list and don't really appreciate that my time spent whisking white sauces or teaching Japanese students the meaning of "no rhyme or reason" is all about community-building. All they know is that I'm not home, and on Thursday night The Boy burst into knife-to-the-heart tears and sobbed, "Don't go to work, Mommy! Stay here with meeeee!!"

Sufficiently guilted beyond the point of reason, I announced I would take the family out for supper last night (not entirely altruistic, as grocery shopping also got sidelined and so the alternative was pancakes with hot dog relish) and that it was kids' choice.

Oh, I tried. I steered. I suggested. I gave out options. But, in spite of my best endeavours, we ended up here: You can totally see how much F-U-N The Husband is having, can't you? The kids had a blast, though, and they remembered to put all the veggies on the vegetarian pizza this time, so if you ignored the crust, sauce, and cheese, it was decent pizza.

Then the kids decided they wanted a sleepover, so they went to snuggle in The Girl's bed with a little bit of DS playing before sleepy-time.They're playing Monkey Clanz. It's a game where you adopt pet monkeys and dress them up and feed them. Oh, and you can have play dates with another player's monkeys. Which sounds quite innocent, until you find out that when two monkeys become Very Good Friends, they have a baby. Yup, "SmallLittle" was born today (my kids are simply awesome at making up appropriate names for pets) and the wanna-be-breeders are currently setting up two other monkeys in anticipation of more babies. The DS is now sitting in a corner while the kids go watch TV - they're giving their monkeys some alone time to become better acquainted.

So an exploding inbox on one side and monkey sex without the sex on the other. Just another week in the life, folks.

(P.S. Speaking of inboxes, my webmail account was full to the brim for part of this week and I think some emails were sent back. If you sent me something and don't get a reply in the next couple of days, I'm not ignoring you. Please re-send as necessary.)

(P.P.S. Yes, I know that there are creative solutions for such email trials and tribulations such as moving to Gmail or periodically cleaning out one's inbox. I find that it's really much easier to avoid all that work and panic every couple of months or so.)