Overbooked

Last week I tried to do too much and burned out in a major way. I'd been feeling good, and I kept adding social events to my calendar without thinking too hard about it. It came around to bite me, as I should have expected. But I did at least find the time to recover.

After the baby shower, Kevin, Zach, and Sarah had plans to go to the baseball game. I had plans to finish my book and take a bubble bath. But since Autumn and Ben were in town and I didn't hate the previous baseball game I'd gone to, I decided to join the group instead. The game got off to a bit of a slow start, but it didn't end up lasting too long. I'm glad I went. The last several times we've seen Ben and Autumn I feel like we've barely hung out with them. I was busy with my sister-in-law's pre-wedding events or packing or moving or cleaning or just staying in a different part of the city. So it was nice to have a chance to catch up.

That led in to a Sunday spent playing board games with everyone down at Zach and Sarah's. Again, it was nice to throw responsibilities out the window. I'm not going to be able to do that for too much longer. But it did mean that I was starting to fall behind on housework with no plan for catching back up.

Monday night, Washington was playing their opening game of the football season. And since Monday Night Football isn't broadcast on local channels, we went to a bar to watch the game. This is where things really began to fall apart. I have a touch of insomnia and I'm exhausted all the time seemingly no matter what I do. So I figured it wouldn't be a big deal to stay out until 10:30 to watch the football game. It's not like I was going to be using that time to sleep anyway. It turns out I would have been using that time to relax and get ready for bed, and everything get pushed back farther because we were out late. It would have been worth it if we hadn't been destroyed so completely by the Steelers.

On Tuesday, I had the monthly ladies night with my neighbors. I was still feeling alright, and these are new relationships that I want to form and nourish. So even though these people aren't exactly my people, I joined them all for dinner and small talk. They're all nice and they're all moms, and it's good to be around other mothers when I'm so close to being one. It's nice to complain about some of the pregnancy stuff with the other pregnant women. But I also spend these evenings envisioning myself becoming a completely different person, and I'm never sure how I feel about that. On the surface, I don't have anything against becoming a "Suburban Wine Mom". I've been halfway there for years now. But I'm also not entirely ready for conversations about nannies and insane first birthdays.

The next evening I was supposed to go downtown for an alumni event. This was actually the first of all of these events to show up on my schedule, and I hadn't even committed to it until I scheduled 9:00 am doctor's appointment for Thursday. I figured that would give me a chance to sleep in and recover from staying out. But I hadn't quite counted on doing that for so many nights in a row. So when 2:00 rolled around and I was contemplating my second cup of tea to make it through the evening and Kevin expressed a lack of interest in going, I decided I wouldn't go either. Instead I went home and sat on the couch and finally started recovering from my whirlwind social life.

I did manage to sleep in on Thursday. And since I didn't have to go back to work after the doctor's appointment, I managed to bounce back from all this craziness pretty quickly. I even made a dent in the housework I hadn't done on Sunday, though I mostly just watched TV. I need to remember to balance my life and not push myself to exhaustion just because I'll be exhausted anyway. I only have a few precious weeks of relaxation left before the kid shows up, and I shouldn't waste them.