Where do I find the time?

T..........i............r............e...........d

It's a common early pregnancy symptom to be tired. So I feel like a total wuss even complaining about it. But that's not going to stop me. Hell no.

It's not the exhaustion that is dragging me down, it's the fact that my ass is parked on the couch or bed as soon as Arun goes down for a nap or the night. Since my ass is Permanently Parked, it means it's not getting anything done. A solid week of not getting anything done is starting to affect my mental health. Logically speaking, I have nothing to gripe about, so I hate being what I would perceive to be ungrateful. But damn. I have been feeling totally flat the past few days and it is really digging at me emotionally. Who knew that a toddler and an embryo could join forces just so? Between the two of them, I feel as if I am barely skating by these days.

So, this morning, I was frantically thinking of what I could possibly post about because quite frankly, not much exciting happened on the couch. Then, I read Mother in Chief 's excellent post on "choices" and it struck home with me. I like that she took ownership of the fact that "not getting things done" is often a choice rather than a Victim of Circumstance. While I am the first to admit the perks of staying home have afforded me far more free time than if I worked in an office, it also came down to conscious choices on my part regarding which interests would retain priority. I did give up some interests in lieu of others - raku (pottery) was one of them. Unfortunately, keeping up with some of my friends was another choice I had to ponder. I am so behind on emails, that I'm not sure where to begin with them. I'm still not sure how I feel about the fact that time with my friends invariably gets pushed low on the social totem pole.

Until recently, I was riding high, getting things done, keeping up with my interests that held the most importance for me. I've had more than one person ask me how I manage to do it - just last week, I had another blogger ask me how I was managing to keep up with NaBloPoMo. I wasn't sure how to answer, so I made a crack about tethering Arun to the coffeetable. The truth is, I thought hard about NaBloPoMo and decided it would be worth it to devote some extra time to it. I haven't made much progress on my knitting projects and have only finished one book so far this month. And yeah, so far this month, Arun probably has had more "unstructured" play time than usual, but I don't think that is harmful and he certainly doesn't seem unhappy right now as he is gleefully walking around with a cat toy in hand while I hammer this out. Although, I can't speak for the cat.

AnyWAY, an entire week of lounging on the couch during my Free Time has brought me down. Yes, I'll admit it. But, after reading Mother in Chief's post, I've decided to look at it differently. From now on, I'll try to see lying on couch as a "choice" and perhaps that'll help raise my spirits. Maybe.