Discontent

Writing this on a Saturday like usual. The only difference is I will publish on the blog before I post the YouTube vid. I've decided to upload the weekly video check-in tomorrow instead. That's the plan anyway. I'm breaking the pattern a little by doing this but I've had one of those days. I just want to switch off and not worry about recording audio and editing it all together with the video clips afterwards.

Speaking of, last week's upload was the most problematic I've had for the year. It was a later upload than I'd like, so already I was annoyed. Then the video render time was way too long, which was the first clue that something was wrong with the clips or the editor. What happened was that my powerstrip got unplugged by accident in the middle of the first render attempt. When everything restarted, it caused a bit of a hiccup. 

I ended up starting from scratch, pulling all the original elements and placing them where they needed to be rather than using the preexisting template I had. Once that was done and the video had rendered successfully, I started the upload process to YT. For some reason, it was stuck at processing. I had to cancel the upload twice. The third time finally worked but it was right at midnight, if not right after. By then, I was dead tired, uninspired, and ready to sleep. My Saturdays, although I'm technically off from work, are still quite busy. 

Now you're all caught up with last week's video upload B.S.

So for this week, I'm going to get up early tomorrow and record the audio first thing after coffee, while everyone in the house is still asleep, and my mind is fresh, clear, and less distracted. I'll edit that into the video right after and hopefully, there will be little to no technical issues this time around. 

As for this past week's checklist. Which tasks did I actually manage to get done?
Journaling: I have a couple of good entries in my paper journal this week.
Leisure time: I managed to squeeze in a little bit of gaming. It felt like everytime I sat down and tried to play a game, something around here would happen and I'd have to stop. That's my life in general. I have trouble having an interrupted time to myself. I got a bit of reading in as well.
Write blog post: Yep, this I did. 
Meditation: I got a couple of these in. Need more. 

Missed milestones:
Exercise: Still no dice and it sure feels like it. My energy level and overall mood has been less than ideal.
Drawing: I just made an edit on my post last night. I'm checking raw video files as I do weekly computer maintenance, and it doesn't look like I recorded any drawing footage. Of course, it doesn't mean that I didn't do it. Maybe I did and just didn't record. Not sure though. So as of now, this goes on the missed pile.
Healthy diet: I'd say I'm on the fence with this. I've been eating my usual diet but I have been drinking more soda later in the work week. Since my energy level has been down and my work load has picked up two-fold it seems, the afternoon slumps have been brutal. 

On the plus side, I've been able to sleep a little earlier for a couple of nights, resulting in about a 9 hour sleep cycle for those nights. That's pretty rare for me, but being able to do that made me feel a little more rested at least. 


***

I have been thinking a lot about my goals for this year, and I think I need to revisit my plan from the beginning of the year. For some of those goals, I'm right on track and I've actually accomplished a couple of the main ones. However, I think I'm starting to stray away a bit from some of the others. 

This coming week's plan of action:
I'm switching it up. Outside of the day job I'm going to just work on giving myself some downtime during the evenings. I've had some stressful days these past couple of weeks and I think the ratio of work to downtime is way off. All work, all of the time. I need some downtime, We'll see what this results in for next week's check-in. I'm probably going to do the vid upload on Sundays and post the blog on Saturday just to see if that works better for my schedule.

Be well,
[R]