Sorry about not posting or tweeting since the middle of last week. For the last few months, at least, I have been burning the candle from both ends and the middle. My roomies and I have been working on some projects here at the house on weekends, I have been helping an elderly friend working on cleaning up and fixing up his property (Project House) two days a week and I am working full time overnights for a large convenience store chain. It just became a bit too much!
At home, we have been expanding the coop and run getting ready for 50 new arrivals, we have been building a new shed to turn the old shed into a garden shed/seed starting area and brooder, we have built a fire pit and are working on turning it into a bbq, we even picked up solar panels to start our own solar power. Pics and blogs on all the projects will be coming, promise.
I have also been dragged into a fight against the City, again. After, Tucson passed it's Urban Ag Plan which I covered in detail in some blogs last year and a half, I moved into Courtney's which is outside of City limits. Well, the City has decided it wants to annex our area to increase their tax revenue. Fortunately, I am not alone in leading this charge. My neighbors have been telling the City the last 3 times they tried this to go away.
At work, our Manager has had shoulder surgery. Because of this the Assistant Managers and we, Team Leads ( oh yeah, I also got a promotion last month) have been working up to 10 hours of overtime a week.
What ever term you like- stress, fatigue, melt down or burning out. I caught it. My eating schedule was turned upside down and I could not sleep more than 3 hours at a time. I began losing track of my days and where I put things which was the most frustrating thing on earth for me. I lost my motivation and desire to work on anything including the coop, shed, bbq and getting the raised beds built in the front yard and even read or attend online webinars.
I failed to follow the first rule of homesteading and the biggest thing homestead bloggers stress to everyone-- work on one project at a time!! I had too many irons in the fire. I needed a few days of down time to refocus my energy and my direction.
I have prioritized the projects and the completion order and told my elderly friend that I was only able to help him one day a week. I have put up a 3 month write on wall calendar so that I can schedule the projects and even mundane things like blocks of time for reading, blogging and even hanging out with friends and roomies. I do not know if this is the proper or total solution for me, but it is a starting point.
We all go through periods like this and several well known bloggers have posted how they overcame the burnout and overwhelming nature of homesteading. Check them out on today's tweets and facebook posts.
Thanks for dropping by and for the supportive pm's I've gotten!!