Sunday Summary: Scatter Brained

Ambition is so powerful a passion in the human breast, that however high we reach we are never satisfied. 
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Ugh, I hate feeling scatter brained. Have you ever been driving and missed your exit? Went to the kitchen and forgot what you went in there for? Well as of late I have been feeling very scatter brained. Let's recap how this happened:


I have no idea where it started? There is no turning point, I just have been feeling this for about a month. I try to fight it, hide what I am feeling by making excuses and even try and convince myself that I believe something I don't. Here are the things that are making me feel scattered:

• I have 20 days to my marathon and I have not run longer than 20 miles.
• I just got a case of Bursitis which has halted my running, at least for a few days.
• I sit on the board at my congregation and have a ton of great ideas about how to improve some of our membership activities including a huge reworking of our webpage, but I can't seem to work in to my schedule time to layout the plans for implementation.
• Our congregation is doing a capital campaign fund raising thing and I am also on that committee and I feel like I could be doing more, but my schedule is too full.
• It is the end of the fiscal year at work and I am feeling the pressure to have all my employee feedback written up.
• I have 3 home projects going: house being leveled, exterior repainted and gutters redone. The last one has been a project since February and our guy has been so flakey I now have to look at finishing his partially done work. Did I mention I paid him in full? Yeah, I know I am a dumb-ass.
• I put in for a promotion at work, just found out I didn't get it. I also put in for the leadership program, yeah, pretty sure I didn't get into that either. Don't let those 2 failures fool you. I am damn good at what I do, I just have to rethink how I am approaching advancement. I have severely limited my options for the sake of my family.
• My house is cluttered. I am growing out of being a clutter bug, but I could really use someone else to do it for me, if only I could afford a professional organizer. I can't decide about what to purge sometimes.

So now let me this stuff down to manageable pieces:

• Yes I only have 20 days to my marathon with 16 miles being my longest run. However, I am pretty confident I can finish. I knew going in I wasn't winning any prizes and it is only my 2nd marathon...my first being 4 years ago. My only goal is and should be to finish.
• Bursitis. Yes it sucks, but at least it is manageable. I have gone to a physical therapist and have a plan for the next 3 weeks that should help me be able to complete my marathon.
• The membership webpage ideas I have do not have a deadline. While sooner is better, I can work at my own pace and have a great webmaster to help implement the changes when I am ready and the board approves them.
• Capital Campaign has been going on in a "silent" phase for over a year. While I want to tackle a bazillion assignments in a week, I know it is not feasible. My partners are not even available yet so why am I pressuring myself. Deep breath and a penciling in of the calendar and I am good. No worries.
• Three home projects: House leveling-it'll get done. We have identified a contractor and will be calling this Wednesday to firm up a date. While we hate shelling out cash, this guy is good, reasonable in price and my favorite: RELIABLE. Exterior painting: We already have a guy. He's good. He's affordable. He's RELIABLE...and I know the end date for the project is the end of October (it's a side job for him) so why I think about it is beyond me. The gutters. Well, what can I say about the gutters. The guy we hired and paid in full continues to take advantage of my flexibility. It sucks and there are some explicatives I'd like to use, but I am lady.
• So I didn't get a promotion or likely didn't get in the leadership program either. This one is a little more tricky. While work is not supposed to define us, I kinda let my success at work speak as the success I feel as a person. I know this is not the right way to think and I try and convince myself that it is just a job, just a necessary means to pay the bills. My husband noted the other night that he appreciates so much that I try and convince myself that work is just work, but reminded me that it is not really true for me as much as I want it to be. So there you have it, I am disappointed and am not sure really how to rebound from it. Don't get me wrong, I WILL rebound, the HOW is the thing I am still working on. 
• In terms of approaching advancement differently, I don't mean making myself available for a wider range of opportunities, I mean, accepting that I may not be going anywhere for a while and making the best of my circumstances. No this isn't a pity party. I literally have it really great where I work and while promotions in position type sound nice, any promotion outside of my current work district means a severe pay cut. You've gotta love the federal locality pay where I live. So my circumstances are mine because I have made them that way.
• House clutter. Well I am not worthy of an episode of hoarders to I am not that worried about it, but it would be nice to purge a little. I have too much stuff.

In more scatter brained news:

• Friday I stepped on a baby rattler. I wasn't paying attention and fiddling with my iPhone so I didn't see it. Was I in the wilderness running? Hiking? Nope, I was on my way to an offsite work meeting and it was in the middle of the sidewalk. Pretty wild huh!  
• 
• On Friday I went for a 4 mile run and my "knee" hurt so bad I had to walk. Only got in 2 miles. The good news is I called my primary physician at 8:15, she got me in at 8:45 and called in to a fancy physical therapist that got me in at 10:00 all that same morning. I love that my primary care dr. is a runner herself. With the Nike Women's Marathon only weeks away, she approached my situation with a clear sense of urgency. I am on orders not to run this weekend and have a follow up appt tomorrow. Some rest and physical therapy a couple times a week for 3 weeks should be just I need to be able to run.
• Physical therapists orders? NEW Shoes and inserts to start. I have a whole regimen of exercises, but I was personally excited about needing new kicks. 
• 
• I am reading 3 books. They are all so wonderful. I for some reason need to have multiple books going at once and these are all so different I find myself torn each day and time of day about what I want to read. Today I am hooked on The Hunger Games, yesterday it was Little Bee and before I bought these books it was Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. On that note I am going to go back to reading.
• 

Do you focus and excel at one thing? Or do you prefer to be a jack of all trades? 

I am good at lots of things, better than good actually, but I find it hard for one thing to hold my attention or feel like I am doing enough. Because I feel like I am good at lots of stuff, it is hard to focus my energy on one thing and not feel like I am wasting my talents by not doing a wide variety of things.


Thankful Three

1. New sneakers and owl socks
2. Being good at lots of stuff
3. For this injury. I have been searching for something I can't live without and it looks like running is slowing but surely making it's way onto that list. I feel awful not being able to run, I need it.