My word for 2011...

(which I am shamelessly stealing from Colleen at Irondiva because it's very fitting)...Balance.

Balance.

Hmm.

WTF does THAT mean, you ask?

In my case, it means a lot of things. It means work-life balance (something which we discuss ad nauseam at work, so I'll only touch on it a bit later). It means home life-social life balance. And sometimes, it means home life-workout/running balance.

Work-life balance: This a popular topic for discussion in our department at work. Management is big on it, but sometimes the requirements placed upon us for productivity and other things make this a little difficult. Overall, though, they stress making sure to schedule your allotted paperwork time (and not see kids all the time instead), actually eating lunch at lunchtime instead of working through lunch, and not getting to work super early, staying super late, or coming in on your day off to get things done. The new electronic medical record system we switched over to in June has made this a lot easier, as we are no longer required to do 6 month progress reports (yay!) and paperwork is overall easier to do and is finished more quickly. Personally, I feel like I have a lot more of a balance in this area now than I did at my old job, where I was constantly getting to work early/staying late to get things done and still doing boatloads of paperwork at home. So this is something I'm constantly keeping an eye on, but for once feel is actually staying fairly balanced.

Home life-social life balance: This one can get a little tricky sometimes. As I've gotten older, I've found myself becoming more and more of a homebody who ::gasp:: likes to sleep more than I do go out drinking. The result is that if I don't watch myself, I turn into a hermit and it can be weeks before my friends see me in public. I'm trying to be better about this...even if it does mean taking a nap during the day so I can "embrace fun" at night.

On the other side of this is the fact that some weeks, J and I work pretty much opposite work schedules. I work 4 10 hour days, Mon/Tues/Weds/Fri, and his schedule varies weekly. Sometimes, he works more days than nights, and we actually get to hang out. And sometimes, he works nights, and we never see each other. Throw in the latter with the odd social event planned way in advance and you get a husband who gripes b/c he "hasn't seen me all week" and a wife who "only hangs out with her friends and not with her husband". There has been much discussion about this in my household, for two reasons: 1. J and I don't know what his work schedule is going to be like until the Friday/Saturday before the posted schedule; and 2. Based on my friends' and I's crazy schedules, we often plan things in advance. Like, 3-4 weeks in advance. And I can only say "Well, I MIGHT be able to hang out then but it depends on J's work schedule" so many times before I get the side eye.

So I'm having to learn how to balance cancelling the occasional long planned night out with friends b/c I have barely seen my husband all week against reminding J that I can't always plan things and then bail b/c of his ever changing work schedule.

Speaking of J, this brings us to balance area #3-Home life-workout/running balance. This could get long, as this is something that J and I had a heated discussion/fight via text message about last weekend.

I run, or work out at the gym regularly. J does not run, and is sporadic in his gymgoing. Running is my hobby. Playing video games is his (right now, Black Ops is his game of choice). I try to get my running done before he wakes up or while he's at work, and he tries to keep his Black Ops playing to while I'm at work or asleep. Unfortunately, due to the fact that it's dark until close to 7:30am and is dark by 6pm right now, me running while he's still in bed isn't always an option, while playing Black Ops is done indoors and therefore can be done anytime. This means that sometimes, I'm leaving to go run as he's getting up (and if he has to work that morning, won't see me before he leaves). This is sometimes an issue on Saturdays, which is when my training group meets...when he has to work in the morning on a Saturday, this means we don't see one another. This also means that if he feels he hasn't gotten enough "attention" (if you catch my drift, sorry if you're scandalized) that week, he gets pissy. And feels like I'm choosing running and running group over him, yada yada yada. Hence the long text discussion/fight last Saturday.

As a result of said discussion/fight, I think we came up with some agreements. I will do what I can do run later in the day, after he has left for work or is otherwise occupied. And he understands that going to running group 1x/week is my opportunity to geek out with other running minded people. He had his video game loving friends, I have my running friends. The fact that sometimes his work schedule gets screwy and he has to work Saturday AM does not mean that I should automatically have to give up going to running group, because I wouldn't expect him to not have video game time with his friends if I happened to be home. We also agreed that while Black Ops is his time to blow off steam, running is mine. It's my therapy, and sometimes the only thing keeping me out of the looney bin (or more likely, the Betty Ford Clinic). And expecting the other to blow that off on a whim isn't fair.

So I guess you could say we're both working on balance in that area. Balance is a good thing. And something that I continually need to work on. I guess that's a New Year's Resolution for me-work on maintaining balance ALL the time, not just when shit hits the fan.

And there you have it. A novel. So in a short recap of the last week: Snow on Tuesday. Blech. Managed to maintain planned workouts regardless, though I'm currently sporting a lovely pain in my left knee. Methinks it's "time for a new pair of shoes" pain, so hopefully picking up a new pair of Adrenaline 10's (if I can get them) or 11's (if I can't get 10's) should do the trick. Hopefully no more snow this coming week-I've had enough. And I just downloaded an obscene amount of 90's and more recent pop onto my Shuffle...I'm a dork, and that's okay :D