Gee, how familiar! Shagnasty’s life sounds like a near-exact duplicate of mine about ten years ago. Then the doctor observed my high blood pressure, and medication didn’t make it better (in fact, the side effects contributed to the marital discord already underway due to the divergent lives of my busy spouse and busy me).
Three years ago I realized that to recover my health something had to give, so I quit my high-paying job, which led to divorce, selling off the house, shared custody of the kids, etc.
I urge all of you caution in your hyperactive lives. What are you trying to accomplish? Is life, the smell of the roses, the pleasure of each other’s company, the sound of crickets, insufficient for you? What is it that you hope to gain, and what is it that you stand to lose?
What a difference a few hours makes. I’ve now gone from house-hunting to HOLY COW I HAVE TO PACK. That’s going to take much, much more time than the few hours of house hunting a couple of times a week.
I not only have to work 40 hours a week, but I want to get my hobbies in too. This means, in no particular order:
Watching movies
Playing video games
Reading, reading, READING!
Working in my garden
Meeting my RPG group once a week
Meeting my Bollywood movie group once a month
Sewing
Biking
reading the SDMB - yes, I count this as a hobby
Answering my e-mail - takes me a long time! As lots of people write me.
Learning to cook more and more Indian foods
Hanging out with my friends
Dancing
Talking to my family, all of whom are anywhere from 500 to 7,000 miles away
This list doesn’t include:
Grocery shopping once a week
Housecleaning
Cooking
This summer it will include:
Taking a class.
I mean, I don’t even have kids. Just one boyfriend and one turtle. I like to keep myself busy, though.
Meh, plenty of time to smell the roses when I’m done with what I need to do. I just want to get it all done while I’ve still got the energy. I’m not getting any younger, and this level of activity is not easy to do once you get past a certain age.
I know it sounds cliched, but looking back on my teens and twenties, I don’t regret the things did nearly as much as the things I didn’t do and accomplish. I often find myself wondering what might have been if I had started taking life more seriously in high school.
If a “hyperactive life” is what it takes to get it all done, well OK. I realize I’m taking a chance with my health, but I’d rather take that risk now then spend my 40’s and 50’s wondering what I might have done.
I’m out of the house every day but Sunday from 6 AM to 9:30 or 10 PM AT LEAST because I have school (I’m in mostly AP classes as well), I’m in a play right now, I have dance class, and I work, plus I walk almost everywhere I go.
When I get home, I do a few everyday chores and then study and do homework while playing on the computer. I watch two TV shows a week. One if Lost is a rerun. I sleep, at most, about five hours a night.
On top of that, I have extra responsibilities like making my sister a costume (it has to be athenian and soooo gorgeous! because the princess has to be the prettiest in her class!) keeping the schedule of attendance for shows with my dance studio, helping with this project and that project and all the projects my sisters have, whatever random idea my mom has (or doesn’t have) for her girl scout troop, babysitting occasionally, attending events that are important (such as my sister’s confirmation, my mom’s birthday party, etc.) and errands like going to the bank or grocery shopping, which take me a LOT longer than average because I have to walk.
And then when I get some free time, I like to go shopping.
I do feel stressed or stretched to my limit sometimes or really just want a vacation, but then I remember- for the most part, all the things I’m doing are things I enjoy doing. I love theatre and dance. I don’t have any passion for waitressing, but I don’t mind it and it gives me money. I don’t love school, but it’ll get me where I want to be.
I’ll sleep when I’m dead! no time to lose! I’ll only be young for another ten years and that’s not that long! screw the roses!
My work schedule goes from one extreme to another. If I have the 4AM shift, I’m up around 2:30. If I have the evening shift, I don’t have to be there until 11:30AM.
The one thing I love about the evening shift is that I sleep for most of the morning. I call it my weekly catch-up.
I pull a lot of OT, especially on the 4AM shift. There are days where I don’t leave until after 3PM, depending on ther day’s schedule.
My mom has probably Alzheimer’s. She’s in day care from 9-3 4 days/week. In the mornings my husband wakes her, helps her dress, makes her breakfast, and drives her there. He works from home as a consultant. Nine times out of 10 he picks her up. The minute I get home I take over for him – that is, if I’m not already collapsing from exhaustion.
Chores are haphazard. I try to do the major ones on my day off, but it’s a hit-or-miss. It really depends how tired I am.
Oh, and we also have 2 dogs, one of whom needs as much attention as my mom.
…a random thought: When I was in my 20s I would’ve seriously contended for the “Miss Hyperactivity” award between FT grad school and two jobs. I never developed any kind of social life because I never had time. I regret that sometimes.
Primarily, a full courseload of college classes. Though that’s cut down slightly this semester, last semester three of my classes had four-hour labs attached to them. On top of those, I spend up to 30 hours in my research lab some weeks. I also volunteer a lot: I teach a second-grade science class once a week and a sixth-grade science class twice a week, I help out with a high-school ESL class, I do Big Brothers/Big Sisters, and I’m invovled with my college’s anti-hunger group. I also work three jobs: I intern for an organic chemistry lab, I intern for a weekend program that brings local high school kids to my college to work with math and science professors, and I am a member of campus patrol (the student-run appendage to campus security).
I work full time and have 3 kids; my wife works part time (some at home). I get up at 5 and have coffee/read the news/shower, etc, then I drive about 25 minutes to work around 7 or 7:30, get home around 4:30, do stuff with kids, make dinner, do more stuff with kids/stuff around the house/play music/etc…go to bed around 9:30.
Weekends there’s usually kids’ activities/chores/social activities.
We’re busy, but unless there’s a convergence of obligations, we’re not OMG busy. A lot of it is due to our kids being young (7, 4 and 16 mos.).
I do both. I live a very uncomplicated life with no children. I selectively choose to be busy with hobby-related events or projects.
Project examples:
-building a garage
-restoring or modifying a car
-restoring an airplane
-making stuff (furniture, do-hickies)
-keeping the house from falling over (currently replacing sewer line)
Hobby related events:
-Trustee for a historical society
-Putting together related historical tours
Since I like cars, planes, photography, and history I try to combine those hobbies whenever I can. A historical tour is a 3-day event with buses, hotels, banquets, tour guide, slide shows, guest speakers, and a lot of research. I usually end up driving all over the place looking for remnants and then they are photographed from ground and air. Sometimes I make stereoviews or panoramic images. It usually starts a year in advance with planning and research and culminates in 2 weeks of chaos when everything comes together. I’ve done this in the past while working full time and going to school.
Working almost-full time… Taking Agility classes two nights a week (2 dogs) Teaching obedience, and taking Puppy through a class one night a week. Clock repair classes start up again soon… flyball practice on Sunday (another dog thing). Weekends - flyball tournaments or agility trials, or helping at the training club. Helping out any of my friends that have a need for a truck/landscaping help/strong back. Birding. Gardening. Fixing clocks. Any leftover time is spent reading, doing puzzles and snuggling the critters.
I’m wondering if I’ll ever have the time to catch up on this board!
I tried the “stop and smell the roses” thing. I found that if I don’t keep myself relatively scheduled, I fall into a major funk. For me, keeping busy keeps me sane, and gets me out to see my friends. My spouse joins me in most of the events, so we aren’t missing time together.
I’m not busy, and I realised a while ago that I subconciously plan my life so I have a lot of puttering time. We don’t have kids yet, and when we do, that’ll seriously busy-fy my life. My husband, however, is busy. Right now he works afternoon and graveyard shift rotation, plus 12 hour shifts on two out of three weekends. He’s also in training to become a karate/tai chi/kobudo instructor, so he attends classes every off weekend and every week that he’s doing overnights.
Next week he’s starting a different job, and his life will look like this:
5:00- up and get ready for work
7:00- arrive at workplace
3:30- commute home
5:00 through 9:00- classes
9:30- bed.
On weekends he’s got class from 8 till 2:30, plus tournaments and occasional gradings. I work part-time in order to do almost all the household stuff.
Well between my wife and I both holding full time jobs (that sometimes require working into the evening or on weekends), we also:
Race motorcycles, which consumes an enourmousamount of time (not to mention money). You have travelling time, plus time at the track on a race weekend. The bike needs to be torn down and rebuilt between races, which takes up more time, especially if there was a crash and things need to be repaired. We also spend time at a local track for practice days and the like.
Volunteer for the Red Cross. We are both DAT (Disaster Action Team) team leaders, and we are on-call at least 2 times a month, usually for two days, Fri and Sat. There are Red Cross meetings and training and other related things that need to be attended.
We are still relatively new homeowners, so there is a constant to-do list of home/yard upkeep and repair items that need to be done.
Travel to visit relatives and friends. My wife is Canadian so that involves a fair bit of driving.
My wife runs a motorcycle club for women which I am also involved in. We do a lot of get-togethersm group rides and such.
I have a small business repairing computers, setting up networks, etc that I do for my local area.
There is more, but you get the idea of how your time gets sucked away when you are busy!