a (busy) day in the life

mouse
Originally uploaded by bluepupae.

what does this photo of mouse have to do with my busy day? nothing except that in the midst of it, it occurred to me that fall may actually be around the corner.

i started out the morning frantically putting together an estimate for some future web work, then multi-tasked working on two websites, and mostly debugging css issues. people need to get on the ball and stop using IE 6. it doesn't comply with w3C standards, and it's always the lone browser with quirky rendering of styles.

it was some time after 12:45 before i finished the urgent items on my to do list and realized i had to get my crap together before rushing off to class. i grabbed a box with the birthday gifts for my friend that should have been put in the mail by tuesday and some packing tape. there was one more item i needed to pick up to go with one of the gifts from blue windows. oh, and i had to print a copy of the rx form to get a refill on henry's fluids called into drs. foster and smith.

showed up late to class once again with no time for lunch. after class, i chatted some with friends, had to stop to fill my car with gas (already learned the hard way not to let it get too low), then drop my friend who didn't want to pay for parking in the lot and who incidentally had an ailing foot by her car.

i am the queen of last minute mailing of birthday gifts. rather than doing everything in my power not to once again be in that stressful situation, i have only gotten better at it.

after picking up the one last gift item at blue windows, i taped up the box and reminded myself that i needed to get one of those big printed labels from the post office machine that i could put the address on and obscure the old label from the recycled box. well, somehow in my urgency, i missed something, and the machine printed out a tiny little label hardly big enough to cover the old labels. doh! luckily, the postal worker woman who was waiting behind me to help someone else was nice enough to suggest one of their large priority labels which i then used to barely cover the old label and hoped that though i was clearly not complying with the requirements of the united states post office, they would still mail my package. this poor postal worker must think i'm an idiot, yet she is always so helpful. last week, i had dropped off a package with postage and gone home before realizing i hadn't put a return or send to address.

continuing on my voyage home, i had to stop off at the vet to get a refill prescription, but at least i enlisted the help of one of the veterinary assistants to collect cat fur for my project. score!

i finally made it home some time around 5pm. after having a bowl of soup for lunch, i cleaned the cat box, tidied up, tried not to freak out too much about the messy home and washed the dishes in relief that the day was finally slowing down. oh, but there was still a bit of web work and photos to retouch and upload and convincing mike to come home at a reasonable time so we could have a nice dinner out.

on days like this, it's difficult to squeeze in any work on art. i often feel that if i don't have at least an hour to spend on it, i really don't want to make the effort. it takes that long to get into the right head space, and by that, i mean concentration level.

so it's 10:39pm. i'm hoping i can squeeze in some reading, sit-ups (which i am soooo behind on) and flossing, before bed. shoot. and i promised to help mike with some processing programming.