Open studios, again

The seminar for joining this year's Open Studios scheme was yesterday. I didn't go.

I was all set to go, even cancelling a much-looked-forward-to day of spinning the day before, because I was still getting over a cold and needed to have one day of resting and taking it easy. But late on Saturday night, I stopped and reconsidered.

I have a habit of taking too many things on. My philosophy on life has always been "bite off more than you can chew, and then chew like buggery". It's worked for me, and I've acheived a lot of things in relatively short time spans. Taken to the extreme, it had me finishing a Ph.D., working in a research fellowship, undertaking an explosives handling course (then useful for my work), and learning a foreign language, all at the same time. I barely slept for two years and didn't sleep (literally, I only slept every third day, the other two I'd have a 10-minute nap) for the last six months of finishing the Ph.D. Since then, I've had to be more careful about how much I take on. When I do take on too much, my body just collapses in a heap - and towards the end of last year I started working too hard again!

Mr G. and I have already agreed that 2009 is the year of R&R and doing less, yet there's still a lot on. There's a lot of travel planned for this year, once he gets back. There's also, probably, the purchase of a house if the right one presents itself and the resultant renovations/restoration. The veggie garden. Cycling. I've already joined a committee to liase between my village and the local councils. I'm joining the local medical First Responders (first aid). My place of work undergoes a major restructure this year, and that and the project I've been heading will increase my responsibilities. Committing to Open Studios, and all the volunteering that involves, just seems one commitment too far. So it's put off until next year, which gives me more of a chance to move more of my portfolio from my brain to actual cloth.

As it turns out, when I tried to start the van this morning to go to work, a problem it's been having intermittently has turned into something that makes it undesirable to drive, so I wouldn't have been able to drive to the seminar anyway: clearly, it's not meant to be this year!