Start of a stressful week
Things tend to pile on all at once. Good things, but eek.
Wednesday, I’m hosting lunch for about 20 people — my husband’s co-workers — and I’ve gotten out of practice at entertaining. Everything will be fine, I’m keeping the menu relatively simple, the house is pretty clean already, but it still makes me tense. Want to make a good impression on the boss and all that.
At the same time, I’m trying to find a food sponsor for our 48HFP team. Figure 10 people, cast and crew, on Saturday. I have a good list of places to try here in town, but it’s a matter of finding the time to do it. My neighbors might know people at local businesses, which would give me a shortcut. I should be able to kick in some leftovers (veggies, snacks, dessert) from Wednesday’s lunch; if I can find some sandwiches and maybe a case of bottled water, I think we’ll be ok. The timing is otherwise unfortunate.
Friday we’re going to an outdoor concert, so I need to plan and pack a picnic dinner. Small issue, but a change from the norm.
Saturday I’ll be busy with the 48HFP.
Oh, and this is also the week I need to get serious about prepping materials to audition for a musical on August 2nd.
Eeep.
I used to claim that I was very good at handling stress, but that was bullshit. My blood pressure was through the roof and I was binge eating all sorts of crap. Taking a year away from the work world was like pressing a Reset button - stress was no longer an issue and I was able to truly find some calm. Nowadays, though, I think I have a lower tolerance for stress.
Once upon a time, I could go to work at 8:00, have a VP cursing me out by 8:30, deal with backstabbing co-workers before noon, explain a huge and necessary schedule delay to execs who would gladly kill me with their bare hands to speed things up by 2:00, notice that my stock options were utterly worthless even though my boss insisted they were a valuable part of my compensation package by 3:00, calm a crying staff member who has been bullied by another team by 4:00, kick someone’s ass for bullying my team by 5:00, write up tedious reports and update useless tracking software by 6:30, and by the time I left the office around 8:00, my team might have submitted a risky redesign plan for a product used many millions of times each day.
After a day like that, I’d sleep like a baby. Now, I have to put together two meals for a total of 30 people over the course of the week and my brain is racing a mile a minute.
