It’s Okay to Slow Down

As I said in the editor’s prologue for my last post, I’ve been working on finding balance lately—balance between work-work, play-work, and play…play. What I mean is, balancing the demands of my day job with the demands of all my not-day-job work (mostly podcasting, but also this blog). Then when you factor in the demands of my mental health, which demands a significant amount of brain-down-time, things get tricky. Especially when your calendar looks like mine on most weeks.

This is not unusual though there’s usually more podcasting and less hockey.

(I drafted this post on Sunday, & I admit not everything on the calendar has happened as planned, but *most* of it has, and some things got added that don’t appear in the picture!)

Clearly, I have some work to do to reach that point of balance. One new strategy is that I’ve been adding blocks of time on my calendar that just say “RESERVED FOR SANITY”.

London Travel Diary – Day 8

Our continuing adventures in the UK! Check out Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, and Day 7 if you missed them.

And yes, I sure am taking my time getting through these. At this rate, I may not finish until the one-year anniversary of the trip! Life, as always, has been busy, but delightfully so, of late. My still-new job is so amaz-awesome-tastic that I’ve devoted a lot of mental energy to it. When writing all day, it’s hard to come home and write more. Working on that balancing act!

The impetus to get back on this particular horse is that Kat and Chris are headed off to the UK soon, and I am very jealous! (But also insanely happy for them!) So in addition to living vicariously through their social media, I’ll be re-living our fabulous trip through these diaries.

Day 8: Friday, November 6

Friday morning saw us having brekkie in our hotel. One of the best moves we made when planning this trip was getting that little studio. The kitchenette saved us so much money because we had groceries on hand and didn’t eat every meal out. We did, however, decide to wander off in search of coffee, in part because we just wanted to go out and be in London. I’m usually happy to laze around a hotel room, but when in that glorious city, I mostly preferred being out enjoying it.

Warren met us at Euston Station and came back to our place briefly to drop off his overnight bag so we could go to lunch unencumbered. He had his overnight bag with him because the big plan for the day involved trekking up to Derby via train for An Evening with Michael Pickwoad (Doctor Who production designer), courtesy of the Whoovers!

In one of many happily-timed coincidences, fellow Doctor Who fan and Gally attendee Sami Kelsh happened to be in London, and was relatively close by at Oxford Circus. We put off lunch for a few minutes so she could join us. (I’m not sure if I’d ever met Sami before, but I certainly hadn’t talked to her much. What an awesome opportunity to do so. She’s fab, and I can’t wait to hang out with her again!)

We decided to try the lunch buffet at Taste of India,