Must. Focus.

I have mentioned before about how I cannot seem to get myself to just work hard all the time. I just do not want to. And by work hard, I am talking about work-work. After being away from home 11 to 12 hours a day during the week, I do not want to do work at night. A few hours each day on the weekend (dispersed over the course of the day usually) is all I usually do unless I have a hard deadline approaching. Actually the number of hours I work-work dramatically increases when I have a hard deadline (probably not unusual). This is not because I do not work towards that deadline ahead of time, but rather 50 to 60 hours a week of work-work is not enough time for me to do my own research, commute, deal with my undergrad, in theory read (I am really bad at reading publications like I should), and finish a grant application or paper manuscript (as these are usually the two ongoing things I have needed to do over the past six months). Then you add planned vacations into the mix and I put in longer hours when I get back to do work-work and resent the vacation.

BUT if you talk about home-work, I am all over that. I do not know if it is because it is not work-work or if I really do like cleaning, weeding, laundry (minus the folding and putting away), etc. Yesterday CF had (the longest ever) volleyball tournament. He wanted me to come with him but, 1) I do not do volleyball (I will go hiking or swimming any day though. I do not like physical activities I am not good at.), 2) I did not want to spend money I do not have on food and beer at a bar volleyball tourny, and 3) my boss comes back Tuesday and wants a full draft of a manuscript (not going to happen). I ended up having 12 hours by myself at his house, and because the tournament went so late we ended up not having people over for a bonfire (sad because I was looking forward to a s'more). I managed to finish some counting I have been working on for months for work-work (BORING) that should have taken me only a couple of hours. That is all I did though.

In between I cut down some little trees that had grown in front of his picture window, weeded and put grass clippings around the tomatoes/parsley/chives he has out back, built the bonfire we ended up not burning, got gas, went to the grocery store, wasted a ton of time on FB/farmville, thought about writing this post (and did not), made dinner, made hummingbird food (and one came and ate after not having the food up for a few weeks!). I found this beautiful moth when I was tending the tomato plants. My grad school friend has a butterfly garden, so I asked him if also does moths - this one is a Virgin Tiger Moth.

I also finally figured out what a weed is that I remember eating at my grandparents' house growing up. It is always in gardens and my Grandma cooked it and added lots of butter and salt. It is called purslane and there are lots of ways you can cook with it! CF had some spaetzle I had bought and then found out he did not like, so I used it to make a pasta salad with purslane, carrots, red pepper, salami, leeks, and a creamy italian dressing. It was quite tasty and CF liked it (when he got home at 11:30 p.m. and had some).

And all of this is to say that I should actually be working right now but am a pro at finding other distractions. I am in lab and have some stuff going, but should really FOCUS and do some reading and writing. It is in the high 80s and sunny out, so I actually do not mind being in the air conditioning...if only I could use the time a little more productively...