What am I doing?

Too much, obviously.

I stayed home sick today. I woke up with a crushing headache (I think it's weather related - it had nothing to do with the earthquake that hit the DC area this morning - really, I slept through that), the same type that I have had on several mornings this summer. I took some Advil and then went back to sleep, waking up around 10:00. I gave some thought to going into work, but the dull ache was still in my head somewhere, so I decided to take the day. I settled into the family room (the coolest in the house as it is below grade) to watch the British Open and relax. There was no shortage of things I could be doing (as you will see in a moment) but I needed to just take a little Brave Astronaut time.

In Part I of this "I don't have time for anything" ongoing saga, I laid out what a normal day looks like for the Brave Astronaut clan. Part II concerned what I was doing with my father and his girlfriend when they came for a visit over the Fourth of July weekend. As I like to say about family visits, "No one cried, and no one died."

So what is it that I'm doing that leaves me feeling that I'm not getting anything done?

In my full time job, I spend my day working on processing archival records and providing reference service to researchers. It keeps me busy and I manage to get things done most of the time. I'm successful at making To-Do lists and get a sense of accomplishment by crossing things off the list. There are some times that I wish that I got more done, but then again, who doesn't.

Professionally, I am fairly involved. I feel very strongly about professional development and like to volunteer. Within my agency, I am currently the Treasurer of the professional staff association, a position I have held for the past three years. As I have written here before, I am also active in my regional professional organization, most recently I have volunteered to serve as the Local Arrangements Committee Co-Chair for the upcoming Spring 2011 MARAC Meeting, to be held in Alexandria, VA next May. At the national level, I am on a Task Force for the Society of American Archivists, which is planning for the 75th Anniversary of the Society, which keeps me busy with those things. The Annual Meeting this year is taking place here in Washington DC and I am organizing my regular outing to baseball. As of today, I am up to nearly 150 people. Wanna come? I still have some tickets available.

Locally, I was recently elected to the Board of the local pool and then was named Treasurer. It's a good gig and the perks of being a Board member are pretty good. And I feel it's my duty to go to the pool as much as possible. Personally, I am, of course, the father of two very active boys, which as previously noted, keep me very busy and leave little time for the things that I would like to be doing after they go to bed.

As an archivist, there are lots of records around the house that are in need of processing. But much like the cobbler's children, often the last thing I want to do is deal with records here at home. But as I am in custody of some of the family records, including some that my father would like to see, I think I need to get going on that project. I would also like to undertake a photo scanning project. In addition to my own personal photo collection, again, I have custody of the Brave Astronaut family photos and would like to capture those photos digitally before they are lost to the ages. I would also like to lessen the footprint of the Brave Astronaut. One reason for buying a house was because we needed more room (with SoBA on the way), but now we've crammed stuff into a lot of its crevices and it's time to de-clutter.

While I do try to keep my end up on the household chores, I would like to be more helpful around the house for Mrs. BA. As one might expect (and if you have children, you know) there is always laundry to do and lunches and snacks to make, cleaning, dishes to do, and all of the stuff that one needs to do to keep house.

My problem is (as Mrs. BA and I discussed just last night), starting any kind of project after the boys are in bed, that may take several hours will push bedtime into the wee hours of the morning. It is hard enough to just keep up with the daily routine. But I'm going to try harder. Maybe I'll give up sleeping.