Work Work Work

To put it mildly, work has largely taken over my life.

I work six days a week, from about 7:30 to 3:00, depending on the workload, and it’s gotten so I no longer use my computer for pleasure. It’s either work, blogging, or a video chat with someone.

This might sound like the beginning to a tirade about my overly lengthy work hours but I’ve got to be honest.

I freakin’ love it.

I feel pumped almost every time I hop online to work. I’m writing about video games, polishing up other people’s articles, collaborating with people who have the same passions that I do. It’s just all so fantastically unreal to me that I have reached this point in my life.

I never thought I would be the kind of person to be swept up by a “career,” but it’s accurate to say that (aside from family), my life now revolves around work.

This could all implode in my face one day.

I might find that my work-life balance is not being met, and that my downtime is just being wholly subsumed by my work.

Side note: I’ve actually had days where that has happened, where I’ve stayed in my computer chair till 7 at night and my eyeballs are dying and my back is aching and I am just fed up with words.

But for right now, I am reveling in it.

It feels so mentally active. I’m loving it.

And I just thought I would let you all know that.

Life Update #10: The Power of the Sippy Cup

Lately, I’ve faced a quandary.

I have been trying to increase my water intake, which means I always keep a cup of water by my side when I work.

However, my entire career is basically housed in this computer. If I were to accidentally spill water on this baby, I would be in big doo-doo. So keeping a mug of water on hand dances with danger.

I’ve dabbled with plastic water bottles. They come complete with cap, and I can take a quick swig without worrying about sloshing water all over the place. The downside is that you can only reuse them so many times before they start to stink, and they are rather wasteful when it comes to the environment.

So then I tried using a reusable metal water bottle. I could wash it and use it as many times as I wanted. Problem solved, right?

No!

See, in order to be able to properly wash these water containers so they don’t smell to high heavens, the neck and mouth of the bottle have to be wide enough to stick my scrubber brush down when I clean it. And if the neck of the bottle is too wide, I run into the same problem as when I was using glasses and mugs. I can’t recklessly swig down water without fearing for the dryness of my shirt and my keyboard.

What’s a girl to do?

I’ll tell you what.

You get a sippy cup.

My tias (my aunts) gifted me a blue sippy cup, and it is the answer to my water-drinking prayers. It is a metal cup with a plastic lid that has a small opening. It can keep chilled drinks super cool, and it solves the issue of improper water output.

It has seriously changed my life, transformed the way I drink water.

I like it so much, and professed my liking so much, that my mom even gave me the one she got from my tias, which is why I have a blue and a pink sippy cup.

Honestly, this isn’t a very big life update to be called a Life Update. In fact, calling it a Life Update seems laughable in retrospect.

But I’m drinking a lot more water, which is an essential element to living life, so that counts for something. Right?

Life Update #7: The Rise of Hardcore Henry III

Avid readers of my blog (it’s getting slightly easier to say that word out loud) will know who Hardcore Henry was. (Or maybe they won’t, because it’s been a while since I’ve talked about him that one time.) I mentioned him in one of my previous Life Updates. (Which you can read for yourself right here!)

For those of you just stopping by, Hardcore Henry was the daddy long-legs that lived by my bookshelf. He got killed (semi-long story) and was soon replaced by a newcomer daddy long-legs that I dubbed Hardcore Henry II.

I didn’t post about it, but Hardcore Henry II is gone too.

I don’t know if he perished in the cold and forgotten wastes behind my bookshelves or if he crawled himself to a new locale with better property value. All I know is that the hardcore spot between the wall and one of my bookshelves has been empty for months.

That is, it was until a few days ago.

A brand-new daddy long-legs, Hardcore Henry III, has taken up residence there, and this spider has an attitude. He’s not mean per se, but he’s kind of…moody.

He has a tendency to spring out from his lair if someone so much as breathes on his web.

This is as close as I can safely get to Hardcore Henry III.

You can see Hardcore Henry III as the little dot above my gargantuan schnozz.

I’ve got to admit, I’m not too fond of this guy. The other Hardcore Henrys webbed their way into my heart by being unobtrusive spiders that may have assisted in decreasing the fly and mosquito population near my desk. But Hardcore Henry III is a tough as nails, take no shit, spit in your eye, and growl kind of guy.

And, as my earlier Life Update specified, I’m a tad on the arachnophobic side.

I don’t know what to do with Hardcore Henry III.

I’ve already named him, so I can’t just squash him.

So you see those books in the picture above, the ones with backwards titles since I took the photo selfie-style?

Yeah, it’s gonna be a while before I pick those up again.

What’s the natural life span of a daddy long-legs?