From the How-Did-I-Have-the-Time Files

I just finished a very simple task that took four hours.

A few years ago I went on the hunt for my perfect duvet cover. Long story short, couldn’t find it even when I made price no option. It simply didn’t exist. So I went fabric hunting, found precisely what I wanted, and had my seamstress sorceress whip it up. It was fabulous in almost every detail. Only thing wrong was that the comforter still poked out of the bottom. Easy fix, just needed Velcro strips to seal it down. So easy I wasn’t even going to bother the seamstress sorceress. Even I could handle a simple task like that.

The only problem was time. When I was working, I had a few hours in the evening (you see, I insist on actually making dinners, not take out) and the weekends to cram in all household tasks/projects, time with the fiancé, socializing with friends, TV/movies, reading, and relaxing. When you figure I worked usually minimum 10 hour days and I’m one of those people that need 7-8 hours of sleep a night, that literally left ~40 hours a week to cram in all non-work things. Oh, and those 50 hour weeks were slow weeks. So I would have paid to have it done thereby keeping up the cycle of working to pay for the things I don’t have time to do and with little to no time left over to utilize the rest of the salary. Don’t get me wrong, I know I’ll end up going back to that cycle in some aspect. I’m just hoping I won’t let it get so bad again.

So I finally tackle the minor but long task today. Four hours to glue and iron on 10 strips of Velcro to a duvet cover. It’s perfect, went exactly as expected. Just takes that long to measure the strips, position them, carefully iron each side, and check and double check your work so it doesn’t fall apart. At least it’s something that can be done in front of the television, but only watching something you either don’t care about or have seen at least once so your attention can be diverted.

I seriously don’t know how people do it. Am I just a perfectionist? Or are all working people’s lives messes in some aspect? Maybe that’s what I’ll figure out during my sabbatical. Which part of my life I’m willing to have consistently fall apart.