I am finding I have no time to sit and read of late

[brecklundin]

And it is really making me cranky. And here it is midnight again and I will get maybe, and I mean maybe 15-20mins of reading in before I can't stay awake anymore. I used to read for a couple hours or more a day. But anymore I just cannot find the time.

Just venting in frustration because I have access to more books then ever before in my life and not I have almost no time to read any of them. This just has to stop...I need my quiet reading time to get away from the noise and the world a couple hours/day...

Heck I am even a couple weeks behind on my NYT xword puzzles...

And tomorrow I am stuck with yard work all day and will be dead by the end of the day...maybe then I can read for an hour, after i am dead...

[zelda_pinwheel]

oh, i know exactly what you mean... when i was a child i could spend an entire day reading (in fact that is what i mostly did, when i was not in school), and now work, and housecleaning, and grocery shopping, etc. get in the way of so many more worthwhile activities (like reading)... it is very frustrating. i get cranky about it too, pretty regularly.

of course, it would help if i spent less time on this forum as well...

[The Skwerl]

I know how you feel. Me I'm bad about catching some reading while I'm in the can. Sounds funny but hey its quiet and comfy and theres a ready water supply for drinking all you need is cordless phone and a radio and a pizza.

[MickeyC]

Me too. I used to commute by bus from where I lived to where I worked and it was about a 35 minutes ride. And that was great because you can burn through a lot of books in 70 minutes a day. I loved it!

Now I commute by car. Shoot

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by cassidym

Me too. I used to commute by bus from where I lived to where I worked and it was about a 35 minutes ride. And that was great because you can burn through a lot of books in 70 minutes a day. I loved it!

Now I commute by car. Shoot

now i'm a freelance, and don't commute at all. Shoot. i also forgot what "lunchbreak" means.

[vivaldirules]

Originally Posted by brecklundin

And tomorrow I am stuck with yard work all day and will be dead by the end of the day...maybe then I can read for an hour, after i am dead...

One possible solution is to pay someone to do your yard work. I haven't come to that yet but I've considered it. I'm also considering revamping my yard so it is more user friendly (e.g., no gardens).

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

One possible solution is to pay someone to do your yard work. I haven't come to that yet but I've considered it. I'm also considering revamping my yard so it is more user friendly (e.g., no gardens).

Yard Work, exercise, commuting (driving) are all excellent times to "read" audiobooks!

BOb

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

One possible solution is to pay someone to do your yard work. I haven't come to that yet but I've considered it. I'm also considering revamping my yard so it is more user friendly (e.g., no gardens).

just pour a concrete slab over the whole thing, and call it a terrace. then put a chair out there and read in the sun, during all the time you would have lost doing gardening.

[vivaldirules]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

just pour a concrete slab over the whole thing, and call it a terrace. then put a chair out there and read in the sun, during all the time you would have lost doing gardening.

Yes, now we're talking! I can picture it now: Me lazing in a nice chair in the shade while sipping iced tea and reading ebooks while listening to the birds singing and smelling the flowers. Wonderful! Ooops. There won't be any flowers because there won't be a garden. No birds either. And no shade because the trees will be dead. And it'll be hot as hell in the sun with all that concrete. Ick! I had better take my iced tea and Reader and go inside now, thank you.

[brecklundin]

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

One possible solution is to pay someone to do your yard work. I haven't come to that yet but I've considered it. I'm also considering revamping my yard so it is more user friendly (e.g., no gardens).

HAHAHAHAHA....now that cracks me up...but it's almost worth it in order to get some more free time. But, here in my area of California you can't even hire a 10-year old kid for $5/hr...heck they won't even work for $10/hr and if the do, their work will be so bad it's not funny. And heaven forbid the work is hard...

Mostly the yard work though it getting my spring flowers and plants ready and new plants in the planters, repairing any probs with the watering system (now THAT saves me a good 2hrs/day) and spraying agent orange to kill anything that is actually gorwing in the dirt...We have pea-gravel everywhere but use a lot of planters and 1/4-wine barrels because we get them here for about $8/ea.

In other words it's the sort of work I want to do myself because, well, I know what I want and around here gardeners charge a pretty standard $60/hr or more.

[brecklundin]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

just pour a concrete slab over the whole thing, and call it a terrace. then put a chair out there and read in the sun, during all the time you would have lost doing gardening.

Actually I did something close over the past 8-months...I built a new bigger deck myself. All I have left is a hybrid pergola style covering that will have smoke tinted transparent corrugated panels inside the frame to let light in but still offer shade. Got waylaid by some things so instead of a 2-3 week job it turned into a marathon.

But I love the way ya think!! Concrete everywhere...I have mowed enough lawns and pulled enough weeds....so I went with pea-gravel with sheeting underneath. Then 2x/year I'll use TriOx (now called Ortho Ground Clear) on it (it supposed to be good for a year per treatment, but hey I wanna be certain.)

And here it is midnight almost again and I'll be lucky for 20-mins reading time.

Of course I do have a whole community of humming birds I feed all year long. During the peak season I go through about 35-40lbs sugar/month feeding the poor leetle things. I have to say this is my 5th year doing this and it's one of the most fun things around. You even get to where you can ID individuals. And when it's busy we can have 12-15 birds all perched on an 6-hole feeder and even more on the two 8-holers. But everyday we seem to do at least one refill of each feeder and many days two or more refills. But, it is a very rewarding thing for some reaon...who knew?

[WDecraene]

The way I solved the eternal gardening probs: when we were looking for a house to buy, I made certain that there was only a small, easily maintained garden in it (about 100m²).