I’m neither working on several websites for Zerflin, nor watching any Star Trek Voyager right now. Which, in and of itself, is more surprising that it should be.
I’m sitting on the leather couch by the fireplace at Tamika’s grandparent’s house, listening to my Groove station on Pandora, typing on my iPad.
I spent most of the day working with Poppy, Tamika’s grandfather. Tamika’s mom’s car was having heating issues, and so I helped him clean out the heater core. Apparently, someone put in radiator stop-leak, and it had gummed up the core pretty bad. We managed to clean it out by shooting water and compressed air through it. I always feel closest to him when I’m helping him work on something. Initially he declined my offer to help, but later came in and lured me out.
Unfortunately, when it took the car for a test drive, though the heater was working, it hesitated like it was having a misfire. Poppy tried to check the spark plugs, and got a ratchet head stuck in it, and we were unable to pull it back out. Many hours later, we were forced to give up. I’d never seen Poppy so dejected.
I attempted to get a lot of work done today for Zerflin, but I wasn’t terribly successful. I found it difficult to focus, and then most of my day was taken up helping. The list of things I need to accomplish is pretty long, as it normally is, but when everything around you is encouraging you to relax, it’s hard to ignore it.
In addition, criticism is not something I easily take, and today I had a couple instances where clients criticized my work. The first was for Pastor Brenda Alton’s site. I had a meeting with this morning, where I was accused of writing loopholes into our contracts. A particularly frustrating matter, because those doing to criticism have only just joined the client’s team, and we have been waiting for material to finish their website for nearly a month and a half.
The second was for a website I’m working on through Penngood. Working with them has been incredible. But I had 2 weeks to build a very complicated site for one the clients, and they came back with a lengthy list of edits. I’m so tired from working to get everything ready for them, that I just feel too exhausted to do any more.
So, I sit. Vegetating on the couch. Looking up to see Tamika smile at me every so often. Talking with Mommom (Tamika’s grandmother) also inspired me to slow down a little bit. Poppy doesn’t stop working ever. Though he’s well past retirement age and they want for nothing, he cannot slow down work. And I know the feeling. Not working makes me feel antsy. Even though he and I worked hard on the car today, I still feel guilt at not getting back to a couple of our workers, tackling the new edits for the Penngood client, and starting in on a couple art and internal projects.
I guess that guilt is what is driving me to write. I really wish I had more time to, my memories are slippery and don’t stay unless I save them somehow.