Week from He**

What do you do when you have to face a week from hell?

Well, more accurately, two days from hell. And when I say “hell”, I really mean that they’re shaping up to be really, really rough. Because Christmas falls on a Wednesday this week and we all have off (praise God!), my deadlines are moved up a day and the normal major tasks I normally have 22 hours to complete now have to be finished within 15. Plus, since this is the last payroll week in the year, everything has to be perfect, and all adjustments for the year have to be submitted by tomorrow.

So how do you face this?

Normally, I’d complain, gripe, whine, eat lots of chocolate, drink soda, chill out with a Fosters at night, shun the children, rub my temples and eyebags nonstop, and be a general menace to anyone my social strata or lower who comes into contact with me.

I decided that would not be in my best interests during this two-days-from-hell. So, after a few moments thought, here’s what I did:

First, no booze on Sunday.

Also, no sugar after dinner (I’m a huge late-night cookie monster), and no caffeine after noon (turns out I didn’t have any caffeine at all the whole day).

Second, I had to tire myself out because I was getting up early on Monday.

Fortunately, Little One and I were scheduled to serve at mass Sunday morning; since she’s low-altar-server-on-the-totem-pole, she drew the 7:30 am mass (and me along with her). The whole family got up at 6 – unheard of for a Sunday morning – and were out the door an hour later.

I also did a half-hour workout in the afternoon. Weights and that sort of thing.

The result was a pretty tired Hopper. Almost dozed around 4 pm as the Jet game was wrapping up (Jet games have that effect on me), but I stayed awake.

Third, gear up the body for sleep.

Did this by taking an epsom bath salt at 9, reading one of my Westerns.

Fourth: sleep!

Passed out on the couch (after bringing all my work clothes and essentials downstairs) at 10 pm. Woke up to my phone alarm at 5, with a decent 7-hours of sleep under my belt.

Now, how to handle Day One of hell?

First, I chugged 16 ounces of water immediately on waking. After a hot shower I had a good cereal chased by an omega-3 pill and a multi-vitamin. Since everything I needed for my day was on the dining room table (premade lunch, snacks, etc), I just got dressed and left my house in the darkness.

It was also good for the mental well-being that, being 6 am two days before Christmas, there were pretty much a tenth of the cars on the road during a normal commute.

Got to work and I, er, well, worked. No chit-chat. No surfing the web. Started with a one-page to-do list and I just worked the list. By 11 am (three-and-a-half hours in to the workday), I had a full-day’s work completed.

Wow!

I also need to mention that I avoided a platter of cookies and chocolates thoughtfully left out for us all in the office by various vendors. And I passed those cookies about twenty times during the day.

So now I’m home, tired but a good tired because I got a lot accomplished. Everyone’s in bed and I’ll probably put a few pages away of the novel I’m reading before crashing again at 10 pm. Then tomorrow: repeat!

Hey – I think I just got an idea for a 2014 resolution!