Boundaries...

On my way to work this morning, I passed a man who was saying, "Well then I'm not going to work on the weekends if they're not going to let me work at home. Screw them. I already put in 20 hours on the weekend and they won't let me work a few days a week at home? Don't expect me to answer your email after 5 p.m. I'm off the clock." I could understand. My brother Mike hasn't taken a long (read: more than 4 days) vacation in 3 + years because of his business. My other brother has always worked a gazillion hours. My boss works on the weekends, I have friends that take work home. And I've been thinking of my work life balance and the boundaries you need to keep to keep work from flooding into life, or derby from flooding into work, spreading past its banks and mucking things up (much like the cows from this Seattle Times article who were flooded in on this piece of land last week.)

So creating boundaries... I'm doing better with some of them. Mondays are my nights to swim with Pygmy at the Ballard Pool a block away (in the "easy" lane, relaxing) and have a beer at the Tin Hat down the street. We get caught up on each other's lives, our common friends, some friends we only know from each other, hopes, dreams, ambitions... and then we head back to our homes keeping in mind all of these things. Monday nights are a great time to relax and control the floods of work, derby, volunteering, life...