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I am still working more at night, but it has been a little bit of a trade off.  The more I work at night, the less likely I am to get up in the morning.  Since I’ve been good about writing on my lunch break at work, and I’ve gotten at least two hours of work in each night, I’m okay with that.  

I’m still getting up a little early, which is good because then if I need to switch back to the 5 am writing it won’t be so tough.  The problem, however, is that I’m usually left with about 15 minutes between the time I’m ready and the time I need to catch the bus.  In the summer, I might just  head down to the bus stop and use the time to get in some extra reading. It is too cold to spend any extra time at the bust stop right now.  And, while I am a master at writing in small chunks here or there, 15 minutes isn’t really the best at this point in the morning. The answer: morning blog posts?  

Maybe, but you’ll probably have forgive some missing words and grammatical errors, since I won’t have much time for revision.  Just chalk it all up to stroke-brain, and we’ll get along just fine. 

I’ll be over reporting in about the standing business soon, I promise.  For now, it is really all I have to write about. 

One of my hopes when creating this standing space was that it would motivate me to move away from the couch/television, and get some work done in the evening. Having spent 8 hours at work sitting in front of a computer screen, the last thing I want to do is come home to sit in front of yet another computer screen.  For some reason the television is different.  I think it has something to do with those pretty moving pictures.  😉 My thinking was that being in a different position in front of a computer screen might help.  

For tonight at least, I was right. Once I’d sat down to eat my dinner it was difficult to get back up. However, once I stood here for a while working on the dissertation, I felt a lot better.  True, that might have more to do with making progress on the dissertation than standing, but I do think my change in latitude had a little to do with it.  

I got quite a bit of work done tonight, which will hopefully help me sleep a little better. 

This morning was the first time I tried working from a standing position.  It will probably take a little adjustment, but I think that I will like it.  To get everything at the right height, I bought three, two shelf closet organizers from Target.  Two are 31inches long, and one is 24, and I left the top shelf off of one of each.  It gave me just enough room to stack up some books to get the right height for the monitor and keyboard.  

What I noticed working today was that having the ability to fidget just that little bit actually helped me to stay a little bit more focused than typically. There are two things I do not really like about this set up.  First, I have to keep my laptop shut and tucked away on a shelf to make room for the keyboard and monitor.  This means I lose the two monitor set up, I’d grown to really like.  Second, I no longer have enough room to keep a document holder set up to easily see the papers I’m working with.  I’m sure I’ll figure something out eventually, and if I keep this up for three months or more then I’ll spring to make a real set up with stuff from Ikea. When I do that I think I’ll get back some of the space that I’ve lost. 

Here is a picture of the current set up. Ignore the rest of the mess. 

I may have dropped off the grid a bit in November, but this year will eventually see more consistent posting from me. I am not sure when, but eventually.  

Right now I’m trying out a standing desk hack. The way I have it right now will work for tomorrow morning, but I think I’ll need to make a couple of adjustments for long term use. When I have it really workable, I will post pictures. 

Seriously, all in all you’d be hard pressed to find something I care less about.  Admittedly, I read one Twilight book.  In my defense, I bought it in a moment of homesickness, because really how often do you get to read about the Olympic Peninsula in a novel?  At least I made it through that first book, then I read the second.  Even after traumatic brain injury I could see how insipid that book was. The only thing that I am less excited about than the Twilight books, would be the Twilight movies, and any media story about those movies.

That said, I don’t live in a cave, so I do inadvertently know more about Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson than I care to.  Funny, though, it is still not enough to ensure I’ve purposefully seen any movie they’ve been in. Before I knew who Kristen Stewart was, I watched “Speak” on Lifetime.