Today was a half day, which in itself is a good thing.  I actually got a crap ton of work completed and in only the mere 4 hours that I was putting your tax dollars at work.  I guess maybe it was the motivation that I would get to have a more time off than usual that was helping make the day for me.  So I work diligently for the 4 hours.  I made a to-do list to visually see what I need to get done and I tried to put a deadline on it but knowing that it would change but I resisted.  Although now thinking about it I should have at least put a date on it for my personal deadline verses my boss’ deadline.  I guess I’ll have to do that on Monday.

So the 12 o’clock hour was coming up and what do you know my boss comes to my cubicle to ask me once again for an exhibit that he intends to send out in about 1 hour.  And of course there are some changes that need to get done and assumes it will only take 10 minutes to change however I know its going to take about 30 minutes to change.  So I knew in the back of my head today that it wasn’t going to go as smoothly.  And this just proves it yet again.  So I spent 45 minutes fixing the map and of course I send it to my boss who doesn’t check it for about 1 hour and then just when I’m about to leave mentions that more corrections are needed.  Oh really?!  Seriously?!  I think I should have just said “NO,” but I’m still working on that.  I know I would never ask someone to do something for me at the last minute unless it was the FINAL resort that I had to do but I will under no circumstances do that to anyone.  So I hurried turned on my computer and fix the map and then sent it off.

Now with the rest of the after ahead of me, I sat in my car for a couple of minutes thinking what I could do.  And I couldn’t think of a thing to do.  Grrr.  Now that I have all this time I couldn’t think of anything fun to do.  So I headed home and through out the drive home I keep thinking of what to do.  And by the time I got home, still nothing.  I knew that I was at least hungry but I didn’t want to eat alone so I tried to call up some friends but they were all at work.  Go figure, right?  So I search the refrigde for what I could eat.  Luckily there were some cucumber and olives to eat up as snacks but those didn’t fill me up.  But in the moment I decided that I wanted to cook.  And I figure I should cook something that takes some time.  So I decided beef stew would be a good choice; I haven’t cooked it in awhile and I knew it would take some time.

Off to the internet I go.  Since it has been awhile that I’ve cooked it, I had to make sure what I needed to cook it.  So I spent about 5 minutes to search for the “perfect” recipe.  But as it turns out there isn’t any perfect recipe.  I finally decided on a recipe that was simple and would have a lot of flavor.  With the recipe in hand I head over to my local Vons.  While in Vons, being hungry (which I don’t recommend), I bought more than I intended.  I’m just happy to report that it was a lot of vegetables and fruits.  So I headed off home to begin cooking the stew.  And much to my surprise I didn’t take me too long to prepare and cook.  In about 15 minutes everything was stewing together.  And I finished cooking it off and put the stovetop on low and let it cook for about 2 hours.  It turned out marvelous, a little bland but still flavorful.  Add salt and pepper for tastes ( just saying ).

While the stew was cooking I decided to get working on some pictures that I have been putting off for quite a bit.  I worked on them for about an hour.  One of the cool things that I am lucky enough or crazy to do is that I never delete any images that I take.  I do that because I always on a look out for the situation that a photo doesn’t look right at the moment but when I learn a new skill, I get that lightbulb moment.  And that’s when I realize that I could “salvage” a picture that just didn’t look right.  So that’s what I did for the hour of time that I worked on pictures.  I like to think that sometimes the solution is present but when it is ready it will show itself.  So I have a few hard-drives just full of pictures.  🙂

After dinner and working a few more pictures.  I was a bit hungry for dessert so I called up a few friends.  I ended up going to get some gelato with my friend Dave.  We chatted about photo projects and did a recap on the shoot that we did on Sunday.  So for a Friday it was pretty good.

But getting back to the title of the post.  Half Days are good until…you don’t know what you are going to do with your half day.  But as it turns out I did a lot but I just didn’t do what I thought was exciting.  I guess that’s why writing and looking back on the day helps.