Taking a step back

A few months ago a friend suggested to me that I might be dealing with my grief by being hyper active. Where others in my family dealt their grief by being extra-dramatic or feeling sorry for themselves or by being angry and aggressive, or avoiding it or ignoring it, maybe I've been dealing with it by not dealing with it because I'm too busy. As long as I'm awake I have some project going at all times. I'm never just idle. In this past summer I have accomplished three pairs of knit socks, a star quilt, a knitted shawl, a sweater, a partial sweater, a pair of knitted lace cuffs, ten skeins of spun wool, cutting out enough diamonds for five more quilts, level 85 on my Shaman in WoW, reading fifteen to twenty books, and cooking/cleaning/laundry for a family of 10. All this along with doing my full-time job of teaching. This is not to mention that I am keeping up with several television shows as well as starting to watch several new-to-me tv series (by watching their past seasons on Netflix). So, I started watching Drop Dead Diva and Eureka and Doll House, and I've watched the entire Firefly series and Serenity movie at least three times this summer. Oh, and did I mention I'm pretty active in an online forum (Second Citizen) and on Facebook and on the knitter's forums at Ravelry. And I've got a reading list of 50 or more books on my current reading theme of Dystopian Fiction?

What I'm currently reading:
Neuromancer by William Gibson
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
A Life in Stitches by Rachael Herron
The Journey of Crazy Horse by Joseph Marshall III (for class)
Brave New World by Aldoux Huxley
Hunter by Wil Wheaton
The Android's Dream by john Scalzi (Audible for when I am busy knitting/doing dishes)
Alison Wonderland by Helen Smith
The Iron Heel by Jack London
The Republic by Plato (background reading for dystopian fiction)
Utopia by Sir Thomas More (background reading)

Finished books for past month:
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
1984 by George Orwell
The War of the Worlds by H.G.  Wells
The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
Ready Player One by Ernie Cline
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Nerd Girls by Alan Sitomer
Divergent by Veronica Roth
Sisterhood Everlasting by Ann Brashares
A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin
The Help by Kathryn Stockett

So I'm thinking I need to schedule at least one hour a day when I don't think, read, knit, spin, write, watch tv, read or respond to forums, or listen to books. I just need to chill for at least one hour a day. Going to start trying today.