A recent promotion at work has meant a significant increase in my salary.
It has also meant working much longer hours.
I frequently work seven days per week and often for ten to twelve hour stretches. This past Sunday, I finally had a whole day free. I was extremely excited to catch up on a long list of household tasks and hoped to find some time to relax. I was determined to get up especially early, be extremely productive and have my evening available to simply enjoy myself. I started the day oversleeping my alarm and waking up to a mess because I’d failed to let the dog outside. After cleaning that up, I got dressed and headed outside to mow the lawn. When I couldn’t manage to get the lawn mower started, I switched to trimming the hedges. I got stung by a bee, cut my hand quite badly and discovered that the outdoor component of the air conditioner was covered in leaves and sticks. I decided to switch to providing maintenance for the cooling system. Removing the debris was any easy job. I assumed replacing the air filter would only take a couple of minutes. I quickly realized that I didn’t have any new air filters on hand. Washing a disposable air filter didn’t work out, so I headed to the store. Since I was a Sunday, I ended up driving to three different stores to find one that was open. I then had no idea of the proper size or style of air filter to buy. Looking up the make and model of air conditioner on my phone was more difficult than expected. I wasn’t quite sure of the exact details. To be safe, I bought two different kinds of air filters. By the time I got the new air filter installed and started up the air conditioner, I was ready to quit for the day.