Pre-circle minis, thinking drills, and games

I have been back into my chess routine for about a week now, plugging away at Step 2 of Tasc Chess Tutor (TCT). In fact, I am on my third minicircle of Sections 10 and 11 in Step 2. I will continue minicircling these sections until I score 80% or higher on every test in them. I am very close, but not quite there yet. I no longer mind going slowly, as the other more experienced Knights convinced me a while ago to worry more about the quality of my exercises than the quantity, especially in my early circles.

My thinking drills are not going very well, for lack of trying. That is, I have so many things going on right now, there is no way I can do my pre-circle and thinking drills in parallel. My new idea is to go through a stage in my thinking drills between each major circle in the Divine Tragedy. It isn't quite as good as doing things in parallel, but given my time constraints, it is probably the next best thing.

I have been playing zero "good" games. I have felt very rusty after my two weeks off, and to just get in some games I have been going to a crappy site, Playsite to play a low pressure 10 minutes per side game once a night. I plan to get back to real chess, when I actually have some time to think things through, once I've gotten these two infernal grants written.