Updating on holiday is hard. Or I keep putting it off cos it's holiday. Either way I've been somewhat remiss.
I did a MASSIVE reorganize of all of my toys and then realized I have a bunch more toys still boxed up and Idek what I'm going to do to get them all displayed. But I got all of my Destiny stuff out and it is glorious. Sorry, I'm too lazy for pictures.
I also FINALLY got off my ass and uploaded my corporate//astrology stuff to distrokid so that it could be, well, distro'd everywhere. I included all of the capitalist nightmare companies cos why not. But I swear to god if I hear one of my songs in an Apple ad I'm gonna [radio static].
My hips have hurt terribly the last week and I think it's my body's last attempt to get me to exercise before I become just old and debilitated. When I was working out my hips never popped and my gait actually improved. Since I stopped the popping has returned, I'm duck-footed again, and my hips hurt All Of The Time.
This update is going to be short because I'm tired and I didn't work out and I kind of just want to veg out for a bit. I'm gonna go drink some hot chocolate and then take a shower.
Today is better than the 22nd. Yesterday was also fine. Spouse decided it was time to part ways with his giant collection of AD&D materials and so now we're just waiting on appraisal from our local shop on what we can get in trade or cash.
I did some organizing and decluttering of my own today. Our front room which is also the room where I play video games, do homework, and where we record music was just NOT put together in a way that made any kind of sense. I changed some cords (don't let the fire department come to my house ever dear lord our wiring is so old and my rigging, while adequate, is also horrifying) and moved ALL of my collectibles around. It's hard. I 100% quit all of Blizzard's projects in the wake of their shit-ass behavior toward their employees and with regard to the OWL player who dared speak out against China. But I still have all of my Overwatch pops and my plush pachimari. A friend said it makes sense to remind ourselves of the fun we had, and I am still very impressed by the deep roster of women characters that are playable. I have loads of toys and I'm still missing 4 of the women characters. I won't be buying more, but I am not yet ready to part with what I do have.
I gave all of my Destiny toys much more prominent placement and I love it. I'm just waiting on my Taken King collector's edition to arrive so I can put out stuff from all of the things. I don't have all of the toys, but I have a lot and I love them and I know that makes me a shitty consumer capitalist but I also don't care. This game gives me the same kind of hope and purpose feeling that Hannibal (the teevee series) gave me when I was at the lowest point of my adult life. Not that I'm at a low point now. I am not, but the game gives me those same good feelings and that's okay.
I have got to try to fit in a Hannibal rewatch this break. It's my winter ritual. Also a summer ritual. That show is so perfect. I'll write about it some time. I'll also write about The Mandalorian as soon as the final episode airs cos HOLY HECCC is it great. I think I may forgo Rise of Skywalker altogether and just cherry pick the SW stuff I choose to interact with. Kind of like the only Marvel movies I've seen are the Guardians of the Galaxy films.
Speaking of movies, we're going to see Tremors (MOVIE PARTY), In the Mouth of Madness , and Santa FUCKING Sangre in January at the Alamo and I am SO FUCKING EXCITED.
Anyway I'm off to make a dent in Cyteen .
I have not seen the new Star Wars. I don't know that I will. Here is the long and short of why . I have NEVER liked JJ Abrams. I tried to watch Lost, made it 3 episodes in, and knew he was a disaster. Super 8 was a onanistic, vapid, uninspired series of homages to films we'd both seen as children. The Force Awakens is the same. And it would seem he squandered every ounce of potential that Rian Johnson fought for. Oh well, maybe for me the series just ends on The Last Jedi, aka, the only other good Star Wars film after Rogue One.
I've been in a bad mood the last two days and I'm trying to fix it but I'm not sure how. I have been waking up every night mid-panic attack and I don't get it. The pressure of spending this time off "well" is a nightmare. I hate that I'm somehow put unachievable expectations onto free time.
I did find a person to order The Taken King collector's edition from, so I'll finally have the full set of collector's editions and that is very exciting. I can't wait to reorganize all my STUFF to properly display all of it.
Keeping it short because I need to be up and active to keep my brain from having The Sads.
OH! And a friend graciously gave us her Disney+ password (she's had our Netflix for eons) and so we started watching The Mandalorian, which I do like. So there's that.
Wow today was a fucking LOT. Like, start to finish.
And by start I mean when I woke up at 12:32 am cos I had to pee and didn't fall back asleep until 2 am cos I was having a panic attack for No God Damn Reason. Like, I talked to my advisor yesterday evening and she said to make sure I actually took the break to do no work. I had everything done at Day Job and so like why was I in a state of panic??? And I couldn't take a Xanax cos those wipe me out for 8-10 hours at a time, and I would not have woken up for work. So that was a bummer of a start.
Then A Thing happened that put everyone at work on edge. It resolved without incident but it was A Whole Thing. (Can't talk about it cos REASONS.)
The rest of the day was pretty easy-breezy. And then the work day ended and ANOTHER INCIDENT happened and it had nothing to do with me per se, but it caused a ruckus that reverberated like bananananas.
Anyway, after all that nonsense and tying up a few loose ends I went home and that was good. I was mindful of unplugging everything non-essential for the break so that electricity would not be wasted. I think I'm going to try to incorporate that into my daily, or at least weekly routine when I go back in January.
Leaving work I felt so weird because I quite literally have nothing work- or degree-related that I need to do for the next two weeks and like whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat even do I do with myself? I guess all of those tidying and organizing things I keep talking about. Now I get to do them because I want to, and not just because I'm trying to productively procrastinate. Weird.
We bought a couple more last-minute xmas gifts cos apparently that's just Who We Are now. And that's fine with me. It makes us feel good and xmas will be that much more cheery for it.
I'm keeping it short today because I want to snuggle into bed with a movie and get rested up before having to spend Saturday evening with (blech) my side of the family. At least they scheduled xmas early this year so I can enjoy pretty much all of my break without them. Hooray!
Today is okay. I feel like it should be better, but it's just kind of meh.
I think I'm really stressed because now that the district gave me a mostly green light on my research I have to get to work and I was reeeeeeeeeeeeeally enjoying having just one full time job. Sigh. It's fine. I am so close. I can do this.
On the plus side I got a BUNCH of organizational stuff done in my classroom. Well, really just one thing, but it's a thing I've been putting off cos of The Lazy for a while.
I had gotten a metric ton of manila folders from a coworker so that I could organize all of the papers for my classes. So today I filed everything away. It's not perfect. I didn't label the folders. And I didn't separate everything to the micro-managed extent that I actually want, BUT the mountain of folders that were stacked haphazardly behind my desk is gone now so yay!
I also bought some table caddies for markers, glue, etc, and I got them all set up and organized on all the tables in my workspace and they're super-cute. Will they stay organized forever? No. But now I'll have a lot less movement around my room and that makes me happy.
So my workspace is feeling exceptionally tidy (for me) and I'm excited cos after today I get to put a bunch more things into storage and that will make my brain feel less fuzzy and overwhelmed.
There is a practice called "illeism" I read about here that I think I am going to try to employ here. So if you see me writing in the third person on here, it's me trying to force perspective and deescalate my wont to catastrophize. I say this even though I am in the camp of people who thinks that CBT alone is putting a bandaid on a fatal wound . But I also know that sometimes short-term solutions can get us to long-term solutions. I'm going to be mindful of not letting CBT strategies trap me into NOT making actual progress.
It's funny because one of my favorite ASMRtists, Olivia Kissper, recently quit doing ASMR. She quit because she said ASMR can become a crutch, and she wants to help people, not give them more crutches. And I don't disagree. Her video about this was perfectly timed because I am really working to remove the crutches I've accrued in my life. I know she made a lot of people mad, but when you tell people they're doing something that hinders their personal growth they're bound to get mad. It hurts to get called out on how you aren't really trying. And you can either start trying or you can throw a tantrum. I'm just gonna try. (And like I said before, I am interested in slowly cultivating practices that displace CBT, so yes, I'm keeping with ASMR, at least until I'm ready to move on.)
Anyway, illeism here we go:
paeneultima is very scared of everything ahead of her for her doctorate. She knows she's behind on getting her research done and she has no one to blame but herself. BUT she also knows that when she gets to work, her work is really good! So she gets stuck in this loop where she puts stuff off forever and then panics and then has to do everything at the last moment which sends her into having to take Xanax so she can sleep at night.
Recognizing this, paeneultima is going to sit down and do her work a little bit each evening. She has read about the pomodoro technique and thinks that this is a good strategy to help her stay focused without going bananas. Her spouse is already a fantastic helper in this area, asking her to take breaks and take care of herself.
It is going to be okay.
Well the meeting with the research division at my work was very good. So as promised here is my second update in one day. I am not going to get into specifics because The Internet is Big and even though I am circumspect here, I don't need a random lo-fi post in the back corner of the internet fucking up my doctorate when I'm so fucking close. So suffice it to say that things are a "go" and hooray for everything.
The potluck at work went well. Half of my enormous crock pot of vegan beef stew got eaten which is way more than I'd anticipated. A coworker made this vegan chili but it had sweet potatoes and quinoa and was the epitome of everything I hate about ~vegan food~ where it has to be so far removed from regular food that it's gross. I ate it and pretended I liked it because the coworker who made it isn't even vegan but she made it thinking of me and even called me to tell me about it. Bless her heart I hate fancy vegan food. Haha.
I lost an ebay auction for a sealed copy of the collector's edition for The Taken King which makes me sad cos 1) it was cheap, and 2) it is the only Destiny collector's edition I don't own. It's fine. I talk so much about not spending money, I should probably just, you know, not spend money. I'm gonna lay off checking ebay for a bit. Another copy will pop up sometime later when I'm feeling more comfortable and our credit card is paid back down.
I really need to work on my spanish because as I come to the end of my doctorate I know I need to get out of the US. It is so terrible here, and I have many [redacted] reasons that Spain is the best place for us to resettle. I just want to be someplace work workers and life outside of work are valued. Banananas, I know, but I want it and I'm sick of not having it.
I'm pretty excited because tomorrow I have nothing on my plate other than filing away a million papers that I keep meaning to file and then forgetting about because everthing else takes a higher priority. I also need to Marie Kondo my storage at work. Maybe I'll tackle that as well.
I just read a nice research article about how exercise reduces your body's response to stress, and another about how it an increase cognitive flexibility. I felt really alive this summer when I exercised every morning. I need to get back to that. I have a simple workout routine that I might start from day one all over again. I think I'll just do it at work before the day starts. I get there so early that I'll have plenty of time as long as I stop putzing around and actual regiment my time and stick to a plan. I want to do and feel better all day every day and so I gotta just do it already! No more looking for ways out, or distractions. Just pure, unadulterated feeling damn good.
If you're interested, what I was doing before, and what I will be revisiting is a work out plan on darebee , specifically the 90 Days of Action program. I loved it. I am probably just going to start over. I made it 45 days before the school year started and I immediately retreated back to being a slug. My hips hurt all the time again, my knees hurt, my gait is awful. In the 45 days that I did these workouts I felt fantastic, my hips didn't pop at every turn, and my gait was correcting itself. Time to get back to that.
Today is a reckoning day, for today I go to plead my case to the head of research at my work regarding my doctoral thesis proposal. Pray for Mojo.
Aside from this guillotine blade hanging over my head this day is pretty okay.
The spouse and I prepped everything for the vegan beef stew last night. This morning I cooked the mirepoix, and then I took like 7 tupperwares of chopped veggies to work and assembled the entire stew in my crock pot in our lunch festivities room. I am antsy because I want so badly to hover over it and stir it constantly, but it is SO FAR from my workspace. Which is good because otherwise I'd ruin its cooking by constantly letting all of the heat out of the crock pot. I'm a smother mother sometimes (all the time). I just want things to be perfect and I have a hard time letting things sit. It's something I'm working on, but it is hard.
I just realized I have a load of free time the last 1.5 hours of work and I might take that time to swing by Bed Bath and Beyond to purchase a couple of Happy Lights for home. I actually might just take my work light home and just buy one and save myself the $40 I would spend on a second one for home. Why spend money I don't need to spend? (Yes, I am working on being more thoughtful about spending as well as everything else.)
I am pretty excited about winter break because while I do plan to work on whatever my proposal ends up being, I also plan to FINALLY finish reading Cyteen by CJ Cherryh. It's not a bad book, not at all. It's AMAZING. There is SO MUCH going on. But there is SO MUCH going on and her writing is dense as well as spare. She makes you work for the reading and I love it, but it's hard to settle in with her writing when I have so so so so so much going on in real life. With work being on hiatus for a couple weeks I think I can carve out some brain space for deep reading.
I might update twice today. It will depend on if this afternoon's evening goes well or not. I suppose if I update twice you'll know it went well. If I don't it'll be because I'm contemplating quitting my degree entirely. So that's fun!
I don't want to end on a dour note, so I will close with re-recommending Pocket . I might even get the subscription. It's that good! I tried and tried and tried to use Evernote and it was just so clunky and counterintuitive and every change to their layout to "streamline" things meant I had to relearn the entire damn app. No bueno. So yeah. Pocket. Good stuff.
I did a few kind of big changes in my life today.
First: I deleted my Habitica account. It's not that I didn't love it. I thought it was great! It was that to get what I wanted I needed to be in parties with other people, and other people are super inconsiderate. I had to leave one party because an IRL friend was so awful about keeping up with their to-do list that it kept wiping our entire party. The second group I joined wasn't much better. I also realized that I didn't really need the gamified aspect as much any more. I'd earned basically all of the pets and trophies and it just felt like treading water and I was just so angry and frustrated by everyone else being unwilling to do their fair share for everyone else. So I unsubscribed and deleted.
I picked up a new to-do app, Todoist . It's very minimalist, and while I don't necessarily embrace all of the white-people ideas of how minimalism is the road to salvation, I do appreciate that it is not something that can lead me into infinite distraction. I even sprang for the paid account. I was paying $5/mo for habitica just so I could get more in-game goodies. I'm paying $3/mo (in a once-a-year charge of $36) for pure functionality. And I'm okay with that. I even downloaded the desktop version. One less tab to have open and pinned in a sea of open and pinned tabs.
I finally got my Pocket account set up through Firefox. I know some folks deride it, because it offers suggested reading material based on readers, and well lots of readers are.....not well-read. But I don't care about that. All I wanted was a place to save and store articles and it does that. I can tag them, I can highlight particularly relevant passages, and it syncs everywhere! Unfortunately it doesn't have a desktop app, but beggars can't be choosers and I mostly use it on my phone, which does have an app, anyway. I don't go in for any kind of social media, but if you have a Pocket account and want to reciprocally follow each other's feeds, send me an email and I'll make it happen!
A thing I've had for a minute but hadn't really looked into its versatility is the Enhancer for YouTube Firefox extension . I really like it because, well YT is ugly, and I hate the limitations to settings. (I mean, YT is evil, but no one is displacing it any time soon.) Anyway my favorite feature is being able to do "picture in picture" which means I can have a tiny pop-up of whatever ASMR I'm watching in the bottom, right-hand corner of my browser while I'm on other sites. I fucking love it!
It's kind of been like a Marie Kondo of tech stuff for me today. Keeping things I wanted, prioritizing things that matter. Eschewing things that I was holding onto for sentimental reasons. I feel really fucking good. It's wonderful.
Now I need to go prep a bunch of food for a potluck at work tomorrow. I'm taking a vegan beef stew that the spouse and I have been perfecting over the last month. Tonight I gotta get the mirepoix ready so I can cook it in the morning, chop up some potatoes, and make sure I have everything else I need bagged up and ready to go so that when I get to work tomorrow I can just throw it all in the crock pot and let it cook to perfection. I'm already so so hungry just thinking about it.
I will post about Steven Universe Future soon, I am just waiting for the limited series to wrap up this upcoming Saturday.
I kept meaning to update over the weekend, but weekends have a way of making it So Hard to find a moment to actually update!
I got my Destiny 2 Shadowkeep Collector's Edition and it is glorious. I'm eyeing a collector's edition of The Taken King cos then I'd have all of them, and I think that's pretty cool. All that said, I am thinking of paring down a lot of my toys. I want to keep most of it, but I'm going to eschew my Overwatch toys (fuck Blizzard) except for my pachimari cos I just love it so much. But idk maybe that, too. I have plans to reorganize my work/gaming/music recording room and I think that will help me to decide what I do and do not want/need in my life anymore.
Other things... we got our xmas shopping completely finished. We got the money for the sale of one of our old bass guitars. Waiting on a couple of other music-related items to sell. They Live was great on the big screen. More on that later probably in detail under consumed media.
I am planning to go by Bed Bath & Beyond tomorrow to pick up a couple of happiness lights. They're $40 apiece which isn't cheap, but I want to make sure I get my allotment of sunshine one way or another over my two week break from work. I also think they'll help my spouse out, cos hell, everyone is ruined by this time of year. I know that by the end of a regular weekend away from my light at work I'm at the end of my tether regarding my own moods and ability to stabilize my emotions/responses to stimuli.
I'm supposed to be completing a document for my school work, but I'm feeling salty and petty cos the head of my program takes forever to get back to me all of the time. So I'm gonna work on it tomorrow and fuck it. It'll get done when it gets done and he can suck an egg.
I'm making our vegan beef stew for our work potluck on Wednesday. I'm still trying to decide if I'm going to cook the mirepoix the night before, or just do it quick the morning of. Probably the night before. It'll be fine.
I don't know I'm in this weird headspace where all I want to do is be productive, but not on time wasters. Like, I'm still in love with Destiny 2, but I think I wore myself out on the grind at the end of the Season of the Undying. Thinking about logging in to keep up with the Season of the Dawn stuff makes me feel so tired. I don't like when relaxation becomes a job.
I did buy a puzzle and a puzzle roll over the weekend, and it's honestly all that I think about. I just wish I had a better space for doing puzzles. Right now I just unroll it on the bed. What I really want is a space where I can lay out the roll and spread out the unused pieces so that I can strategize better. Yes, I am definitely the person who does the entire edge of the puzzle before working on the middle. It's just who I am.
Anyway, wow this was long. I'm going to work harder on updating daily. I am kind of sad right now, but I'm pretty sure it's cos I'm in PMS territory, and I'm still recovering from the weekend away from my light. I'm gonna watch some ASMR and then head to an early bed time. I've got more Steven Universe: The Future to watch.
Waiting waiting waiting. Waiting for that meeting with research next week. Waiting for the head of my doctoral program to email me a document I need to complete. Endless waiting. But it's okay. My spouse said it's kind of like a forced vacation; I can't do any work because all of my work hinges on these things being done, and them getting done any sooner is out of my hands. So I'm trying to enjoy it.
I did our budgeting for the next two weeks and either I've grossly underestimated our circumstances, or we're in really good shape. I am hoping it's the latter. I use You Need A Budget (YNAB for short) and I love it. Here's a if you're interested in signing up! It's $84 a year, but that works out to $7/month, which is less than Hulu or Netflix.
I am really excited for the weekend. I'm not worried about money. The holidays are mostly sorted. I now know my side of the family is doing xmas way in advance of the actual holiday, so I can rest easy at home with spouse and his mom instead of worrying about spending time with my less-than-awesome relatives.
My Destiny 2 Shadowkeep collectors edition is en route to my house right now and I am so damn excited I can hardly stand it. The hardest part is going to be deciding whether to wait for xmas or just open it now. Just got a text update saying it should arrive about the time that I get home yesssssssssssssssssssss.
I have a few different media posts planned, one about Mike Birbiglia, one about Dragon Prince season 3, one about the first few episodes of Steven Universe: The Future. Spoiler alert: they're all glowing. I may sit down this weekend and bang them all out, since I have nothing to do work/doctorate wise until next Wednesday at the earliest.
I'm also excited to get to work on Techs Arcana over the winter break. It's been a while since I've done any bleeps and bloops.
Well got a few things squared away yesterday. I'm meeting with the head of research at my workplace NEXT Wednesday in order to plead the case for my doctorla research. So yay on that. And the head of my doctoral program FINALLY said he'd send me a document I need. So yay on that. AND I got my student loan deferment reinstated so YAYAYAYAY on that. Hecc, I did a lot this week!
Saturday we're going to a screening of THEY LIVE, which I love so so so so much. John Carpenter is my favorite film auteur. I miss when studios were willing to make films that seem so off the wall and barely held together. I miss messy films. I mean, we still have them in perpetuity, but I wish they were still getting made. The last really messy movie that made it to the big screen that I can think of is Southland Tales, which is a Philip K Dick-esque story come to life with no holds barred.
I got my pile o' goodies from Bungie yesterday, and I'm wearing my Xur tights today. They are amazing. Now I know what quality tights feel like. Smooth and cozy and actually fitted to my tiny human body.
I've been thinking a lot about how men are basically garbage, and how being a woman is hard and I have been thinking a lot about transhumaniism and biohacking and gender and I think that we women should reclaim plastic surgery as a transhumanist endeavor.
Can you imagine how quickly men would line up for plastic surgery if it was called "transhuman transformation."? All of them, probably.
I am still on the feeling good all of the time train, which makes me nervous cos I don't want to not feel good. I think I am going to take my happiness light home over the two week work break so that I can maintain consistent levels of good feelings. Or maybe I'll buy one (or two) for at home. Wouldn't hurt to have one in my work area and in our bedroom. Feeling good is for everyone!
Today has been a really good day.
I realized today that I've felt not-depressed for what I can only say is a really long time. I do not doubt for a second that my little happiness light has had a lot ot do with it. I just feel...good? Like, all of the time? Even though I am super-stressed about all this bullshit with my doctorate and my dumb workplace being dumb I'm not like completely broken up about it? Idk it's really nice.
Other things that are nice that happened today include me winning my first and probably only ebay auction. I really wanted that Destiny 2 Shadowkeep Collector's Edition that I missed out on and I won one! Hooray! Pics and all that good stuff will be in a post when it arrives.
My Destiny 2 goodies order that I made (completely unrelated to the auction) should be arriving at the house tomorrow. I'm sort of irked because it's been sitting in my city since yesterday but whatever. I don't need or want to be complicit in the same kind of toxic convenience culture that gave us Amazon. No fucking thank you.
I'm currently awaiting (impatiently) for my PlayStation to update Destiny 2 for Season of the Dawn and trying to not be irritated that it didn't do this automatically while I was at work. Stupid technology.
Not everything in my life is consumed by Destiny 2, I swear. It's just it's damn Dawning and magic and faith aren't real in real life, but they're real there and so I pretend for this brief window that it's real for me to. I send up my wishes to the Traveler every day it's silly but I don't care.
I feel the best I've felt in years during this non-summer time and I can only say that if you are able, get yourself a happiness light. They make a world of difference.
The weekend was kind of a lot so bleh.
Today has been ridiculous.
We had a power outage at work, and my boss said we were closing and all of the necessary transportation showed up to get folks home and then her bosses decided it wasn't her call to make (it is 14°F/-10°C outside and there's no power, but yes, let's keep work on) and said that unless folks found their own rides that they were at work for all of the work hours.
The power came on 3 hours later, when we were down about 90% of our regular workforce.
Mostly I'm sad cos I thought I'd get to go home and finish up my last 2 levels in Destiny 2 before the server reset for Season of the Dawn. Now I have to do it tonight which is fine, but I have less time so it's a bit more stressful.
I got my student loans put back into deferment, so that's good. They still say they're due today, which is annoying but I'm ignoring it because the lady promised me I wouldn't have to pay today.
I am also getting a massive push back from my district against my doctorate thesis proposal. Which is fun after they told me to wait until after my university gave the greenlight on my research. Think if I'd actually waited until after my proposal defense to find out I can't do my research? I fucking hate these people.
ANYWAY everything is either great or terrible and I don't really like it because it's hard to feel any kind of way when everything is so extreme, and so much is so extremely opposite of everything else. It's a lot.
I had a very stressful day for no good reason and my shoulders feel like I've been carrying a water yoke for hours with 20 gallons of water on both ends.
That being said I think it was a very good day. I got my hair cut and it looks cute. I'm working on growing my undercut back and my stylist is amazing and so it should go well (I currently have a chelsea, I'm just bored of it).
I informed our (now) former singer that they are in fact our former singer. I'm disappointed that there was zero remorse or acknowledgement of their responsibility as to why things worked out the way they did. Which, I suppose, is why I had to send the damn text in the first place. I don't know what I was expecting. Some level of self-awareness I guess. Or maybe they just wanted me to be the one to pull the trigger. I don't know. I'm not a psychologist and I don't claim to be. I'm just tired.
I made a pretty big breakthrough on some personal stuff this week. I don't like holidays cos they're inevitably disappointing. I have been focusing on how other people enjoy them and doing the things that they like. This also preoccupies me and keeps me from being a grinch, which is both stupid and more work than just enjoying the small moments.
Anyway, I'm all tucked in and ready to watch the first installments of Steven Universe: The Future, so I'm signing off for the night.
This week is too much.
I don't know how people get off work and then spend all damn evening having to Do Things. Like, I have had to Do Things every god damn day after work this week and it is so fucking much and tomorrow I have to Do A Thing after work and I might scream. Stop making me Do Things after fucking work!
Things that are good:
I brought one of my plants to work that was very sad at home. It was sad because the window I was keeping it in was Too Cold, and the pot I had it in SUCKS. So now it has a nice pot and it is in a cozy, very humid space, and it is happy. I have to remember to bring some cuttings of my string of pearls for a coworker because she brought me a rubber plant cutting and I want to return the favor.
I fucking love plants, you know?
And I spent time trimming and loving each of my plants at work today and it was really nice. Sometimes I get so caught up in everything else that even watering my plants feels like so much work, but whenever I settle in to really love of them I am just really fucking happy. And they're happy cos they're cared for and growing and everything is good. Speaking of which, I think I have a little shoot starting at the base of one of my cacti and I'm really excited because I've never had that happen before. I'm kind of a smother mother, and cacti have always been very difficult for me. So yay progress!
I'm gonna go play video games and relax before going to bed.
This week has been a fucking lot.
I don't know how it happened, but I have to stay late nearly every night this week at work. And then I had to finish putting up Xmas lights on the house. And then I forgot I'm supposed to meet with my advisor in....16 minutes online. And I am waaaaaaaaaaaaay behind on work stuff. And doctorate stuff. And just everything.
How did this happen?
The usual. I was so caught up in being anxious that procrastination kicked in to eleven and I did nothing but play phone games and wonder why I have no time.
AND I forgot to license my car until the last minute.
Like I said it's been a lot.
That being said, it hasn't been bad. Work is going well, at least the portion of it that I am a part of. I helped out a coworker who was feeling overwhelmed. I bought gifts for a different coworker who had an EXTREMELY terrible day yesterday.
Even just now I got distracted by distractions on my phone. Good god my brain is a fucking problem.
I am going to let this month be the month I tame it. I am going to get down to brass tacks and actually create a to-do list. I might even enlist a coworker to help put the proverbial screws to myself in order to make sure it all gets done. I have goals and I need to meet them.
Just because they are far away doesn't mean that they don't exist. *repeat ad infinitum for my approach-avoidant brain*
After all that talk about November ending you'd think I'd have updated the first day of December. BUT I didn't because I was Really Damn Busy!
It started off with the normal grocery run. Spouse's mom has been saying for a while that she really likes the neighbor's holiday lights, and so we decided to go buy lights. And then I wanted Some Other Stuff. So we went to Lowe's and they had an AMAZING deal on an electric fireplace. His mom has also been kind of sad about how she bought the house without a fireplace and she's always missed having one. So we bought it.
Then we had to (HAD TO) buy a bunch more Xmas decor for the fireplace. And anyway it was a whole deal and we didn't get home until 6 pm which is not only late as fuck for us, but also TWO HOURS AFTER DINNER TIME. So I was very tired.
I haven't put up the lights yet. Sunday was very cold, and today I got home so late from work that the sun was practically down already. Tomorrow though it's supposed to be in the 50's F, and I am supposed to get home at a normal time. Barring breaking my neck I should have them all done and up and operating by 5 pm tomorrow (hopefully earlier cos the sun will be down by then.)
And now I have an excruciating headache after a long day at work, so this entry is gonna be short. I am very grateful that in a couple more weeks I have two weeks off. I need a real recharge.