errands

Daily Post: More Clouds QQ

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This might be a sort of whiny post. It’s overcast again. AGAIN. I miss the sun. It came out for a little bit yesterday afternoon. Tons of people were outside with their kids. Bikes. Strollers. It was as if everyone were soaking up the rays as much as they could.

I know I felt that way. I could feel a difference in my skin. In my bones. Almost instant. I finally was getting sunlight and could feel alive and like I had energy and drive to do things. The Earth was finally awake and able to give energy; radiating it into my being and allowing me to feel like I could do things.

It’s not supposed to be sunny again until Sunday. Friday and Saturday are supposed to be filled with thunderstorms. I like the thought of storms. At least there’s energy with them and a reason for the lack of sun until this perpetual twilight of cloud cover.

These long, dreary, cloudy days of stillness drag on and on and it feels so hard to get anything accomplished. I woke up at 4 am and went back to sleep after taking my Synthroid. I woke up again at 8 am and couldn’t convince myself to do anything, so I stayed in bed until 10 am.

I feel like the day is wasted and it’s not even noon. I wish I knew how to change that. I can’t go to the gym since it’s closed. I could begin packing but I have to get the totes from the house first, which means I have to clean out the car so the totes could fit.

I have to take the kittens in for boarding later. I’m saving the mopping until after their gone. I have my report that needs to be worked on. Clothes still need to be put away. Meal prepping would be beneficial so I have food for the next days before flying to Florida.

There are all these things I’m “shoulding” on myself, which isn’t helping or making me feel better. Ox thinks I should still be taking my Vitamine D supplements. I might talk to my Endocrinologist about it. I stopped taking it pre-surgery per doctor’s orders but was never told if I could resume it, so I didn’t. I never asked.

Things were going so well post-surgery, and now I’m back to feeling unmotivated and low energy. I do think a lot of it has to do with the weather. I think stress is playing into it as well. There are travel bans from certain states going into Florida. So far Nebraska isn’t one of them. So far there aren’t travel bans coming back into Nebraska. But who knows how things will change in the next week? Who knows if I’ll be able to go back to work or not? Who knows what other obstacles Jon and I are going to have to figure out in regards to moving and the apartment? What if all his interviews get canceled because of covid-19? At least we have two months rent-free to figure something out I suppose. That did work well in our favor.

I did have a fairly decent day yesterday. Productive. There are feelings of accomplishment as I look back over my list; another thing which has been hit or miss in the past few weeks.

I got a lot done in the morning. Setting up the electicity and internet. Filling out the move in form and emailing it to Jon so he could fill out his portion. Taking care of my Jury Duty letter and getting my new certification form to my FA. Figuring out what to do with the cats so I don’t get evicted during my last weeks here. I looked at student loan consolication through Navy Federal, but I don’t think I’m going to do anything with it. My interest rate could actually go up rather than down, so I’ll stick with the evil I currently have.

I made a few new contacts in my phone for my pharmacy and the vet clinic. I found out about my Zoloft perscription. I could pick that up later today when I go over to the house. I went through my email. I read a bunch of blog posts that I’ve been slacking on. I wrote. I posted. I made a shopping list and was pleased to see it was so small. I got in touch with my therapist as well. Counseling is canceled for the moment until they figure out how they want to do it remotely.

I showered before heading into town to meet with Ox. We got gas for the cars. We got the money order for my recertification paperwork along with spinach; the only grocery item I needed. We got cat litter and wet food for the kittens. While we were at the pet store we made sure all of the paperwork was in place for the boarding. Since it’s $22 per cat per day, I won’t be able to board them until the 1st of April. Not that I really wanted to do that anyway. I don’t want to be away from them for that long. I can’t swing $300 for boarding though, so even if I was morally ok with doing it, financially I can’t.

When we got back to the house, I hopped on my computer to update my sorcerous character through the Aurora program. While I was messing aroung with her sheet, I got to talk to the DM and brainstorm with him a bit. I did end up taking one level in rogue. Since most of my spells are spectral weapons, I get to use the rogue’s sneak attack to boost their damage as long as I’m stealthed or hidden. Since my character has expertise in stealth I get added bonuses to my stealth rolls. I’m really liking the direction that this character is going. I hide in the shadows then leap out in a blaze of righteous glory. Maybe I should have named her Karma instead of Saber.

Anywho, I got my CCHT paperwork mailed off, so that’s 100% done. I can submit the Concur reports when I go to work tomorrow. I should have that money back within a week or so.

Ox and I did our D&D campaign together at the house. There were another few hours wasted as the DM tried to figure things out, but once we got into the actual game it was better. I don’t feel like it was a waste of time and there was significantly less bickering.

I came back to the apartment after the game and went to sleep, and that’s about all that’s happened so far today.

I’ve started in on my meal prep, more out of necessity then because I actually want to do it. Ox and I have talked a few times. I’ve put music on so that’s been playing in the background. I’ve filled out some more paperwork. I’ve done some dishes.

I’m hoping that I can salvage today despite the rough start.

Daily Post 206: Half Way Done

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Alright. So here we are, about halfway through my “off” days.

Monday was alright at work. It was fun being able to tell my patients about my social experiment for school. They seemed genuinely interested in how it went and joked and smiled with me as I told my stories. The day would have gone better had the nephrologist not rounded in the middle of change over. Luckily, my FA helped flip a few stations and even started one patient’s treatment for the RN and me. We would have been significantly behind without her help.

The rest of the day went smoothly. I had some frustration at the end of the day. This was the RN who I’m pretty sure mentioned to my FA how she didn’t like me coloring during my downtime. As I’m sweating bullets trying to get the clinic closed up she’s sitting at the computer. It must be nice…

By the time I got home, I was mostly over my frustration. The drive home in sunlight with music helps a lot in getting over things like that. Is something at work frustrating? Yeah. But you know what? It’s over. Fuck it. I’m going to enjoy my drive in the non-snowy weather. I’m not going to let the frustration take this moment away from me.

Monday was raid night for Ox. We went to the gas station together so he could get a few energy drinks. I even partook of one before going back to the apartment. I unpacked from work. Washed the dishes. Cooked dinner. Finished editing my assignment for school. Printed my assignment out and packed it away for Tuesday. Packed for the gym the next day.

I then proceeded to spend most of the night coloring a new mandala, staying up until 11 pm. Blaming the energy drink on that one since I typically can’t stay up much past 7 pm most nights.

I was awake when Ox came over so we had a cigarette together then went to bed.

Tuesday morning was crazy productive. I did my morning routine. I packed up the car with my gym bag, school stuff, and my basket of laundry. I ran over to the vet to finish paying my balance with them. The check from Ox finally cleared so I had the money to take care of financial things.

After the vet, I swung by the house to start my laundry. I then headed into town. I went to Walmart and got a money order to pay rent. I went to Costco and got gas for the car. I hopped across the street and got two packs of wet cat food for the kittens. From there I headed to school feeling good about having gotten all of my morning stuff done.

Class was good. I got to talk pretty extensively about my experiment. Not a lot of other people wanted to talk about theirs. I figured that’s how class would go down. Whatever. I had fun and it was super informative and I wrote extensively about it.

After class, I headed to the gym. It didn’t feel like it would be a good workout. I was tired and thought about not going. Instead of giving up, I stopped at a gas station near the gym to eat my protein bar since I was ridiculously hungry. I was able to have more of my energy drink and Ox was actually able to catch up with me so we got to spend some time together.

All of those things helped me to start feeling better. After about 15 minutes, I continued on to the gym. I still didn’t think it would be a good workout, but at least I wasn’t giving up on it. After a 10 minute warmup on the bike, I was feeling more with it. I reached gear 11 a few times. I ended up biking for 35 minutes, reaching just over 6.5 miles. Not bad for thinking I wouldn’t be able to do much.

I stopped at the gas station in Hickman before going to the house. I use lemon and lime juice frequently and I was running low on them. I figured I would pick new bottles up while I was out instead of having to make an emergency trip later.

Once at the house, I switched my laundry and ate again. I went ahead and spent the $20 to get the set of silicone containers I found on Amazon. They should be here Thursday. I logged my workout, noting that I’ve been improving since my return to the gym at the beginning of the month. My first workout was only 20 minutes and I barely made it past 3 miles on that one.

I also took a moment to recognize that while I may not be losing weight, I haven’t gained anything since November and receiving my cancer diagnosis. If I’m able to maintain while not doing a whole lot at the gym, then, theoretically, once I start pushing again, I should start making progress in that area. It made me feel better to realize I haven’t been doing that bad on the health side of things as I had been thinking. I’m going to give it another month before going back to lifting since that was the advice from my Endocrinologist. She wants me to heal a bit more first before doing crazy shit.

Ox and I had sexy time while I was over. Twice even. That left me dead for the rest of the day. In a good way. Totally not complaining that I didn’t get much of anything else done. When I was recovered enough I packed up my laundry and came back to the apartment and slept for a while. Eventually, I woke up to eat, thought about looking at the rest of my to-do list, but opted to go back to sleep instead.

Ox came over at some point and fell asleep next to me. I halfway sort of remember him getting into bed. I do clearly remember his alarm going off this morning. XD

He woke up for work and got ready, kissing me goodbye before he left.

My back was sore when I woke up at 6. I think it was from sleeping weird, or maybe for so long since I’m pretty sure collectively I slept more than 12 hours yesterday. As I moved around doing my morning stuff the pain went away which I’m grateful for.

As far as today goes, I’ve finally started making progress on my report that’s due March 19th. I’ve been going through my reference material and highlighting the information I want to use in my report. I’ve also got the report body outlined and the text formatted properly. Pretty much all that’s left is to put the information where I want it.

I just put the roast in the oven to cook and I’ve written, so all that’s left is to start plucking away at the minor tasks on my list before going into town for counseling.

Ox and I plan to meet for lunch at the diner. From there I need to go check out one of the apartments Jon and I are interested in. There’s D&D tonight. I’ve already made sure my character sheets are in the bag. XD

It’s going to be another busy day, but it should also be a good day. It’s sunny again which is nice. Summer is on its way. I’m looking forward to it.

Report Cat is Helping

Daily Post 191: Pre-D&D

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Not 100% proof read. My bad.
Didn’t want to be late for D&D <3

The past few days have been eventful and productive.

Monday went well. Work was decent. Nothing overly exciting happened. I used timers on my phone to work in time to color instead of taking as many smoke breaks. It seemed to work well and something I will continue trying to do.

Monday night went well. I wrote and posted. I did dishes. Ox came over once he was at a stopping point with WoW. I cooked us dinner before we started plucking away at our D&D characters. Dinner wasn’t anything fancy. Just some burger patties. I added mushrooms and onions with pepper jack cheese to mine. Tasty and filling.

This is the first foray into character creation that Ox and I have done by ourselves. When I’ve made characters before I’ve always had someone more experienced guiding me through the process. From a psychological aspect, I can make a fairly solid personality and backstory for a character, but figuring out stats and proficiencies, and traits, and spells or abilities and items, and alignment, and, and, and, and…

It can get daunting pretty fast when you look at the entire task rather than breaking it down into smaller, manageable pieces. It didn’t help that with the D&D Beyond website, my class isn’t listed because it’s not a “standard” class. Of course, cat people wouldn’t be standard… bastards…

Around 10 pm I was tired enough to call it quits. Ox stayed up significantly later, until close to 1 am, working on both our characters. Not only did he figure his out, he also went into the “homebrew” section and created a race specifically for my character that we could use with the D&D Beyond system.

That’s what I woke up to Tuesday morning. I sat down at my laptop to begin typing up my notes for my sociology class and got distracted by investigating the D&D pages left open on my browser. I can’t put into words how touched I was. He took the time to create something specifically for me. It was something I didn’t have to worry about figuring out anymore. It was already done. At least for the most part. All of the information was in there. I dinked around with it for a bit and was able to fine-tune things so modifiers showed up in the right spots and such. But a majority of the leg work had already been done and that was an amazing gift.

I spend about 30 minutes absorbed in D&D stuff. Eventually, I began working on my notes. I showered and got ready for class. I packed up my things then headed into town. I stopped at Walgreens for a refill of my Zoloft. There wasn’t a copay this time, so that was another nice surprise.

I went to school. I got there early so I kept typing up my notes. The class wasn’t all that awesome. We mostly talked about how to properly cite sources in APA format. We talked about “success in college”. That was mildly interesting since we delved into studies and statistics and research. It wasn’t just “take my word for it” BS, but rather scientifically verified things.

Interestingly enough, standardized testing isn’t a very good indicator of success in college. I liked seeing that, actually. For a while, I’ve felt that tests aren’t a true measure of a person’s ability. They’re only one aspect of a much more complex situation.

Towards the end, we starting talking about critical thinking skills, which again, was interesting, but overall I felt like I didn’t gain a lot of information or insight from this particular class session.

After class, I went to Hi-Way Diner. I finished up with most of my notes; formatting the text and such. That helped fill the time while I waited for Ox to get there from work. We ate. I looked at my finances. I’m pretty tight on money right now but I think we’ll be ok.

We went to Costco for water since I’ve been going through it like crazy. I’ve been running warm recently. I’ve been leaving the heat off and opening the window in the bedroom at night so it feels cool enough to let me sleep. I haven’t had a fever, so I have that going in my favor.

I didn’t have a lot of energy for most of Tuesday. Staying up late was the main reason I think. Eating lunch didn’t help give me energy, so once we were done with Costco I was pretty much done with everything. All I wanted was to go home and take a nap.

Ox stopped at the gas station near home and got me a small carton of heavy cream since I needed that for one of my meals. He carried the water into the apartment for me, too, because he’s awesome like that. Once he left I crawled under my weighted blanket and slept for roughly three hours. I woke up feeling better and able to continue plucking away at the to-do I had created in the morning.

I cooked both my meals. I tried making the creamy chicken pasta again. Instead of zoodles, I used cauliflower rice. It’s good, but still a little on the bland side. I’m not sure what would help spice it up. Maybe a tablespoon of Italian seasoning or something along those lines. The recipe has a very soft, subtle flavor and I like my food to be bolder.

I went over to the house around 5:30. Ox and I kept working on our D&D characters. We had dinner with his parents. Steaks with side-salad. No complaints.

I think it was around 9:30 or 10 that we wrapped things up with the characters. I emailed our sheets to the DM so he could have them for Wednesday evening. Ox and I trekked back to the apartment and went to bed together.

He woke up this morning for work. I stayed in bed, once again foregoing the 5:30 am class I had thought I was interested in.

I started my day around 7:30. I had breakfast then went to sit down at my laptop only to realize I had left my backpack at the house. That had me trudging out into the snow that wasn’t supposed to have been falling, to the car, driving to the house, picking up my backpack as Papa Ox snickered at me, driving back to the apartment, to finally begin the day as I had intended. Sans breakfast though since I had foolishly heated up a container of chicken then left it unattended with the kittens… Yeah… totally didn’t get to eat half of my breakfast because of that.

I went through my “in” pile since that’s been building up. I paid all of the medical bills I’ve received so far using my HSA account. That thing has been a life saver. I don’t know what I would be doing without it since I’ve paid almost 1k in medical expenses so far.

I put the laundry away since I had washed and dried it last night while I was at the house. I cleaned the litter box. I washed dishes. I typed up the last bit of my notes, so I’m caught up in that regard. I printed out the D&D sheets for Ox and I to use tonight. That had me fighting with the printer for a while and I still didn’t get it 100% right. I really do dislike this printer. >.<; It should not have taken half the effort it did to print those sheets.

I eventually showered and got dressed. I packed for the gym so I could bike after I was done at school. I drove into town. The roads weren’t bad, but they weren’t perfect either. The snow was starting to stick and certain spots were slick. There was an accident right where I needed to turn to get into the college. That had me running a little late, but at least it looked like a fender bender rather than anything super bad.

Counseling went well. We talked pretty extensively about my past week and my feelings regarding it. I talked about how I’ve been productive and writing more, using my to-do lists as a way to keep myself on track and to remember everything I was able to get accomplished.

We talked about how I felt like at least part of it was coming from the medications. Part of the productivity might be the Synthroid. Having energy after work is unheard of for me, not that I’m necessarily complaining. Just noting that it’s not “normal” for me. The energy hasn’t been interfering with my sleep. I’m able to go to bed at decent times and sleep deeply enough to feel resting, so there’s that. More energy, but not so much more that it’s fucking with my life.

I mentioned how I think sleeping well is factoring into my new found “ok” feeling. I get restorative deep sleep and I think the weighted blanket has something to do with that. I also think having slower, less crazy days factors into that. Taking time for self-care is also affecting things I believe.

The Zoloft may be keeping my depression in check, which I said was a bit disheartening, however, knowing how hard last winter was for me, I’m not ready to try discontinuing it. Maybe it’s the crutch I need while I rebuild all of the habits that help me be ok on my own.

I mentioned how I was going to wait until the weather started warming up and the days were sunnier; most likely towards the end of March. Spring-ish. That’s when I want to see about backing off of the Zoloft. Right now I would rather keep doing well and feeling well about my days than going back to feeling sad and tired all the time.

We talked about my Wellness Assessment at the gym and my workout on Sunday. We talked about my feelings regarding my new baseline and my plans in regards to the gym. I mentioned how at first I had put on my schedule to go to classes early in the morning, but at the moment that wasn’t working for me. I enjoy my mornings at the apartment too much to want to give them up. I like being about to have a slow start to the morning, enjoying my breakfast, doing chores, making my to-do list, actually sleeping until I’m ready to wake up…

I don’t want to give that up just to take a class at 5:30 in the morning that I’m physically not able to complete. I know I can’t do an hour’s worth of cardio yet. I’m not recovered enough for that. It seems to be working better to go to the gym on my own and to do what I want for as long as I want and to be happy and content with that.

We also talked about the upcoming D&D meet this evening, how Ox and facilitated a lot of it, and how in general, he and I are doing really well. We’ve been doing more things together. Intentionally interacting rather than mutually ignoring each other while we’re in the room together. Not that I mind moments like that. I enjoy cross-stitching next to him on the bed while he plays WoW. Honestly, I do. But if that’s the only interaction we have, it can lead to feeling disconnected.

By doing more things together, I can enjoy the times we’re together in solitude and I can enjoy my actual alone time because I have these other moments of connectedness. It’s all about balance and I think we’re finding a better one for us now that things are settling down.

So yeah. Counseling was a good session. We’re going to continue to monitor how the coming week goes and check back in, a bit more indepth, about my feelings regarding the medication issues.

After counseling, Ox sent me a picture of my car, showing that he was in the school parking lot. I went out and had a cigarette with him. I still had to figure out my references for the report assignment in my class, so I didn’t want to leave campus yet. I did want to take advantage of his surprise visit though and see him for a few minutes while I could.

It was a nice transition from counseling to school tasks. I got a hug which almost always makes things better.

He drove me back up to the front of the school so I didn’t have to track back through the snow to get there. I set up camp in one of the booths across from the cafeteria and plucked away at finding decent sources for my paper. I found 7 that I’m thinking about using. I only have to turn in four for the assignment tomorrow. Every extra source I use is extra points. I would rather have too many sources and not use all of them then realize I don’t have enough information to answer all of the questions in the paper.

So yeah, that took about two hours to shift through. I filled out the sheet with all of my reference information that’s’ due for class tomorrow. I’m content with the progress I made in the realm of school for today, so I’m done with that area of my life for the moment.

I went to the gym again. I biked for 30 minutes this time. Got to 5.64 miles and made it to gear six, which is one higher than Sunday. I started to feel my incision, which is where I decided to back off, do a bit of a cool down, then call it quits for today.

I did better than last time, so it was a good workout in my book. I actually worked up a sweat this time. It felt good. I’m happy with my effort.

And now I’m back at the apartment, writing, before taking another shower and heading out to D&D like the nerd I am. I’m looking forward to it. I think we’re all going to be chipping in for pizza. I hope it’s a good night. I’ll let you know how it goes tomorrow. : 3