Too much time to myself is bad for me

Wordle 650 4/6

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Lazy day yesterday. Got the kid to school and once again had the house to myself. I think this isn't good for me. I think I've got better in recent years about self-discipline when it comes to working from home, but either there's more to it than that or I still have a long way to go. I got through the essentials yesterday - cleaned the kitchen so I wouldn't have to do it while other things were going on, dealt with new stuff at work and crossed one item off my rolling to-do list, and dealt with some renovation paperwork - but I could have done a lot more, both for work and for personal projects. I didn't even get much done that mattered in World of Warcraft, although I spent time there on stuff that didn't matter.

T. had dinner plans with her new coworkers, apparently they coincidentally had a dinner outing her first week, so the kid and I were on our own. Fortunately for me (or our TV) a friend of hers was available to play. I took them to the park for a while.  While they were on the jungle gym, I walked laps, to get a modicum of physical activity. Then we went to the house, they played in the kid's room, and I inventoried some comics. We all split a Hawaiian pizza for dinner. I did most of my physical therapy after dinner.

Bedtime for the kid was harder than usual, and sadder. She asked if anyone would ever really invent a time machine because she wanted to see Buddy again. I tried to say comforting stuff and sat with her longer than I have been for the past week or two.

Didn't sleep well last night. T.'s snoring was the proximate cause, but I have to wonder about something directly or indirectly related to how the day went, like depression.

Bad decisions

Wordle 649 4/6

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Yesterday morning was uneventful. I had a bike lesson for the kid planned and her bike was supposed to not have tires on it. So in the morning I tried to get the pedals off her purple bike, the smaller one. They were rusted on so I eventually gave up and decided to bring the bigger yellow bike and hoped it wouldn't be too big.

Work was OK, productive enough, but annoying. J. was obsessed over one problem or error after another. Some of them I agreed with him on, some I guess he's technically right but I couldn't imagine it mattering, and some I wasn't even sure he was right about but it wasn't worth arguing. Our manager is on vacation so I created a file to track this stuff until she gets back. Yay, leadership. I had one meeting at 1 and it went well and I got to my one follow-up quickly.

Soon after that it was time for the bike lesson. Traffic was actually worse at 2:30 in the afternoon than during the morning rush hour, I suppose due to construction. Also, I followed Google Maps to get there but I got confused anyway. We wound up being 20 minutes late. When we got there, we found that the bike I brought? Was still too big. Fuck. So that was a waste of time.

In the afternoon I ran a few errands with the kid, which was annoying of course. She wanted ice cream but didn't want to walk one block for it. In the end I drove to Eastern Market, we ran some errands, and she got ice cream in between.

Dinner was chicken and glazed carrots. I did my physical therapy before, during, and after. I did a little more comic book sorting after dinner but the effort has definitely slowed after the initial burst of two boxes inventoried in two days.

In the evening I joined a raid in WoW. Spent almost two hours on the final boss of the current tier and failed to get her. I'm really, really, really close to giving up. Aside from being defeated, this isn't fun.

Not much going on

Wordle 648 5/6

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Took the kid to school uneventfully, except for traffic. I'm really looking forward to when the kid can bike with me. Probably not this month, maybe not even this school year, but someday...

Once again, had the house to myself. I had three meetings scheduled. The first, our usual team meeting, was moved to later in the day due to a conflict for our manager. The second was unexpectedly productive. This team has been problematic to work with, and they're still behind in a sense, but we got stuff done. Yay. The third was cancelled. It would probably have been productive too so I'm a bit disappointed but can't complain about more free time.

In the afternoon I went grocery shopping. I spent a little time on comic book sorting, but got through less than half a box. I left around 5 to get the kid to swim class. We were a few minutes late, not due to traffic, but parking. The lot was overflowing. (Two cars were taking up two spaces each. One had a handicapped tag and therefore theoretically had a logical reason. The other I assume is just an asshole.) I thought about dropping her off and moving the car, but so many people were doing the same thing, I figured we'd be OK. 

Dinner was enchiladas, T.'s recipe.

On second thought, burn them all

Wordle 647 5/6

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Yesterday I dropped the kid off solo and T. walked to work, her first day at the new job. Cool.

Work was fine. Four meetings but I didn't have to speak in any of them except saying "hello" and "goodbye", if that. In between I sent a couple emails and made a dent in the fourth training. I could have got more done but wasn't too bad.

After posting yesterday's post and through the morning I thought, "Hmmm, maybe I should take an inventory of my comic book collection. That potential buyer was interested. Figuring out what to sell will be hard if I just flip through them, but if I have a list, I can get up to the right number to exactly fill boxes." Smart of me, right? 

Hah fucking hah. The problem isn't organizing them. They were in decent order to begin with, except for the 60-70 I had collected in a pile since the kid was born. The problem was figuring out what they're called, when they were published, and in what series. Some fun facts:

• X-Men: Age of Apocalypse, volume 1, issue 1, published in 2005, and X-Men: Age of Apocalypse One-Shot, volume 1, issue 1, published in 2005 are two different books.
• Volume numbers might seem like an important way to tell one comic from another. Good luck figuring out what they are. They often aren't printed anywhere in or on the book, and Googling will turn up omnibuses long before single issues.
• In the 1990s and 2000s Marvel relaunched a bunch of its long-running, low-selling titles with issue 1s. (This has happened several times.) About 5 years later they thought it would be cool to return to the original numbering, in honor of big milestones or just show off how much history they had. The issue of Fantastic Four published in September 2003 has two numbers on the cover, issue 71 of the current series and 500 of the original series. Same for about a dozen issues of that title around then and several other titles. Which series am I supposed to consider those a part of?
• The "Spider-Man" series started in 1990, and this isn't a reboot; his earlier series had simply had different names. Around issue 75 or so they started calling this "Peter Parker: Spider-Man" on the cover but officially its name was still "Spider-Man". It ended and relaunched in 1999 and the new series officially started with "Peter Parker: Spider-Man", volume 2, issue 1. But that means there was never a "Peter Parker: Spider-Man" volume 1!
• Volume 1 of "Sensational Spider-Man" ran from 1996 to 1998. In 2004 they launched a series called "Marvel Knights Spider-Man", and in 2006 they renamed it to "Sensational Spider-Man" volume 2. So we have a situation similar to the previous, with a volume 2 issue X without a volume 2 issue 1. 

And that's just getting through the letter S. I really dread "Uncanny X-Men", "Astonishing X-Men", Adjectiveless X-Men (never its official name but so well known it might as well be)... And then there's the Ultimate line, which I generally sorted with the main title it was related to but sometimes there's no clear equivalent.

So anyways, I spent about two hours working on that in the afternoon, during and after the last of those meetings. I left at the last minute to get the kid to her guitar lesson. I turned out to be late, partly due to traffic. Fortunately, sort of, the teacher was even later. 

The dinner plan had been a falafel platter, but the hummus was moldy. Good thing we had leftovers! So while T. was in a meeting about school/parenting issues, and the kid read in her room, I spent about an hour working on the collection. Dinner was more lasagna and cucumber salad.

I have a total of 565 titles in the spreadsheet by now. This had better be worth it.

Scout moonlighting, socializing, and comic sorting

Wordle 646 3/6

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The usual Sunday brunch yesterday. (Tangent: it seems boring to have such a strong routine on the weekend. Should we be trying new things on principle, or going out to brunch more? Then again it's a routine because it works - has something for everyone, the ingredients are always or almost always handy, and it's all at home, i.e. going out to brunch isn't so much fun when it's 40 degrees out. We can revisit this in the summer.)

After brunch I did some laundry and the kid cleaned her room and then invited a friend over. We chatted with her dad a bit. He had to go run an errand, so I took the girls to the park. While there we stumbled on a birthday party for a kid we vaguely knew and had some of the food and drinks from the party, and I chatted with the adults a bit. Crashing! 

We couldn't linger because the kid's friend's dad had more errands to run, and so did we. Around 1 T. took the kid to a Girl Scouts event. While they were out I did a little more laundry and worked on organizing that comic book collection. Around 2:30 I left to go to a Cub Scouts event. I wouldn't normally go if the kid couldn't make it, but the usual troops leader couldn't make it either, so I was asked to substitute. It went fine. The guest speaker did most of the talking anyway - a fireman discussing fire safety plans. 

I got back around 4:30 and did some more organizing. Dinner was lasagna and a cucumber salad. The kid had a rare after-dinner playdate with I., but dinner was earlier than usual and we had no reason to refuse. Her mother visited with us for a bit. An unexpectedly social day. I did my physical therapy between dinner and bed.

Comics

Right before putting the kid to bed I finished sorting my comic books. They're all in polybags and boards, after years when my new comics were just going in a pile, and all sorted (or at least sorted much better), because in addition to the pile I had used a system I can't figure out now on some of my old comics. 

That was the easy part. Now I need to figure out what I want to sell.

I want more space in the house. Comics from my teens or later aren't investments in any meaningful sense, so I should get rid of them, right? The store we went to Saturday had extensive back issues and the only stuff I found that I already owned was in the dollar bin. Even after we do an addition, our house won't be huge, and until then we're always short on space. And T.'s clutter bugs me so I should walk the walk and minimize my clutter, right?

There's one box I definitely want to keep. Three complete sets (John Rogers' Blue Beetle, the 90s Generation X series, and Peter David's Young Justice), plus some stuff that's intrinsically interesting or actually just might be valuable. But the other four boxes? I could look through them and pull out a couple hundred random comics I'd be happy to get rid of, but that wouldn't fill one long box (300 issues in each if you pack them tight). If I want to get rid of two boxes, let alone four, I'm going to need to make tough choices. Ugh.

Lots of shopping

Wordle 645 3/6

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Typical brunch yesterday. 

We went shopping yesterday. This was on the calendar for over a week because things kept coming up, but I wanted to get some shopping done with T. primarily responsible for keeping the kid out of trouble instead of me. The stops:

1. To some stranger's house to pick up a pogo stick for the kid T. found on BuyNothing.
2. To Dick's Sporting Goods. There was nothing specific I was looking for but I had a gift certificate to spend. I wound up getting sweat pants for jogging when it's too cold for shorts. 
3. To Five Below where T. had taken the kid while I was in there. We got candy and squishy toys for some reason.
4. Lunch: Chipotle.
5. To Costco. We were just there a couple weeks ago but likewise had money to spend. 
6. Halfway around the beltway to a comic book store near Tysons Corner Mall. The goal was comic book sleeves and boards to really really finish preserving my whole collection just before hopefully selling a chunk of it. I was torn about this but the kid had some kind of a logical argument about making room for new stuff I'd like more. I don't know, but at least it'll all be organized.We also got some books for the kid there and I wonder if she planned that.
   
7. Tysons Corner Mall. I got shoes after a lot of agonizing about them. T. got me shorts because she's convinced I needed them. I think the ladies got some clothes for themselves too.

We met our friend C. for dinner in the Coastal Flats in the mall.

We got home late but still had to make the beds and get showered. It was a long day. 

Good but slothful

Wordle 644 3/6

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I drove the kid to school alone just because T. wanted to relax; it was her last day at her current job. 

Work was fine. One meeting, which wasn't as productive as we might have hoped for, but at least we learned something. I did one training (3 down, 2 to go) and did some organizational stuff I've been meaning to finish for a few days.

I played Warcraft in my downtime. Two dungeons done. This is the sort of thing that's fun, but they would have been more fun if they had gone better. I'm well into challenging content by my standards. I also continued sorting my comic book collection. I hope to sell a chunk of it in 2 weeks, but this isn't realistic if I don't decide what to actually sell. 

We got the kid from school and to gymnastics uneventfully. While she was in there I went to Trader Joe's for a few groceries and browsed two bookstores for exercise-related things. I got a used yoga book. Not exactly what I was looking for, but hey, it was only $6. We got dinner from a new place by accident - T. thought she was looking up the menu of a place we've been before, but no. I liked it but the other two didn't. After dinner I called my dad to say happy birthday.

In all this, something had to fall by the wayside, and it was exercise. I got none, except for physical therapy while talking to my parents.

Working from home finally feels normal

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Yesterday after making sure the kid got ready for school as usual, I biked myself to work while T. drove her in. Outlook sucks via the remote work network, and I know it'll be better in person and think or at least hope I'll be able to reorganize in ways that improve my experience working remotely. 

Previous visits to the office: one month ago almost exactly; roughly nine months ago; two days before that, and before that I don't have details recorded here but I think it was May 2021 or something. So it's still rare. By now I've done it enough times that I'm no longer surprised or scared by the weirdness of the environment I know about, but I keep finding new examples. See below post-it note, for example, which I found in the cubicle I happened to take yesterday. Was it put there three days ago, three years ago, or a duration that can't be expressed in linear time? I'll never know!

Anyways, in the morning I got up to date on my highest-priority task. For lunch I broke from habit and instead of my usual haunts, went to a more upscale food court a little further away, probably catering equally to GW students and office workers like me. I got a sandwich and fries from Roaming Rooster, so it wasn't adventurous, healthy, or even new to me, but it was unusual while at the office, at least. 

In the afternoon I did the email reorganization that was my actual reason for going. Being in the office doesn't magically make me more diligent, unfortunately. Potential time-wasters at the office: this and Unfogged. Plus stuff on my phone I guess. Some other things are blocked. Others may be accessible but I wouldn't dare or feel justified. Those two are more boring than options at home but they're just as easy to alt-tab to, arguably easier thanks to the dual monitor setup. So I got to a few more productive things in the afternoon but not nearly as many as I hoped. 

Biking home was fine. Traffic was terrible. I guess my day to go to work lined up with cherry blossom tourism because in addition to crazy assholes in cars there were also a lot of tour busses. I got home just in time to get in the car with T. and go get the kid. 

When we got home the kid got to play with a friend for a bit. I made tortellini (the kid's favorite) and broccoli for dinner. It was small but after my big lunch I wasn't too hungry and no one else said they were. We had extra dessert anyway.

Happy? Yes. Productive? Arguably

Wordle 642 4/6

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Dropped the kid off yesterday uneventfully.

Work was OK. One meeting in the morning that went very well. It was one of those team documentation update meetings, and this team was more prepared than most. One meeting in the afternoon that went well but I couldn't participate, so my teammates had to handle it. In between, I could have been more productive, i.e. at all. Either with work - several minor tasks hanging over my head, or at home, with sorting that comic book collection. Maybe I was still recovering from the day before, or felt I could relax because I could make up for it today, because I planned to bike to work today, in hopes that some network problems I've been having could be resolved (or at least helped) by being physically in the office. 

All that being said, honestly I was mostly sucked into the new Warcraft content. Minimally relevant to that long-term goal I'm stuck on but new stuff is always fun. Productivity is a never-ending battle.

In the afternoon I went to physical therapy. (I couldn't participate in the afternoon meeting because I was on the bus during it.) It went well. I regretted jogging the day before, though - I wasn't/am not terribly sore, but enough to be problematic.

After that I was invited to a going-away happy hour for T. at a bar near her office I looked at the map and walking there would be only like 10 minutes longer than public transportation, so I walked. Good for me. It was fun. There were a couple people there I had met briefly before, and it was also interesting meeting several people in person - T. has lots of meetings with video chat, but seeing people on a screen at an angle is different than in person. I had fun just chatting and having a drink or two for over an hour, but eventually someone had to go get the kid, and we couldn't drag T. away from her own party. I walked to the kid's school. I anticipated resistance to asking her to go to the bar but didn't get it, which is nice. She charmed one or two of T.'s soon-to-be-former co-workers. We didn't plan to have dinner there, but the kid was hungry and T. had just got another drink when we got there, so we did.

Bedtime was a little hard. Even so, better than usual for a week or more ago. Maybe the new deal really is going to improve things? Maybe she was tired after the socializing and walking. 

Speaking of walking, I put in almost 12,000 steps yesterday. Lots of exercise this week.

No psychological or biochemical explanation needed

Wordle 641 4/6

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Yesterday was tiring, and I don't need to look for reasons like I did for the past few days.

In the morning just before taking the kid to school and T. to work I got an email from my teammate J. pointing out a couple things I had done wrong the day before. Fair enough, he's right, I was wrong, but it's never fun. He proceeded to point out related things in our Teams chat, and those weren't even my mistakes originally, I just should have fixed them when I did the first things. The day was peppered with discussions like that about random organizational stuff of no interest to anyone besides maybe him, me, and S., the third person on our team.

I've complained about him before, here and here I'm sure other places as well. He's just punctilious to a fault, and yet with people he doesn't work closely with, he's so polite it's obsequious. In hindsight some of the stuff that happened today isn't even bad, he probably thought of it as me asking for advice and him helpfully offering it, but it didn't feel that way under the circumstances. To the extent that my job has any management responsibilities, he makes me feel bad at them, both because he's thinking of things I should know/do before I do (or even after I've screwed them up) and because management logically should include making him less annoying. And yet I can't get rid of him and don't want to annoy him too much because he does far more work than the other two of us.

Also, there was no Warcraft during the day yesterday and only casual stuff in the evening because of a regularly scheduled content patch. Not a surprise, and I shouldn't let it get to me given my thinking about the game yesterday, but even so a usual fun activity was conspicuously absent. 

In the afternoon I got down my comic book boxes to sort them, in hopes of selling some boxes. Didn't make much progress yesterday but just getting them out/down is a physical effort.

T. got home in time to go with me to the kid's swimming lesson, and I jogged on the treadmill. It went OK. No noticeable flare-up of plantar fasciitis but I wouldn't say I'm cured yet. Didn't set any speed records (30 minutes, 2.85 miles) but it has been a few months. 

Dinner was fried rice from a bag. Easy.

A better day or at least a better mood

Wordle 640 5/6

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While dropping the kid off at school we had a talk about bedtime because it's been so hard lately.

Work was OK. Three meetings. The first one was just listening in, as usual. It's another team's weekly meeting. This is the team that blindsides us a lot and attending is an attempt to get heads ups. The second was brief, led by me, and productive. Yay. Although a lot of credit would go to the invitees, who are an organized team themselves. The third was brief, not led by me, and also productive. Kind of heated, in fact, although no one was mad at each other, just at people who weren't there.

Between meetings I finished another training (2 down, 3 more to go, due in about a month), sent some unrelated emails, and got that document I had procrastinated on back to the subject matter expert. Good for me. The ball is in their court now. Let's hope they can answer my many questions. 

I had a little talk with T. during the day about my mood and history of depression as a medical condition, just to make sure she was aware. I also played more Warcraft during the day than planned, but I don't think I wasted too much time there. More on this below.

Around 3 I went grocery shopping. T. thought I wouldn't have time to get home before we had to get the kid, so she met me on the way. (I still think I could have made it!) The music lesson went well.

Afterwards I took the kid to the park. Unfortunately the monkey bars were occupied by teens using them as a basketball net. (There's an actual basketball court just across the alley, but those kids could dunk between the monkey bars.) My kid and I had an uncomfortable conversation about teens and race (all of them were black). But they made space for her now and then, and a friend of hers showed up and they kept busy in other ways, and I think there may even have been a teachable moment. It kind of worked out well with T.'s meeting; the topic was upsetting when the kid overheard it, but it was sorta kinda related to the teens in the park.

Dinner was roasted cauliflower and air fryer chicken. They were both a hit.

Bedtime for the kid was better than usual. The latest thing we agreed on is, we sit with her for 15-20 minutes and then can go if needed. It worked last night. Let's see if it continues.

Warcraft

During the day I thought I'd log on briefly between productive activities to just check on end-of-week "chore"-type stuff, and maybe not play at all, but wound up getting sucked in for probably over an hour. Whoops. Still, I think I would have had time to get home from shopping if T. hadn't wanted to meet me, so it's not like a loss of control issue. In the evening I did a dungeon on my main that was a high level for me and it went well. That sort of thing is fun. Maybe not reliably fun because there are bad groups and bad dungeons, but it was fun last night. 

At this point I'm just trying to play it in fun ways when I find the time and not otherwise. If I don't get my seasonal goal (which is minor this season and logically should be flexible given all the new stuff going on, e.g. new expansion, new main), or play less than usual on certain days, it shouldn't bother me. When I put it like that, it sounds concerning that wasn't how it worked all along!

I'm trying

Wordle 639 6/6

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Yesterday after posting the previous I went for a brisk walk. Then I made brunch: scrambled eggs for everyone, home fries for T. and I, freezer waffles for the kid. 

Around 11 we had a family photo shoot planned, an annual tradition in general and in this case it was a fundraiser for a school event. It was relatively easy for me to get ready for that. While T. and the kid got beautified, I cleaned the kitchen, did some laundry, and did my physical therapy for the day. The photo shoot went well, although it was very cold. We had chosen springy outfits and it was in the 30s.

After we got back, I tried to keep busy and be productive. T. and I both worked on the laundry and updated out calendars. T. helped clean the kid's room. I paid the architect's latest bill, emailed a friend about getting together, emailed a bike teacher about a lesson for the kid, and did some research into selling comic books and posted an ad for a chunk of my collection on craigslist. I also tidied up around the house. I also called my sister to catch up and plan her upcoming visit, and my parents to catch up. During most of this the kid had a friend over to play. They weren't too much trouble.

At some point T. noticed my mood, or at least noticed how busy I was and asked if everything was all right. I unburdened myself a bit. In addition to what I've been talking about lately, there's probably also some stress about the renovation plans. She had a lot of suggestions and I shot them down for one reason or another, but I appreciate the thought. 

Dinner was vegetarian: pasta with broccoli and roasted Brussels sprouts. The kid liked it more than I expected. 

I went to bed by 9.

I played no Warcraft yesterday. I say that not to brag or complain, I'm not entitled or compelled to play any particular amount, but to point out how hard I was trying to get/stay on top of things. I did read a bit while doing the comic book research, I wasn't magically driven, but I was and am trying.

It should have been fun

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Yesterday morning I thought about going for a walk, but it was still dark when I first got up (damn Daylight Savings Time), so I got sucked into WoW, and by the time I finished a dungeon it was too late for a walk before breakfast. Ugh. Breakfast was very simple, just cereal, because we had lunch plans. I am proud of the fact that we got a load of laundry done in the morning, at least. 

The lunch plans were lunch at a brewery in Silver Spring with four friends. It was fun, I guess. We haven't seen them in months, probably not since this party and we couldn't really catch up or relax too much then, and I've known them for a long time. I screwed up T.'s order twice, though. Ordered the wrong lunch, although she said it was fine when we got it, and meant to order a beer for her later but forgot to actually hit the final "order" button on my phone until she reminded me 10+ minutes later. While the grownups chatted, the kid found a deck of cards (it's the sort of brewery with games) and did a card trick for everyone, and then read, and then played games on her mom's phone.

We spent roughly three hours there. Then we drove almost an hour to the birthday party of a friend of the kid's, out at a roller skating rink and arcade in Manassas. I drove. I had problems staying awake during it. I'm sure the beer didn't help but being up late the night before didn't either. Before going in there, I went to a pharmacy around the corner to get a birthday card since we had forgot to grab one. While doing that I indulged and got one of those Reese's peanut butter cup variants and got it. (Chocolate and peanut butter is my favorite combination in general, and I had never tried one of their extra-thick ones before!) The birthday party went well enough. I put skates on and tried a bit, although I couldn't keep up with the kid or even T. Roller skating actually seems harder than ice skating, or at least, my meager experience didn't transfer as well as I thought it would. T. chatted with other parents a lot more than I did. Still, for an hour or two, I was having fun as well and enjoying the minor physicality. Good for me. 

We stayed there about half an hour later than planned, until about 6:30. The kid had fun and did basically everything there. Then I thought we'd go home, but T. suggested going to the nearby Target for a new mattress cover, and I didn't argue, and for some reason we walked through the whole store. We found two more things we needed and had to drag the kid away on the verge of tears from two or three things she wanted. We got a snack for the kid at the Starbucks in the Target, chips and a strawberry drink, which basically turned out to be her dinner. Then, after that, T. went to the Uniqlo next door. The kid and I joined her briefly but soon went out to the car and relaxed. 

We got home around 8:30, well after the kid's bedtime. She couldn't get to sleep until around 9:30. We went to bed right after that. 

What didn't happen

I didn't do any physical therapy yesterday. Didn't make time for it in the morning, and by bedtime I was too tired.

I also ate a lot less than usual. What I ate wasn't particularly healthy, but there wasn't too much of it. Typical lunch out or even smaller than typical, that one Reese's cup, and at the party only about half the kid's cupcake, and one chicken wing. Good for me for just saying no to junk food. Now I just need to continue that indefinitely if I want to keep weight off. Yay.

Fuck it all

I shouldn't read too much into my mood under the obviously bad circumstances, but yesterday when thinking things through I summarized it as I'm trying as hard as I can but it's not enough. My Warcraft progress has stalled. At work I'm behind on that old document getting revised, behind on several trainings (did one last week, have to do four more soon, maybe VERY soon), and we as a team aren't making progress nearly as fast as we had hoped about our documentation updates (although in fairness we are making progress). I've been better about my physical therapy than I ever have about things like this in the past, I think, despite yesterday, but I still have plantar fasciitis, and I've noticed a pain in my hip when I put my pants on, of all things. It's like I've aged 20 years in the past 3! 

At the same time, I feel like I can't complain about my problems because everyone else has it worse. My kid is aggravating sometimes but somehow some friends of mine manage with three or four. One of those friends we met with today just recovered from covid and is planning open-heart surgery (not related). Another friend I'm overdue to see works 12-hour days. Then there's the newborn with complications. I'd feel like an asshole unburdening myself to any of them.

Busy St. Patricks Day Friday - Ugh

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Lexie helped me get it. Yay.

Got the kid to school yesterday uneventfully. 

It was the day for the biweekly report at work, and it went like usual. Maybe a bit worse than usual based on when the last one came in, but there were no problems with the content or miscommunications about whether something was ready for us, it was just the usual suspect. During and after working on that I worked on that document from years ago I finally got around to Wednesday. I finished getting it all in our template. I started my actual work on it, correcting errors and clarifying ambiguity and stuff, but didn't finish, and didn't even get close enough to send my questions to the subject matter expert. Let's hope I can do it Monday. One day over a self-imposed deadline isn't too bad, right? Let's hope I'm not too busy with other things then, because I also have a meeting or two and am getting close to the deadline on a training. Ugh.

We got the kid a bit early for a parents' happy hour. This time there were movies for the kids so it was less rowdy. We didn't actually socialize too much because we were hungry and happened to sit with the kids instead of most of the parents, but it was still nice. 

After that, gymnastics. We planned to go to the grocery store but decided we didn't need to. Yay, a little time and hassle saved.

While in gymnastics another parent mentioned to us a new pizza place nearby that they liked and we figured we'd try it. We did. It was a long wait, and we took it home instead of eating there, so we didn't start eating until almost 8. I did about half my physical therapy during and after dinner. The kid had to shower after that so she got to stay up late.

Oblivious irresponsibility

Wordle 636 4/6

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Got the kid to school uneventfully yesterday. 

I had four meetings scheduled in the morning yesterday. But one was cancelled with moderate notice (less than 24 hours, a dentist would have billed us for it, but more than we normally get), and one turned out to be quick and easy and efficient. Two meetings with anything resembling effort doesn't sound too bad. They were finished by noon, so except for one follow-up I thought I was in a good place to relax for the rest of the afternoon.

A little after noon I walked to the Post Office to mail tax info to the accountant. In the afternoon I took care of one follow-up on one of those meetings, but mostly just relaxed, i.e. played WoW. T. had signed up to help out with a book fair at the kid's school around 4. I went with her. They had plenty of help, so I cleaned the car, helped with the shopping for the kid, and went for a walk. The weather was nice, after several chilly days. 

Dinner was the leftovers from last night, plus air fryer broccoli. Easy, and T. and I liked it, at least. I did my physical therapy afterwards. 

At the last minute before bed I realized I had forgotten the follow-up from the first meeting yesterday, the most important or at least most urgent one. And now that I mention it I said I'd have that document I procrastinated on done by this week and the week is nearly over. Ugh. I could have been better yesterday. Just to make this morning even better, I had login problems, although they're fixed now.

Artistic growth

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Yesterday the kid was grumpy from the minute she got up. Something as simple as brushing her hair had her snarling at us and we had to rush through getting ready for school. Dropping her off was uneventful, though.

Work was fine. One impromptu meeting in the morning to get ready for an upcoming meeting and my boss's vacation. After that I finally got started on an SOP that's been on my to-do list for almost a month. As soon as I did, I felt justified in putting it off. It's a mess. The document was mine when it was originally written, about five years ago, and has had updates to the content from the subject matter expert but hasn't been touched by a technical writer since then. If I wanted to be pretentious I might say something about how an artist is never satisfied by their old work. (I am a perfectionist sometimes!) Realistically, though, I've grown in my craft a bit since then, not that I was a child only five years ago, and there's a lot of nonstandard stuff in this document that I didn't push back on (or simply try to find an alternative to) hard enough then but I think I would now.

T. got the kid from school without me because she was helping out at a book fair. Meanwhile I went for a walk, roughly the old jogging route. When I came home I made dinner: lasagna (straight from Costco to the freezer to the oven) and green beans (with pine nuts, which I haven't used in a while and want to think about more). I did my physical therapy thoroughly while cooking.

Self-inflicted problems

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Yesterday we took the kid to school, despite her various maladies, and dropped T. off at work and I had the house to myself. 

Work was OK. I continued to put off this one SOP I should be working on and everyone had technical difficulties with their email, but on the other hand, I had two meetings, both went well, and got a few other minor things done. My day outside work, though...

Around 1 we got an invite to a meeting primarily between the architect and engineers at 3:30 that afternoon. Yes, it's short notice. Fine. One of my meetings for work was at 3 but it probably wouldn't go more than half an hour. Around 2 I walked to the hardware store for batteries, a new toilet brush, and cedar balls/blocks because we've noticed moths in a place we can't put mothballs. Uneventful, except that I couldn't find a toilet brush exactly what I was looking for so I got a grout brush instead. On the way home I tried to bring in the trash and recycling bins, but the gate door got pulled shut by the wind and jammed. 

I left it like that during my work meeting. When it was time for the architect's meeting, instead of the computer setup I'd normally use, I got out my phone and Bluetooth headset and listened in on the meeting. That way I could look around the house and basement for an adequate screwdriver or other tool to fix the gate and walk through the alley and house to attack it from both sides. Once I finally got it, I focused on the meeting more. Unfortunately there were technical difficulties whenever I tried to say anything. I'm not sure if it's related to changing devices like I did or what. 

Due to the meeting I left later than I had planned for the kid's swimming lesson. I only brought the bare necessities instead of a workout kit for myself - not that I was sure I wanted to anyway, but I didn't put it together before 2, and didn't think I had time to later. I got to the school before T. I was worried because I thought class was supposed to start at 5:30, but she said it was 5:45, and the instructor agreed. So I could have relaxed a bit. Whoops.

When we got home, I learned that T. had just ordered a brush very similar to the one I bought. Whoops.

Dinner was orange chicken. It came out OK. Bedtime for the kid was hard, but better than the night before.

In Warcraft in the evening I got into a very good raiding group. We cleared the six bosses I've already killed in record time for me and I stayed up later than usual to let it ride, even though I could have used the sleep. On the seventh boss they kicked me during/after the second failure. It was partially (entirely?) my fault. That stings a bit, but still, I'm well-situated for the rest of the week, especially with certain improvements I'm making or can make. I've been saying for a while now that I need to either get serious or stop trying. This is what getting serious looks like.

Recrimination

I named the post late last night, when dwelling on the gate problem and the schedule mix-up, but in hindsight the short-notice renovation planning meeting really didn't help. We wouldn't have scheduled it for today if we had had more input on it. And T. knew I was planning to get a brush for the toilet; why didn't she tell me she had ordered something very similar? And being short on sleep is a mixed blessing because it resulted from Warcraft progress, if that mitigates it at all.

Sick day for the kid

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I didn't go for a walk first thing yesterday because thanks to Daylight Savings Time it's now dark when I get up again. So it'll probably be a while before I can start that style of exercise again.

When the kid got up, she complained about feeling sick still. I never actually took her temperature but it sounded credible based on how she was acting and what the weekend was like. So T. walked to work and I supervised a sick kid while working from home. (Don't tell my supervisor.) In theory this is ethically dubious or practically risky, but the kid was indeed well-behaved, and it's not a debilitating illness, just a fever for a few days.

It was fine. I had three meetings and she was well-behaved during all of them. I was only listening in on the first meeting anyway, and the third was brief, so I really only had an active role in the second. While I did that and some other work-related stuff, the kid mostly read in her room, redecorated her nook under the bed, and played with stuffed animals or something. I also folded the laundry and did the dishes, and coordinated with T. by email and text about shopping and planning for the next few days.

Around 3 she got a bit antsy and I took her to the park. A little after that, guitar lesson. It went well. After that, to the park again, in hopes that tiring her out after spending the day sitting around. It partially worked but when running away from a kid with a Nerf gun she jumped down the stairs too far and strained(?) her ankle, and was limping the rest of the day. Ugh.

Dinner was a pork roast and a salad. As has become usual, did my physical therapy while cooking and during and after dinner. I didn't get a walk in, but I did play with the kid on the jungle gym more than I normally might. The kid fought bedtime worse than ever, probably a combination of DST and having a very lazy day.

Damn Daylight Savings Time

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Yesterday I went for a walk a little later than the previous few days, but still before T. got up or I made breakfast or anything. Breakfast was pancakes and bacon. The kids appreciated it. Ours was still a little bit sick when she first got up, but was active and generally her usual self by breakfast time.

They played games while T. had a turn in the bathroom. I took them to the park very briefly before it was time to go. They stalled, of course. We visited with her parents again a bit while dropping the friend off, and then went to Costco. 

The list was long. Haven't had such a big visit there in a while. Afterwards we went somewhere new for lunch: Micho's, a Dominican place. The food was good, but the service wasn't, or maybe I should say the management? The kid wanted lemonade, which we'd thought they had because of an ad outside but they didn't; T. wanted a brunch platter, but the menu she tried to order from was for a special event that had ended, and more. 

After that, home to unload and relax a tiny bit. Then we went to visit friends, the people who we cancelled brunch with the day before. In addition to socializing, he's an architect and she's very financial-minded so we wanted their advice on our planned renovation of the house.

Dinner was chicken (vermouth/caper sauce) and roasted broccoli.

I kind of got my physical therapy in throughout the day. I think I did it all except for the part with rolling my foot on something cold, but not all at once. A little while at the friend's house, a little while cooking, and a little after dinner. I'm not sure how much it changes the value to do it like that, but then, I also spent a lot of the day on my feet, so I feel like I was active enough.

More relaxing than expected, less than hoped

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Yesterday morning I once again went for a walk first thing in the morning. Good for me.

When the kid got up, she complained about a fever and chills. I tried not to be too happy about it as we cancelled our plans for lunch with friends - not that I didn't want to see them, but we had a busy day planned - and the kid took it easy in her room. I think she's both getting mature enough to realize that relaxing actually helps when she's sick, and wanted to be on her best behavior so we didn't cancel any other plans. She also got out an embroidery kit I hadn't known about. Apparently it was a gift from a friend of T.'s parents. Interesting. Meanwhile T. and I did the laundry, T. sorted out some tax info for the accountant, and I emailed my sister to help plan their upcoming visit. 

Around 3, a friend of hers came over. She was feeling well enough that we didn't cancel this. We visited with her mother for a bit, and then her mother left and we kept the friend for a sleepover.

Dinner was from Indigo. I walked to get it. When I got back, there were tears, because I had forgot to order mango lassis. In the end we quieted them with a promise to get them after eating, because dinner would get cold otherwise.

We watched Galaxy Quest with the girls. I think it might have been too mature for them - not violent or anything, but metafictional. The kid's friend kept asking if what we were seeing was real, and it was hard to explain, "It's a movie, but in the movie X is a human, and Y is an alien dressed as a human..."

I didn't do my physical therapy yesterday afternoon. I didn't plan to skip it but the usual after-dinner session didn't work out. So I did at least some of it this morning while writing this.

Good for me, or even good for us

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Yesterday morning, before doing anything else at all, I went for a walk. (Normally I go downstairs in my pajamas but yesterday I brought clothes to the bathroom with me and got dressed there.) 2 miles, 35 minutes. I haven't found the time or motivation for a decent walk on several recent days, but I correctly figured that there always would be time to do it first thing. Good for me. Bad compared to jogging but I never tried jogging first thing in the morning on a workday like this (and I'm still dealing with foot pain).

The kid's parent-teacher conference was in the morning. It was unusual in that it was student-led. The kid did most of the talking. Interesting idea, and she did well. It was one of the most academic things I've seen her do, not just arts and crafts but reading and reciting something about academic performance. After that we dropped her off at art camp and went back home to work.

Work was fine. A meeting was cancelled because the people we needed didn't show up. I was disappointed but not surprised, considering who it is in general and what they're up to personally these days. Personally I was productive. I had 5 items on my to-do list and got through 3 of them, even though one took a lot longer than planned because in the process I found something weird about how SharePoint was set up. I had the pleasure of seeing my teammate J. speechless, so to speak. This was something we had differed in our understanding of over a year ago, and I let it go just because I wasn't totally confident and he could filibuster endlessly, and recent events proved me right. It was fun. 

We got the kid a bit early and supervised her and a friend while the friend's sister had her parent/teacher conference. Then both families went to an early dinner at the Big Bear Café. It was fun, I guess. The kids and T. had fun socializing, and I can think of worse ways to do so, but the kids were worse behaved than usual, so I was spending most of my time keeping them from fighting with each other or bothering other people nearby.

Then gymnastics. I double-checked and there's no shopping we needed to do, given our plans, so we just relaxed during the class. We got to see a bit of a presentation of their skills at the end. That was also fun. 

The kid had a hard time going to sleep. I didn't go to bed straight after her, but not too much later.

Getting out of a rut?

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Yesterday morning was lazy. The kid has a four-day weekend for parent-teacher conferences, so she's in an "art camp", and it starts later than school, so we could be more relaxed about leaving the house. But it was a pain when we finally did. 

T. mentioned that she had some errands to run and for a brief moment I looked forward to a couple hours of solitude and relaxation. But it's hard to park where she's going and she would be in too much of a hurry to take public transportation due to meetings later in the morning, so she asked if I could drive her, and I couldn't come up with an honest excuse not to. So I drove. Traffic and the unfamiliar route weren't as bad as I feared but still weren't great. 

Work was OK. Three meetings scheduled, but one was cancelled by someone else before we left the house, and the second was my own team's meeting, originally scheduled for Tuesday, moved to yesterday instead of the day before by mistake. Mystery solved. The third wasn't a complete waste but wasn't as productive as we might have hoped. It was another review of a team's documentation. We got 20 or so assigned to be retired or updated by certain SMEs, which is progress. By this point we hoped to have all of this team's documents assigned, i.e. over 100. Heh.

I prepped the back bedroom - cleaned and reset the router extender in hopes that would resolve problems we've been having back there - and used it for that meeting and a couple more hours of work. It was OK. Oddly, work seemed normal, but Warcraft seemed to have a bad connection up there. Maybe I should have taken it as a sign, because I wasn't too productive in either work or WoW. The last thing I did before logging off was organizing a to-do list for today. It was fairly long.

I drove to get the kid alone because a co-worker of T.'s was coming to our house to pick something up. The kid had been at a friend's after the art camp playing and resented me cutting it short, but wasn't too badly behaved. 

I stayed up later than planned. Playing WoW, of course, and it wasn't going well, of course. I was on my warrior main in a pickup raid, we couldn't down one of the two bosses I needed, and I wasn't pulling my weight in either of the two roles. I can't be sure why exactly at this point but the problem is no longer just finding a group.

The real value of human contact is discerning how angry people are

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Dropped the kid off uneventfully. 

Work was OK. Zero meetings. There was a bit of a headache in the morning. A small but urgent task came in and assigning it among the three of us was a bigger problem than usual. In absence of any other clue, like the task being a revision of a document one of us worked on before, a new task would simply be assigned based on whose had gone the longest without a new task. i.e. whose turn it was. But there was disagreement over that, over what counted. J. was right, but he always has to be right, and S. demurred just a tiny bit passive-aggressively, so he insisted she take it, but it was his turn, so we took her at his word and I insisted on him taking it. Then, after that, our team lead had a gentle reminder/request for me to handle things differently as well. 

It made me wish we were doing this in person because a conversation over Teams chat makes it hard to tell if people are mad or stressed or just joking without the nuances of face-to-face communication. Not a realistic urge to go to the office because it would only help if they were there too, just annoying. 

Played WoW with my free time, of course. Incremental progress on my main.

In the afternoon at the last minute before getting the kid I went for a walk. I got shaving cream, which I forgot about or just didn't think of at the previous trip to the store, and took a roundabout route home to get a little more exercise. Didn't hit the goal for the day but was closer than I would have been otherwise.

When we got the kid, she almost cried when she saw me because she had seen her old babysitter taking care of another kid and thought she was getting her. The kid was so sad it was almost not funny. Fortunately she was able to play with her old babysitter and some friends for a bit.

Dinner was tilapia and glazed carrots. Easy enough. I did my physical therapy after dinner.

Stayed up a bit later than I should and didn't sleep well.

Unusually productive

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Yesterday I drove the kid to school a little early for a field trip. T. stayed for a parents' organization at the school, and then walked to her work. I attended that parent's organization meeting virtually and had the house to myself.

Work was confusing in the morning. We normally have our weekly team meeting Tuesday mornings, but it wasn't on my calendar when I first logged on. I asked and one team member had had a conflict but it was cancelled, so I suggested having our meeting after all. I got no overt pushback, but no enthusiastic response either, and someone had to leave early, so maybe I should have left it cancelled? Despite that, it was fine. I got that urgent thing done on schedule and followed up on a few other things. Another meeting in the afternoon which I listened in on more intently than usual to help with the meeting minutes, but I wasn't the person mainly responsible for them. Call it half a task. There were technical difficulties. 

I'm worried this may eventually result in being asked to go to the office. Two years ago I would have been thrilled. Six months ago I would have been dismayed, partly because of the specific day of the week; it's Tuesday, which is a good day for Warcraft. But in light of the previous post, maybe I shouldn't let that get to me too much.

I played relatively little yesterday anyway. I was productive at work, cleaned the house a little, finished folding the laundry, and went for a walk to run some errands: the pharmacy for some pain medication for T., for that pinched nerve, and the grocery store. 

I drove to supervise the swimming lesson. I was a little worried because I got there before the girls and the other parent, but it turned out that they were just running a bit late. 

Dinner was pizza - not the usual plan for Tuesday, but it was a fundraiser for a group at the kid's school.

Moderation isn't fun

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We drove the kid to school as usual yesterday. 

Work was OK yesterday. One meeting in the morning, with ominous implications for our team but no actual action in the meeting. Most of my work yesterday was focused on that task that came in at the last minute Thursday. For a short notice job outside the usual process where they ignored the usual template despite my specific request... it's going OK. Step 1 was putting it in the usual template, which I spent most of yesterday on, and step 2, everything else, seems easier than usual because the document is already pretty mature. 

Later in the afternoon I had another meeting, with only minor action. 

We left to get the kid early because we have a new music teacher for her on a new schedule. She seemed to like the new guy. I like how the new schedule will have us home almost two hours earlier. We now only have two nights a week we basically can't cook. 

Dinner was rotini, with an improvised sauce/sauteed vegetables, and Brussels sprouts. It came out OK. 

I did most of my physical therapy while putting the kid to bed. Bedtime for the kid was kind of hard but in the end there wasn't any yelling and she only went down a few minutes later than usual. 

Warcraft

The title is in reference to my main hobby. A serious approach to the game is becoming less and less fun, but I can lose myself for hours on different characters getting ready for that serious approach.

Two days ago on my main character I got invited to a group for one of the two raid bosses that have thus far eluded me. We didn't get close, and I was performing below average for the group I was in. It takes teamwork and individual performance and we didn't have either. I found it reassuring that my job wasn't much harder than I expected once I got over the hump of getting invited and I just need to up my game and be persistent. On the other hand I don't look forward to beating my head against the wall of the group finder menu boss. (Or leading my own group, but that's a different problem, probably not a lesser one.) Yesterday on my main I also ran a dungeon and improved my score incrementally. Profession stuff, a major feature of the expansion, on my main character is also simple, easy when it doesn't require other people, fast, and incremental. 

Conversely, over the past week I had a blast on two alts. Their professions are both at more interesting stages than my main. Not exactly profitable or useful but more engaging. As for the "serious" stuff:

• My evoker recently got geared up to the point where she could start Mythic+ dungeons, i.e. competitive content, and I did a bunch of them. They were easier than it normally would be because of a recent change encouraging people to do content they outgear, so my group members were good, but even so I enjoy this sort of thing. For my whole WoW career, my main character was a healer. Since December it has been a tank. My evoker is a healer and it's a familiar kind of challenge. Maybe I was wrong to switch? Or maybe I haven't given tanking enough of a chance yet.)
  
• On my mage, I did a few dungeons and also a Heroic raid with not-complete-strangers. A community I'm nominally part of but not a regularly scheduled event. It didn't go terribly. Better than the pickup group with my main, certainly. I don't want to schedule time for that sort of thing regularly but it was nice. 

So to summarize, the character I've focused on has nothing to do in the game that I care about, but I got sucked into the ones I "don't care about" and played them for hours and considered doing the same on more alts as well. Last night, when starting my usual session over TV, I considered logging on my main for one more attempt at the raid before the weekly reset, or earning the reputation to buy a new recipe on my mage. I did the latter and probably had more fun and got a better night's sleep than I would have. I still haven't quite given up on my seasonal goals or my main in general but maybe I should. It's fun to binge on the game but not good for me.

Lots of socializing

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We had the usual Sunday brunch yesterday, eggs and home fries, but later than usual because we had a guest for brunch, a friend of T.'s with a toddler. It was good company. After brunch the ladies took the kids to the park. I cleaned up (and played) a bit, and then joined them. When T.'s friend had to put her toddler down for a nap, we were going to go home and not do anything much, but on the way back we encountered I., the kid's friend from across the street. 

I dragged the kid home with me for a just a little cleaning and laundry-folding and then I took her back to the park to play with her friend. Meanwhile I walked laps in the park, rather than sitting and playing with my phone, standing and playing with my phone, or socializing with other parents. (As for avoiding the first two, good for me. As for the third, eh, it's optional, and it's not like I ever knew anyone I saw there all that well.) 

We had a little more downtime around 2. Around 3 we took the kid and I. to a skating rink. They had fun but the kid got hurt a lot. She's a better skater than me, after her winter break, but not better than her friend, and her friend was going too fast for her. 

The kid's friend stayed for dinner. It was air fryer chicken and a cucumber salad. Not as adventurous as I had planned, but also not as much work, and kid-friendly. 

Also, rather than reproducing it here or let it vanish into the ether entirely, I'll link to this Unfogged comment in a discussion about food issues.

Cookie-selling and a long-overdue playdate

Wordle 624 5/6

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Yesterday we had the usual brunch. We had had plans to visit friends in Virginia, but they cancelled, so it was more relaxed than expected. I did my physical therapy in the morning before leaving the house. Good for me. In the later morning I took the kid to the park with her bike. She's getting better but still not completely without training wheels yet. Still, progress is progress. Just as importantly, I think she had fun rather than struggling through a lesson.

After that, I suggested an art exercise, where we'd both draw She-Ra, from the cartoon she just finished. I probably should have planned it better because she got frustrated and mad when it didn't come out like she pictured. She might also have been too young for this sort of thing. 

After that, a playdate with a friend of hers we haven't seen in a while. It was nice. We were surprised to learn that her brother's birth had gone badly, because we hadn't known her mother was pregnant. At first I assumed I had forgotten but T. didn't know either. And it sounds like they're fine now or will be soon but it was a rough birth. So it was good to catch up with them.

After that, Girl Scout cookie-selling. I had worn sandals comfortably in the park, but it was windy and the table was in the shade and we were all cold. Eventually T. asked me to go home and get coats for everyone. Took the bus there, drove back. We all did a little shopping at the time too.

Dinner was tortellini and cauliflower. The kid's favorite, and fairly easy. 

Bedtime was hard, but I'd also call it progress. When I got tired of sitting with her, I went downstairs and watched TV with T. We later found that the kid read in her bed the whole time. I'm not sure she actually got to sleep before we did. But she didn't bother us, and it's a weekend, so I guess it's OK.

Busy and ugly weather but otherwise OK

Wordle 623 3/6

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Drove the kid to school yesterday. 

At work it was the day for the biweekly report, which is never fun. Maybe even worse than typical if measuring by when we get the last of them or the average of them. Also, at the last minute the night before we got a request for an urgent document outside the usual process from a team we already dislike, of course. I didn't do anything with it at the time but it cast a pall over things...

We left early to get the kid because there was also a Black History Month event at her school. We had signed up to volunteer, but it seemed them didn't need us, so we just supervised the kid and stuff. 

From there to gymnastics class. Meanwhile I went grocery shopping. I went to the store twice because I forgot so many things the first time. 

I did my physical therapy over dinner. I was thorough about it.

Lots of planning

Wordle 622 3/6

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Dropped the kid off myself because T. had a doctor's appointment. 

I had a meeting planned yesterday but it was cancelled at the last minute, so there was a little unexpected free time, which is nice. In the late morning and early afternoon I sent several emails about planning or ongoing issues. Nothing was exactly resolved, and one seems to be regressing or otherwise approaching needing management intervention, but I certainly feel productive.

In the mid-afternoon we had a video call with the architect and several engineers or people involved in planning the renovation. Meanwhile the landscaper came to look into the earth-moving needs in our crawlspace. Busy.

We got the kid early, due to a Girl Scouts meeting, but stayed late due to guitar. New teacher again. Scheduling problems.

Dinner was a kielbasa and green beans from a can. The kid said she prefers my homemade green beans. I'm flattered. But we needed something easy due to how late the evening was, and I wanted to have something from a can for more cooking oil storage. I did my physical therapy while cooking and having dinner but never got to one part at all. In addition, I'm not sure how much it helps to do it with several minutes between one part and the next. Oh well. Doing anything daily has to be better than not.

An adequate day

Wordle 621 4/6

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Yesterday I drove the kid to school and T. to work and had the house to myself, which is always nice. 

I had no meetings at work, which is also always nice. I also got to all but one of my follow-ups the team-by-team meetings we had over the past few weeks, so good for me.

I played less WoW than I normally might have yesterday (although definitely got some in; more on that in a minute), but it wasn't replaced by productivity; instead I spent more time catching up with people at Unfogged. A mixed blessing. 

In the early afternoon the architect's preferred contractor came over to plan some stuff out. Progress. 

I did one dungeon yesterday in WoW. Over the time by about a minute, but still improved my score which is what counts for me, but the group blamed me for missing the timer, which isn't fun. Between yesterday and the day before I cleared all six raid bosses I've already cleared before, which is efficient. There are eight bosses and I've been stuck at 6/8 for a while, but I'm really going to seriously try on the last two and either get them or give up soon.

At the last minute before getting the kid I wrote a to-do list for today of three things I had forgotten or not got around to and prepped falafel for frying for dinner. Simple mix. I was later than I'd like to be to get her, but still got there before T. She had a long day at work which is never fun, and the kid was sort of grouchy too. It seems playing with her friends on the playground didn't go well. She did a good job practicing her guitar after getting home, though.

Dinner was a falafel platter, as I said, marred somewhat by T. feeling sick. Hopefully lunch just didn't agree with her. I did my physical therapy over dinner and after dinner. T. relaxed for a bit while I cleaned up. When the kid hit her TV limit, she and I found ways to entertain her before bed. We played tag briefly but our house isn't great for it. We started a puzzle but it was too big/hard to finish. Then she suggested an art project and I put together a light table (glass table with a flashlight under it for tracing), so that was an interesting art experiment. T. had recovered enough to put her to bed.

I feel guilty calling the day merely "adequate" when I had the place to myself, had fun, and got the essentials done. On the other hand, I don't want to call it "good" when I still left several things for today and didn't get any exercise, and the others didn't have a good day.

A good Tuesday

Wordle 620 6/6

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Phew.

Yesterday I took the kid to school alone and T. slept in. She put these days off on her calendar weeks ago and it's a good thing; I assume she can't have known how stressed work and other stuff would be these days. On the way home I suddenly noticed a building that had collapsed or caught fire or something. Weird.

I had two meetings yesterday, both in the morning. The first was brief, just our usual team meeting. The second was the last of these meetings about updating teams' documentation, and it was the worst. Or if that is too dramatic, it's the one where we got the most pushback, as opposed to indifference. And this is a team that hasn't been easy to work for on other things either. Oh well, it was only half an hour. That, plus a few follow-ups on similar meetings, was most of my workday.

In the early afternoon we met with the architect. Basic stuff, mostly getting measurements of the neighbors' basements (I think lasers were used, it took about 30 seconds per basement, technology is impressive) and reviewing our plans briefly.

After that I went for a walk. On the way I called physical therapists and tried to set something up. Nothing definite but hopefully I'll have something next week at the same location as last time. I checked out that building I saw earlier; maybe it was a controlled demolition, but there had been an electrical fire or something? I also returned a book to a library, got a few groceries (we're good through Friday night and at that point it's easy to shop), and bought the third windshield wiper. (Three blades, three different models. It looks a bit silly but I assume no one will notice in a week.) After that, a little more work, following up on an access request even though it turned out I couldn't address it myself. 

T. and I left to meet the kid at her swim class 5 minutes late, but as it turned out she was later than that. Apparently there was some kind of problem at the school. The swimming lesson itself went well.

Dinner was fried rice. I did most of my physical therapy over dinner. Not all, but combined with the walk, I feel like I was "good." We let the kid stay up a bit late because she was at the climactic part of an episode of She-Ra and I admit I was getting into it myself. I kind of regret it, though, considering how she didn't make bedtime afterwards as easy as I would have liked.