Rough, even by Friday's standards

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I got the kid to school, nervously about everything going on in general but otherwise uneventfully.

The biweekly report was worse than usual. There's a new section and there were kinks to work out. Also, I made the mistake of being diligent. Most of the time I don't need/want to ask submitters anything about content, but today I noticed that a line was lacking in detail, I asked about it. I couldn't drag anything useful out of them, nor out of three more people involved in it. Well, I tried.

After noon I went for a jog. A turn on the normal route was thoroughly blocked due to construction. Instead of simply trying to find my way around I turned left and went a completely different route. Good for me for trying something new, and it was actually a tiny bit longer than usual, 3.2 miles, but it's not going to become the new routine. Too many busy street crossings.

I worked through the afternoon. When finished with my job I worked on an application. I've become stagnant. T. has sent me several suggestions. Two of them closed before I got around to applying. I would have felt really pathetic if I let the third expire as well. So I worked on basically nothing else, besides some email sorting and administrative stuff at work, until it was time to go get the kid. 

We thought we'd be on time for her to play with friends, but there was a bit of a miscommunication with another parent, and had to go basically as soon as we met them. Gymnastics went fine. Afterwards we had a quick dinner at District Taco and then went to our friend P.'s house for dessert. It was nice but too late, especially considering our plans.

I was grumpy, for good reason in my opinion, but at least I got the application done. Yay. I'm trying.

Journaling about journaling

A propos of nothing, I've been lax about the paper journal and the detailed spreadsheet. I only had three or four sessions with the therapist who recommended them and the last one was a month ago. They've already had some benefit, helping me realize just how bad the sleep problems are, and they're ways to track anything too personal to put here, but still, they're seeming more and more pointless. I haven't stopped yet and this weekend will be a good time for the paper journal, but I might stop soonish.

Sick kid

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Yesterday the kid had a fever so we kept her home. In the morning I worked while she slept and watched TV a little. In the afternoon her fever got worse. She refused any medication, and one of the times we took her temperature said it was over 104, so we took her to the emergency room. We got there around 2:30. A nurse or physician's assistant gave her over-the-counter medication, which helped. We left around 6, still without having been seen by an actual doctor.

Next time we'll push harder for her to take medicine at home. 

Dinner was pizza. Eating out was planned anyways, but for different reasons than this.

Lazy Wednesday

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I got the kid to school fine yesterday. I attended two meetings in the morning, with minimal but not completely zero participation/thought required of me. And I went jogging around noon; the usual 3-mile route. 

That's about all the good stuff I can say. I was lazy overall yesterday. Lots of Warcraft. I've done all the "chores" for the week on a ridiculous number of characters. (I'll be more specific and say seven. I didn't finish everything on all of them, but still, it's ridiculous to be able to say that by Wednesday.) It doesn't help that my few work tasks were neither interesting nor urgent, but still, I'm back to feeling bad/worried about executive function.

I got those two work tasks done late in the day, and felt the need to apologize for the timing of one of them. I put them off so long that I couldn't accompany T. to get the kid (she wanted to go about an hour earlier than usual due to another errand first, but still, I could have gone with her if I had been on top of things). It turned out to be more complicated than usual due to some street violence around the school. Not aimed at us or anyone at school, but there was a lockdown just in case, leading to a ton of talk on WhatsApp. 

While all that was going on, I made dinner. Chicken and a caprese salad. We all liked the chicken. T. and I liked the salad.

Tuesday

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Biked the kid in yesterday, despite a light drizzle. I'm tough. Good for me. Or "us", since she volunteered, although I'd much prefer her biking herself...

Uneventful day in general. Didn't get much done at work, but I feel like three meetings, two of them productive, partially makes up for it. Played Warcraft in my downtime, of course.

I got the kid to guitar myself while T. made an easy dinner, chicken chow mein in this case, which seems to be the new Tuesday routine due to T.'s new gymnastics class.

Mondays, am I right?

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Yesterday was frustrating.

I biked the kid to school and did some grocery shopping on the way home. Fine. On Friday I had written up a to-do list and the first thing on it was a certain type of easy task, just to get things organized and out of the way. Turns out that there weren't as many as I thought, though. There was only one, and even that required creatively reinterpreting some guidance we had had. After that there was nothing for it but getting into some harder tasks. One of them has been on my agenda for a very long time, and sure enough, it's difficult and will be thankless except for the incremental improvement of our numbers. Later in the morning something unexpected came up. My boss had some questions that seemed simple about an upcoming presentation, but it turned out they weren't and she - we, I - have to completely rethink it. Ugh.

I did all this while the cleaners were in the house, which is always a bit annoying.

I went jogging a little after noon. I'm glad we've reached the time of year that's feasible, at least. The usual 3-mile route; I'm glad I'm still capable of it after weeks of being too lazy (or busy) to exercise.

The afternoon was less bad. Two meetings, both easy. I continued working on that old, likely-to-be-thankless task, and played a little Warcraft.

A regular reminder had expired instead of going on indefinitely, so I had to rely on my memory for a certain monthly report. At least I had good news to report.

Dinner was leftover risotto and a carrot stew. As soon as we started cooking we found that I should have got another ingredient when I went shopping in the morning. Whoops. Also, it came out weirdly because I didn't realize the last two steps of the recipe were on the following page. This is not the most user-friendly cookbook.

The Zoo

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Yesterday I slept in a little more than usual due to how late we were up the night before. Instead of making anything for breakfast, T. and I ordered bagel sandwiches. It doesn't save much time over cooking once you consider travel time, but it was easier, at least. Then I drove to get the kid. She had fun, apparently she was well-behaved although the sisters fought with each other, and she didn't make leaving too hard. Can't complain. 

After that, a little downtime. About half an hour later we picked up her other friend for the planned event of the day, a trip to the zoo. The rain didn't help but it wasn't nonstop. The girls were more tired and less interested in the exhibits than we would have wanted, but again, no actual behavior issues, so can't complain. The main reason to go was to see the pandas because they're leaving soon, but the line was so long, we decided one glimpse of one of them playing outside was enough.

After that, home. We applied structure to the kid's screen time and watched a modern classic movie with her: Pirates of the Caribbean. I think she liked it well enough. 

Dinner was a risotto. Less fancy than planned but we didn't have enough bouillon for that and the soup T. had wanted.

Rainy day and date

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Yesterday was the usual brunch. It was a rainy day, and our only plans were in the evening, so it was a quiet day around the house. We did the laundry, we cleaned, we made the kid play her guitar (I did it for once; easier than expected but still not all that easy), we played our games and watched TV, and I walked to the bodega.

A little after 4 we dropped the kid off at a friend's for a sleepover. It was earlier than planned but they unexpectedly had free time due to the weather. Can't complain. We had a little downtime, and then, at 6, the big event: a dinner date. It was nice. The place was new to us. Really fancy. 

After that, the concert. Nick Cave. An artist I had heard of before, unlike some we've been to. I recognized one song, but not the one I expected.

We got home late. Fun date. Excuse the brevity; no reflection on our day yesterday or my feelings about it, just on this morning - I slept in basically right until it was time to get moving.

Skip day

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The worst thing yesterday was a discussion while biking the kid to school about biking herself. Me riding the e-bike with her as a passenger is OK, but it would better in a lot of ways if she would bike herself, but she's not good enough at biking for that and opposed to practice.

That was the worst thing, and even that isn't that bad. It was a nonproductive day. Lots of games. Talking at work and some organizing and a meeting but not too much going on, and these days I feel like that's OK. Assuming, that is, that I can get into gear and make up for it soon. So I have an unusually detailed to-do list for Monday...

I drove to get T. and the kid at the usual time. Unusually, T. took over the car, dropped me off halfway home. I walked the rest of the way to make dinner. Normally we get takeout or eat out on gymnastics nights, but we ate out the day before yesterday and will eat out tonight, and figure that's enough.

Good despite stress? Because of? Let's just say "ups and downs"

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Yesterday I started out miserable, which I'd blame on stress about our anniversary. I should have done more to make it more romantic and special. I hadn't even bought a card before yesterday. I like to think I might have if the past week or two hadn't been so weird, but I didn't.

So after a reasonably productive morning - meeting, meeting notes before noon, 2 or 3 emails reminding people of things I'm waiting for - I got on my bike and went on basically every errand I could think of. To the bank to deposit some checks, which is a pain to do during business hours normally. Halfway between there and the next stop was the Mall, which of course has food trucks, so I indulged myself with a little ice cream. Then I meandered through a shopping district to see if anything fun/pretty/romantic would strike me as a present. It didn't, so I stuck to useful stuff: a new phone charger for T., since her old one broke. Then to Union Station, for a little more shopping browsing (still no inspiration) and a card. Then to the pharmacy to pick up some medication she needed and some general groceries.

All this took over 2 hours. I relaxed in the afternoon, got cleaned up at the last minute, and then met the ladies at school for a back-to-school event. It was fine. 

After that, we went to a book signing T. suggested. The kid read for about half the time and played games on T.'s phone for the rest of the time. We left before the actual signing, it was late and a school night, but the talk was interesting enough. Dinner was at Brasserie Beck, a nice place nearby we haven't been to in a long time. It was good.

But was it good enough?

Not literally an object lesson in ADHD but it felt that way

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Yesterday felt all over the place, busy and stressed, but I have no idea how much that has to do with what I actually had to do, got done, or both.

I saw my therapist in the morning. This overlapped with a meeting for work - a problem from the start. It was less of a problem than I thought it would be but it was still a problem. One of the many things we discussed was plans for the upcoming wedding anniversary. 5 minutes after the appointment I emailed T. with questions about our plans Saturday. She responded 5 minutes after that. Then something on my phone beeped and I saw 11 texts from her in the past hour. In addition to my question about this weekend there was stuff about an upcoming trip, and something unrelated, but even so, that felt like a ridiculous number. 

The school WhatsApp chat has been blowing up for days, too, about drug scares. Not kids using, but users in the neighborhood throwing paraphernalia in the playground. In the afternoon yesterday the kid repeated to me something she had heard about how a certain plastic container had drugs in it that could kill you if you touched them and I had to disabuse her of that. (She got it partly if not entirely from her mother! Not that I don't want the kid to be cautious, but our own credibility is on the line with this sort of thing...) 

Anyways, later in the morning I looked into dinner reservations for this weekend. I had a few moments of panic when I couldn't get reservations at the first two or three places I checked, but eventually I found something decent. I'm not sure how much we would have liked those two or three places, anyway. 

I also worked on scheduling a more thorough psychological evaluation. Not sure how much I need it, as opposed to just making my to-do list shorter.

Work wasn't horrible but definitely wasn't incredibly productive. A lot of little things going on. I moved my to-do list in the correct direction but that's really not saying much.

In terms of stress, I oscillate between "everything is fine except I guess it would be nice to have a little less going on" and "everything is fucked and I'm drowning and something must be wrong with me because I objectively have it better than so many people and I can't even handle that." In terms of happiness, I enjoy lots of things but they're all solitary activities or close enough and I feel guilty asking for even more time to myself. Seems like a bad sign.

Warcraft was surprisingly absent for such a scatterbrained day. Zero WoW between 8 AM and 4 PM. Like 15 minutes around 4:30 but that's was it until the kid was in bed. I wasted lots of time with other things, like rereading years-old posts on Reddit or blogs. By necessity there's a negative correlation between my productivity and my WoW time just because time is zero-sum. There doesn't seem to be a correlation at all between my WoW time and my executive function, because I can dick around pointlessly in WoW or on blogs.

So anyhow, that was my workday. I biked to get the kid from school because conditions were unusually good. T. made enchiladas for dinner. We completely ended covid restrictions and T. came back to our own bed last night. Woo hoo.

Lazy Tuesday

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I got the kid to school fine, by bike, for the first time in a week. Woo hoo. On the way home I did some grocery shopping.

I wasn't productive at work yesterday. I had a reason to cancel the team meeting in the morning. I listened in on two meetings in the afternoon but didn't have anything to do in them. I was responsive but didn't actually get anything in particular done. Not sure how I feel about that.

I was a little better on the personal front. I got exercise by doing calisthenics in the morning. (In front of the TV, but hey, why not?) I reached out to the psychologist recommended by my doctor at the appointment last week. No appointment yet but it's started. And I started working on my resume. Didn't finish, but made progress.

I left early to get the kid; after being late or too close to it on the last two guitar lessons, I made sure to be plenty early for this one. Getting the kid was awkward, she didn't like me picking her up when I did, but we weren't late. It was stressful due to confusing texts from T. about dinner.

Dinner was a salad and pollo asado, made by T. because she had plans for a new exercise class. While she was gone I got the kid cleaned up and we relaxed in the evening.

I've almost got back to normal. I wore a mask in the grocery store yesterday morning and while cooking, but not while eating dinner with the family or watching TV with the kid afterwards. Although I did wear one while watching TV with T. later, and she's still in a separate bed. Oh well.

Reliefs

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Yesterday morning the kid tested negative for covid. I don't know if Saturday's test was contaminated or what, but, regardless, what a relief. I really was not looking forward to trying to parent, while working, while also maintaining covid protocols around T. 

I spent the day in my room. Work went well. Not incredibly busy, but busy and productive enough. Four meetings, but the first was just listening in. The second is the reason the title of this post is plural. I discussed the conflict between my teammates with our boss and she agreed with my basic approach, so that's nice to know about. The other two meetings went basically fine. 

I played a lot of Warcraft. I played my evoker a lot. It's the new class this expansion, and kind of "flavor of the month". It feels different in several ways. Yesterday I got Ahead of the Curve on it in a pickup group. I've done that on more than one character before, but it's an exception to the rule. Aside from the overall achievement, there's an evoker-only legendary with a little "fear of missing out" attached. The important item is a random drop I still might not get but it's interesting to try for. 

In the afternoon I went for a 3-mile walk to get some semblance of exercise. Good for me. Dinner was pork chops and beans. I ate in the TV room while T. and the kid ate in the dining room but other than that it was surprisingly normal.

A lot of little problems

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Made the usual Sunday brunch yesterday, eggs and home fries, and simply served T. in the living room while the kid and I ate in the dining room.

Later in the morning we went to the new farmer's market at the nearby school. T. and I took turns supervising the kid in the playground while the other went to the market. I checked it out first and only the cookies looked interesting; I thought we were pretty well stocked on fruits and vegetables anyway. When T. went, she got carrots, tomatoes, and corn, but no cookies. 

We spent a lot of time yesterday in the garden, theoretically getting ready to decorate for Halloween. T. seemed annoyed I wasn't helping more. I'd be happy to help but the garden is just filled with plants I don't know or care about. I'll contribute by weeding, if she defined them carefully, or getting out of the way. That's about it.

I'm putting it that way because I was moody about it (and, apparently, still am), but I did some useful work anyway. While she weeded our garden, the kid and I eliminated a nasty pricker bush from in front of a nearby vacant house. Civic duty aside, it used to attack us when we parked there. Now it won't.

After the weeding, we did some decorating. The house looks a little spookier. While doing so some neighbors walked by, a mother with a daughter who's a friend of the kid, so they wound up visiting for a while. I took the girls to the park while the moms had wine. I had a glass myself after I got back.

Dinner was spaghetti and cauliflower. While I cooked the kid had a tantrum about TV and guitar. In the end, T. got her to do both. I'm not sure how. Nor, in the case of the guitar, why, but that's another topic...

The Festival? Really?

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Yesterday sucked.

The kid was in denial about covid because she didn't want to miss her/our plans for the day: the H Street Festival. A week ago the plan was for us all to go and meet friends there. When only I had tested positive the plan was for T. and the kid to go and see friends and maybe I'd watch from a distance or maybe I'd just totally relax at home depending on how I was feeling. But with the kid sick? 

In the morning we went to the farmer's market. It went deceptively well. In the early afternoon we insisted on quiet time. It was a huge, age-inappropriate fight. But ultimately we won, T. and I both lay down in separate beds, and the kid kept to herself in her room for over half an hour. We finally left the house around 3. Our first destination was the house of the kid's friend, just sound of H St. We wore masks and I told people up front I had covid, but we weren't sure how open to be about the kid's condition, because we aren't sure about the school's policy at the moment. 

The kid had fun. I wasn't as tired as I'd expected to be, which isn't saying much. I had planned to cook at home but by the time we got the kid to stop playing with friends and browsing shops, she was starving, so we got whatever festival food we could find with short lines.

A good reason for an easy Friday

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Yesterday was the day of the biweekly report. I had a good reason to take on a less stressful task than usual for it. I also got some corporate training out of the way. The hardest part of work was dealing with my co-workers. J. annoys S. in addition to me, but he's not wrong, so we/I shouldn't ignore what he's actually saying. I asked to meet with our boss about it. Once again I called work a half-day.

T. did all the parenting once again: got the kid from school to gymnastics and dinner afterwards, and put her to bed. The kid was wild at bedtime, her caution about covid and fatigue we're sure she has outweighed by general rambunctiousness. 

This morning she tested positive. Ugh. She was distraught. Maybe a tiny bit out of fear or guilt, but probably mostly because it meant that fun plans would be cancelled.

Being sick is boring

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Yesterday I set up in the guest bedroom and kept to myself while T. got the kid to school and did her thing. I worked about a half-day. It's all sitting down and fully remote, of course, but relaxation was good. Two meetings, only one had follow-ups for me and logging off immediately after gave me incentive to be unusually prompt about it. I just killed time otherwise, at my computer and in bed. 

As for boredom, it doesn't help that I just finished some Warcraft goals. If I had tested positive for covid a week ago, I probably would have taken a half-day, lay down for one hour, and been at my computer for the remainder working intently on those things. As it is, the time breakdown was similar, but my Warcraft time was spent on things that matter less and/or were even harder to make progress on. 

On Reddit a lot lately as well, and it gets worse the more I'm on it. I don't think that's boredom; I think the algorithm runs out of interesting things to put in front of me. Too much easy stimulation like that is addictive. The closest thing I've done to productivity or edification with my extra free time is reading. (Finished Vampire Weekend by Mike Chen, that's the book I returned to the library Wednesday, and started Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo, one of many books of T.'s that has been around the house for years and I've been vaguely interested in.)

In the evening, T. went to a concert with the kid. Just one of several things planned that will be cancelled or take place without me. I'm not as much of a concert-goer as T., but I would have actually enjoyed this one, or at least disliked it less than at least one of the last two. (But in hindsight, they got back around midnight, so I continue to feel good about not going.) I ordered dinner from Laos in Town, a nice place nearby we rarely eat at/from so I figured I'd treat myself to a little variety (and with my sense of taste diminished, I wouldn't be able to taste much else), and ate while watching the The Flash (I didn't see it in theaters, but we have a Max subscription anyways, I figure I might as well).

I was in bed with the lights out by 9.

After all this time, I thought I was immune

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Yesterday I biked the kid to school, but used the motor more than usual because I was feeling a bit sick - sore throat, runny nose, etc. 

Work was fine. Got that SOP with management interest to the subject matter expert, so I've done my part until further notice. Also had a productive meeting. I logged out of work a couple hours early and took a nap. 

I couldn't change all my plans, though. The kid had an orthodontist appointment in the afternoon. (By the way, she was kind of grumpy all day, I have no idea why except for being tired, she got up early yesterday morning again.) The expander is working, apparently, and the next appointment is in 3 months. After that, to CVS for a snack for the kid and soda and cold medicine for me and the library to return a book. We met up with T. after that. We went to Trader Joe's, more to get parking validated than to actually get things we needed. (I wore a mask for all this. Good for me.)

Then home. Dinner was beef tips, mashed potatoes, and salad. It was fine. While putting the kid to bed I thought better safe than sorry, I should take a covid test. It came back positive. Holy shit. After all this time, especially after the close exposure last month, I thought I was immune, or had had completely asymptomatic cases and built up an immunity that way. Apparently not.

So anyways, I read to the kid with a mask on and then put myself to bed. I didn't exactly sleep well, despite the NyQuil, but I was certainly down long enough in total hours.

Work, Warcraft, and a concert

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Biked the kid to school, and did some grocery shopping afterwards. 

Work was fine. Our team meeting was productive. I worked on a document that was in limbo for a long time. It was started more than a year ago. A related document came to management's attention a week and a half back,  and for a while I hoped the interest would get the old one moving too, but in the immediate aftermath of that I couldn't even bring myself to work on it. I finally mustered the strength yesterday morning. And it's a good thing too, because this document came to management attention yesterday afternoon! Realistically it doesn't matter, they aren't going to care about the minutiae of who worked on it when and if they do I can't prove it, but I feel good that I had at least got started on it before they asked. 

I also played a lot of Warcraft. I'm not sure how I feel about that, or should feel. It's Tuesday and work wasn't too busy, so it's not too bad in that sense. My Mythic+ score is 2498 at the moment, already higher than ever, but so tantalizingly close to Keystone Hero and at least one instance portal that I feel like I have to keep going. I also spent a lot of time on the Secrets of Azeroth event, a riddle-solving minigame. Not sure if this is giving in to fear of missing out (FOMO), or just a fun thing to do that happens to be at its peak right now. 

(Update at 12:30 PM: Around 10 this morning I finished the only time-limited part of the secret event. Just 10 minutes ago I got Keystone Hero. Woo hoo.)

At the last minute I logged out of everything and prepped dinner. Then I went to the school to get the kid. We had to hurry but we were on time for the guitar lesson. Then home, where T. had used my prep work to make a risotto. She did well.

Dinner was brief because T. and I went to a concert. 3 acts: Raphael (?), Bishop Briggs, and Misterwives. I recognized one song out of them all, plus maybe some covers. It was fun but marred by a runny nose and sore throat. Uh oh.

Lots of physical activity

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The title of this post is partly aspirational, since I'm writing part of it before noon on Monday. Let's see how it works out...

Biked the kid to school uneventfully. Worked productively for the morning and then went for a jog around 11.

I wonder a bit how much my mood (to recap: it was terrible last week, noticeably better since I started taking sleeping pills, but that might not be a long-term solution) is related to how I'm physically feeling. I mentioned how it's hard to exercise these days, due to work and the kid and the weather. Actual strenuous exertion aside, the weather is still warm and humid enough that I get a bit sweaty simply biking the kid to school or walking to the store and back, and it's not fun to sit around in a damp t-shirt for hours. Or the plantar fasciitis. It's better than a year ago, but still noticeable most days. How much does the cumulative effect of things like that drag me down? 

Realistically, maybe I should ignore that (or change clothes more often or whatever, and treat the fasciitis as a medical issue) and stop worrying about it, or maybe the fact that I'm unable to is related to an actual mental imbalance. It's just something that occurred to me as I was getting ready to go jogging.

Anyways, work was fine yesterday. I finished a pretty big organizational effort Friday, and I mostly spent yesterday using it to do a lot of little things that have been on our to-do list for a while. The biggest problem was talking with J. about frequent mistakes made by our third teammate. He's not wrong, but he's a lot more annoying than she is, and I couldn't do anything about her for the next few months anyways, so it's hard to be sure what, if anything, to do. 

In the afternoon I watched an episode of TV while working, Dark Wind, a show T. had started and thought it might be fun to watch together. We've got a big backlog of TV these days but we can add this, I guess. Meanwhile I did intermittent pushups, situps, and weightlifting with dumbbells. Not too strenuous, I had already showered once and had afternoon plans, but I wasn't just vegetating.

Around 4 I drove to pick up our friend P. to help her get a new crib. It didn't work out, which was annoying, especially considering that we were driving around in rush hour and it took time to find the place, but it was still nice to see her. 

We got home by 6:30, much later than I'd like to cook, especially since it had also cut into time I would have gone shopping, so we just got pizza for dinner.

Scout meeting

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Yesterday after brunch (eggs and home fries, as usual), we dropped the kid off at a friend's for a playdate. Then T. and I went to the bookstore because they were having a sale. T. got a book for herself and several presents for family. I helped, in that I didn't object to any of them and offered opinions on what presents would be appreciated.

In the afternoon, I took the kid to a Cub Scout meeting. It was OK, but it was a real struggle to drag her into participating.

Dinner was pork chops and a salad. (T. and the kid were at the playground while I was preparing it.)

Lots of downtime in the day. We probably could have been better about screentime for all of us. But then, the kid got two playdates, we got a lot of work around the house done the day before so there was only so much to do yesterday, and we even sort of played a board game before the Scout meeting. We weren't all that bad, we just had a lot of free time.

Around the house but busy anyway

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Pancakes and sausages yesterday. 

We spent the day around the house but kept busy anyway. All the laundry. A lot of cleaning. T. and the kid went to the dry cleaner's. I went to the farmer's market and Trader Joe's, and also weedwhacked. Two friends of the kid came over to play. We talked about other playdates but they didn't work out. 

Dinner was spaghetti, meatballs, and also a baked eggplant dish.

Chicken or egg problem

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Yesterday I worked hard on that effort to reorganize how we're tracking document updates. The fact that I could focus on it reduces my concerns about ADHD. It makes me think it's more likely that I just don't like my job. Because damn, is this mind-numbing. 

My mental state seems like it's in a chicken-or-egg problem. I have noticed that exercise has an antidepressant effect on me. I haven't been jogging in a while. I feel like I don't have time. It's the summer but school has started. I'd have to get up VERY early to jog, get cleaned up, and bike the kid to school comfortably. I wouldn't want to jog and bike her to school without getting cleaned up in between because that would be gross. (Then again, maybe it's worth it?) I wouldn't want to bike after 11 AM because it gets too hot for comfort, sometimes even for safety. So that gives me a pretty small window of the day when I can jog, and for the past week I've felt too busy for it. Either actual meetings, or email chains or tasks that feel like I shouldn't put them off.

In addition to not getting the antidepressant of exercise, this also makes me feel bad about falling behind on a responsibility to exercise, sort of. As for what I'm busy with, it's hard to gauge how much it matters. Individually, probably not a lot. Collectively, maybe more. If I'm right to put this time into it, then I have a lot of work. If I'm not, then my job sucks.

So am I depressed because I'm busy? Or do I feel busy because I'm depressed?

Anyways, that was my workday yesterday. I walked to the drugstore in the midafternoon to get some sleeping pills the doctor prescribed me the day before. When the workday was over I took the bus to the U St. area for a date with T. Traffic and construction were so bad that walking would have been faster. But then, by the end of the concert, my feet were killing me so much it's probably just as well I didn't. (Dinner was ramen before the concert.) Afterwards we had ice cream and talked a bit about my problems.

By the time we got off the bus, it was pouring rain, we were soaked to the skin.

Checkup

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Work yesterday was better than the past few days, but still not great. It's easy to be productive when taking notes on a meeting.

At noon I went to a doctor's appointment. It took a lot out of me. For some reason I nearly faint when having blood drawn, even just for a test. Maybe I should have had lunch first. After that, grocery shopping. All this was interrupted by calls and texts about the kid. Apparently she was sick, but not so sick that she wanted to miss the Scouts event this afternoon, so I ignored it. Not sure if that's good parenting or not, but no one seemed mad about it...

Getting the kid was uneventful. We brought a friend of hers home with us for a few minutes. Dinner was lamp chops and broccoli for T. and I, and the last of the risotto and a smoothie for the kid.

My sleep tracking has basically moved to the spreadsheet, but after several almost-normal nights, last night was bad. Got up at 2 and went to the couch. Slept there, technically, with a lot of tossing and turning, until around 5. Ugh.

Temper tantrum

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Got the kid to school uneventfully yesterday.

Yesterday morning I had an appointment with a new therapist, due to scheduling problems with the previous one. She was blunt about me needing to get off my ass, stop whining, and solve my own problems. (Well, not that blunt.) I'm not saying she's wrong but the prospect isn't fun.

Around noon at work discussion turned to an update to the data on outdated documentation. I realized that it's going to be used a lot next week, so I really should do it before then, so I got started working on it. Set it up entirely and started populating the data. I had to do it at some point, but a few hours later when I took stock and realized how I had spent the day - still haven't started the second of those tasks I started the day before with! Or several things that came up in between! - I threw an honest-to-God tantrum, throwing things and yelling "fuck" a lot. Didn't actually hurt myself or break anything but might as well have. 

Anyways, after that I had to swallow the anger and go to a start-of-year parent-teacher conference. Nothing academic to report on, just getting to know each other and helping them get to know the kid. On the way back we brought home a neighboring kid who goes to the same school.

There was nothing in the house to call dinner, so we did takeout. I walked to Cava to pick it up. As a bonus, that walk was the closest thing I got to exercise all day.

A day not conducive to anything

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Got the kid to school uneventfully yesterday.

Some days when I'm not productive at work I blame it on low executive function, like the problem is a chemical imbalance in my brain. Yesterday is not one of those days. (And I'm not even saying I was unproductive in the grand scheme of things, but anyways.) 

The day started with a to-do list of two items, but I quickly got distracted from it by a bunch of confusing inputs on a certain team's documents. Once I figured them out, I had to admit to 3 mistakes I had made when updating various documents in recent months. Whoops. And then my boss had a meeting with her peers and asked them for information, and it came out that I had already received it and been ignoring it. "It came out" - it's clear to me, and probably would be clear to my peers if they checked. I'm not sure anyone else noticed but they might. 

Also, that to-do list? One item on it I started but didn't finish. Another item I didn't start.

I was late getting the kid to her guitar lesson, partly because a meeting ran late. 

When we got home and I made dinner, it was an unfamiliar orange chicken kit and harder to add to than I thought it would be. As I was moving kitchen appliances around I knocked down the laundry detergent jar and broke it. 

Then T. and I went to a concert. Squirrel Nut Zippers. This went better than I would have expected. It helped that there was no opening band, or rather, they were the opening band, so we left the house before 7:30 and were back before 10. 

So the concert was better than usual and better than I would have expected, but it was still a rough day.

Renaissance Festival

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Went to the Maryland Renaissance Festival yesterday. To prepare for the heat, we went earlier than usual and brought more water and snacks. We met friends there. It was good to see them again. I hope they're OK; P. in particular looked exhausted. They left around 1 - responsible of them, a good way to stay out of the heat. We stayed more than two hours longer, mostly browsing the shops (despite not needing anything, and finding one gift for the kid early but wanting to keep looking anyway, and T. looked for Christmas presents despite how far away it is...).

Dinner was steak, mashed potatoes, and salad. The salad was straight from a bag but the two cooked dishes came out well enough. The kid mostly ate the potatoes, of course.

Birthday party and barbeque

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Nice brunch yesterday. In the morning we went to a birthday party of a friend of the kid. She seemed to have fun but it was too hot to do anything too active. 

After that, home for some downtime. 

In the mid-afternoon we went to a barbeque at a neighbor's house. It was again mostly indoors. I ate a ton. I wasn't too social but I still made small talk. I mostly pigged out. 

In the evening I helped a friend with her resume. T. put the kid to bed for the first time in a week. Yay.

I'm behind on exercise. In general I'm experiencing mild foot pain and am hoping that taking it easy will help. For the past week the only exercise I've got was doing calisthenics in front of the TV one day - definitely can count - and walking on errands. But also, for the past week I was single-parenting, so I felt like I had less free time and needed to save my energy, even though there were no actual schedule conflicts with exercise or specific things to save it for. But T. is back now and yesterday was pure sloth and gluttony, so I really should get back into it.

Not today, though. Because today I do have something specific to save my energy for...

Cleaning and a movie

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Cereal and smoothies for breakfast yesterday. 

I spent the morning cleaning and doing laundry. The kid helped with little prompting, or at least stayed out of the way without watching TV, which comes to the same thing.

Around noon, a friend of hers came over to play. It went well, except for them getting hungry right before it was time to go. 

In the afternoon I took the kid to see Elemental. It was fine. The story was a bit cliched, but it looked awesome. 

After that, the kid asked for ice cream, and I didn't say no. Then home for dinner. While I made a risotto, the kid made a welcome home present for T.: a card and a tiny bouquet.

T. got in after 11, almost 2 hours later than expected. It's good to have her back.

The bad kind of Friday

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Yesterday I got the kid to school 2 minutes late. No particular reason, unfortunately, it just took a while to get moving. 

Work was focused on the biweekly report. It was average. For a while in the midmorning we were worried it would be much worse than average, if people had started their long weekends early, but in the end we got all the reports by the usual time. 

In the midafternoon I went to the store. When I got back I couldn't get into the main way to access the work network. Total workload aside, and the unpleasantness of certain tasks, I've also had more/weirder problems with my computer this week. The browser view worked, at least, and I heard from two co-workers that they had the same issue.

I figured I'd bring smoothies as a snack for the kid between school and gymnastics. I changed the recipe in ways that I thought wouldn't matter, but apparently did; they were way too thick. It also took longer than planned. They still tasted OK, at least, and we got to gymnastics on time.

Dinner was District Taco.

Busy workday

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Getting the kid to school yesterday was uneventful for us, although there was a stabbing across the street at the time, which dominated the WhatsApp chat all day. 

Work sucked. A routine meeting in the morning went awry when Word froze completely while I was taking notes. I took a screenshot of what was there and switched to paper and might not have missed anything, but can't be sure. We also worked on 3 documents that were urgent because they had management attention. One was related to something that had been in progress for over a year but the SME didn't understand what I needed and didn't bother to ask. (In fact, for a while I thought they were the same tasks, so the past few days were made just a bit more complicated by detangling them.) One had been in progress for over a month - small potatoes, really! - and it took something like 6 emails to get the SME's attention after it became urgent. And a third was on no one's radar at all. It should have made the transition to this contract 3 years ago but somehow didn't, and suddenly needed updates. What a mess.

In the afternoon, after the bulk of that was done or at least awaiting review, I watched an episode of the new Superman show. It's funny. Meanwhile I did some calisthenics for my exercise for the day. 

Around 3:30 I walked to the library to print off another form for renovation permits, and to the drugstore to get T.'s prescription. Then I drove to the kid's school to get her. Traffic was terrible. 

She had a brief playdate with her friend across the street. I relaxed. When she came home, she and I had tortellini for dinner. I had a beer with it. I've been trying to cut back, I had no alcohol the night before, but I felt like I needed it last night.