Pronoun Trouble

Today was technically Staycation Day Two at work, but I ended up staying at home on account of Ice Storm.

It was bad. I got permission from my parents to take my mom's spot in the garage, so I wouldn't have to get any ice off of my car in the morning; I set my alarm for an extra 40 minutes early, just to deal with anything related to weather and travel; and I made sure to get to bed at a reasonable hour, for all I still slept pretty badly. My boss also texted me last night around eight to let me know that if the roads were too bad, I should stay home, and my coworkers would make things work without me. Which is a hell of an offer for Staycation, let me tell you!

It also left me super tempted to go completely off the rails: Stay up way too late reading and surfing the internet, then get up with my alarm just to text my boss that Oh Noes, the roads are too bad, I must stay at home! I wasn't going to, but the temptation, it was real.

Turns out I didn't need to! I did end up getting up with my alarm, then checked road conditions on my phone. Travel was "strongly discouraged". I texted my boss to that effect, but offered to drive around the block to see how I felt about things anyway. Since I didn't get a response right away, I went on with my morning on the assumption that I would at least make a try of driving to work.

I was dressed and had eaten most of my breakfast when my boss texted back (only about ten or fifteen minutes later, my morning routine is pretty quick): The roads were reportedly terrible and I should stay home.

So! Let the record show that I did everything right, with the full intention of going to work today to make sure my coworkers weren't swamped! This still counts as defeating my temptation, even if I got what I mostly wanted in the end regardless. (I ultimately would've been okay with working today; I do need more hours in general, and the odds of taking leftover cookies home are probably going to be much lower tomorrow, but I don't regret having a day to rest during this shitfest, and also not driving on icy roads.)

Welp, turns out I'm neither flying to Texas, nor driving there. Mom called this evening to report that she was Done and had started driving home already, so I could cancel my car rental (which I did end up getting).

Honestly, I'm not entirely surprised by this turn of events. I love my grandma, but she's pretty high maintenance; Mom's younger sister has also apparently been staying/helping out a bit, Mom's relationship with her is... tense at best.

Anyway, I expect to see Mom and Molly the dog sometime tomorrow probably. Pampering them (especially Mom) will likely be on the agenda.

(Honestly, I lucked out; I did not win the war against a major hyperfixation phase(?), and the less said about how much sleep I didn't get over the past few days, the better.)

Brain: Say, it's been a while since the Miraculous Ladybug shine started wearing off; how would you like a new hyperfixation?

Me: ...Is it Avery and Zeek? Or something else that's more productive than consumptive?

Brain: No, sorry ♥

Me: Then... no? No, thank you? Like, yes in concept, very much so, I do so much better when I have a fandom, but uh. Right now is... Look, I just really need my executives to actually be functioning right now, because Shit's Goin' Down. Any chance we can bookmark this stuff for later?

Brain: ...I will get you when you least expect it and least want it. Just you wait.

( The circumstances )

So. That is why I will need to be rationing my executive function very carefully over the next week or so, potential hyperfixations be damned. I would allow myself more slack if I were at least getting something more out of it, like some worldbuilding or crocheting done, but not if it's only "breathing in". I definitely need to breathe in, but for my own sake, I'll have to temporarily settle for quick gulps of air, at least for the next few days, and maybe a nice, deep breath on like. Wednesday.

Burgeoning willpower, I'm counting on you!

Car laundry

Make dentist appointment

Make eye appointment?

Regular laundry (dark colors)

Medicaid paperwork (online preferred)

Okay, let's do the thing!

Coworker M got some logistics wrong today over cookies we need tomorrow, and neglected to tell Lead Cook J before leaving.

Lead Cook J proceeded to heap praise on me when I reacted by saying, "Welp, I guess I'll be spending the remaining hours I'm scheduled today making cookies," instead of complaining about it, and then looking for solutions when the numbers turned out to be even further off than we'd initially thought.

And like. I do feel a little bit responsible, because I can vaguely remember Coworker M mentioning to me that not everything was upstairs after all, but I was distracted with another project. And Coworker M was definitely irresponsible in not telling Lead Cook J what she told me, and leaving him to assume that she had, in fact, gotten everything we need for tomorrow from downstairs, the way she said she would. And damned if I'm not tickled that my efforts are being noticed and celebrated.

I guess it just feels a little surreal? Some of this is kinda just. Leftover survival stuff from the previous pastry chef, who wouldn't let us leave if there was still work to do. (Within certain parameters, but still.) Complaining about it would get me exactly jack shit, while doing the work would get the work done. Part of it is also one of my personal workarounds for my executive dysfunction; I've learned that, if I acknowledge my "I don't want to do the thing," and accept that, and that doing the thing sucks, then I can set it aside and skip over it to "I am going to do the thing", and that makes doing the thing easier.

So it feels kinda weird to be praised for this now? Good weird, not MAGA weird. But yeah. Still weird.

I think I'll take it, though.

This year, Molly the dachshund-terrier mix decided/realized that she's afraid of fireworks. I'm reasonably sure that some of them were louder and/or closer this year than they have been in past years, which contributed to things; I ended up letting her stay the night with me on July 4th and 5th, because people were still doing fireworks on Friday, because Friday. There were still more fireworks going on Saturday night, but I had to turn Molly down for that one, since I had already lost a good chunk of sleep to her the previous two nights and had work on Sunday morning.

I ended up nearly having a meltdown at work on Sunday, partly due to not managing to catch up on sleep on Saturday, and partly due to... Well. ( A bit of a mess of timing, really. )

Anyway, pretty sure a lot of that can be chalked up to the "executive dysfunction" column of ADHD, which doesn't make dealing with it easier, but at least I know the probable reason why.

Today I had a much more relaxing day. I went out and picked up some supplies at Joann's, a couple of items from the grocery store, got deputized to take care of the dog, and then got a nice, long afternoon nap in before dog walk o'clock at 5pm. I'm hoping for even more relaxing tomorrow.

Spent a couple of hours putting together community advertisements, which drained my mental batteries hardcore. So I followed it up by going physical and changing my sheets 😂 It's important to balance those scales, after all.

My new sheets are white, which isn't my first choice, but they were on sale, and it's hard to find Twin XL sheets in physical stores in the first place. I thought a while abut dying them, but honestly the old sheets needed off sooner than I needed the new ones to be a different color, and my only other fitted sheet options are either A) Ripped and therefore not usable as sheets, or B) Flannel, and therefore ill advised for summer use. And it is definitely summer weather time. The new sheets are not quite as light/cooling as I might like for summer weather, but they still do the trick better than flannel.

FTH pattern number one is complete and turned in!

I also typed up two more crochet patterns that have been sitting on my "to transcribe" pile for a good while now. One of them much longer than the other, but still! They are complete, and that's the important part.

Now I'm just going to wait to hear back from Winning Bidder One about when I can post the pattern to hooked_on_anime. They get exclusive viewing for up to six months, so I might not be posting it until my birthday, but hey! The hard part is done. We're going to pretend that logging into Hooked on Anime and making a post is not somehow equally difficult to creating a complete crochet pattern for an amigurumi that turned out roughly the size of Molly the dog. (Thanks-but-not-really, executive dysfunction.)

Next up, I contact the runner-up bidder and let them know I'll be starting on their pattern next! I'll probably also be taking a couple weeks off before starting their pattern as well, because I'm Worth It, but hey! Still good to let the other person know what's up and when things can be expected, etc.

Uploaded all my Part 3 rats to moodthemeinayear, so they're now all in the same place, yay! Going forward, I think I'll start putting the names of the moods in my cut text over here when I share rats, though, so it'll be easier for me to sort through things 😅

I also did some minor organizational work and added some new tags to the community. The goal is to make it easier to scroll through and see the moods everyone shares at the community, as well as, eventually, any finished/completed mood themes. In that post, I did ask for suggestions for tags to use to indicate whether a given mood theme would be up for general use, was only for the creator's use, or if it might be okay for other people to use under certain conditions (like "You can use my mood theme, just please ask first!"); if you have any ideas, I'm all ears! Similarly, I'm interested in any other suggestions for what might be useful tags over there. I'm thinking possibly "Original Mood Theme" and "Fandom Mood Theme"?

For now, though, it's time to get ready for bed!

It has been nearly ten days since Easter, and finally my knees no longer consistently hurt going up and down stairs.

I need to Do Something About This.



(Easter was a lot of walking and lifting and general work at my job. It was compounded by not getting as much rest as I wanted the next day, since my mom had to go in for a colonoscopy and needed me to walk the dog, who was very eager to Go All The Places.)