Grizzy

And yes, this is a long term goal but one that has been kind of percolating in my head for about a year. Took a deep breath and talked to husband about it, which for some reason I've been very nervous about. He's a little concerned that the field of nursing is one people have been leaving due to the state of healthcare and COVID and whatnot, but I also know people who switched to it with my kinds of neuroatypicalities and love it.

I have until September 15th before I hit my one year and because all the leave I should need to take between birth and then will be earned leave, I don't think the time taken will count against me. I think with the wording of the agreement unpaid wouldn't count against me either but better safe than sorry. So I should be able to start taking leave in August (with the amount I currently have saved, if I make it to my due date which is the 12th I will have just enough to make it to the 15th with leave) and show up in September to give my 2 weeks at most or just say yeah I'm not coming back. In theory I'm cleared to build up another 47 hours of leave and will get around 10 more hours of vacation accrual giving me another almost three weeks of wiggle room half time. But I'm barely scraping by to get my 20 hours a week this week and I'm so up and down with energy it's hard to tell if I'll be able to get that amount by the time baby arrives. TLDR currently I need to work 20 hours a week until August 12 to make it to my one-year anniversary without quitting. Or about... 25 hours a week until July 22.

Topic change I'm having a bit of a crisis about work. I am heading into "completely exhausted" territory with being pregnant. I was in bed for a solid twelve hours last night and I'm still not feeling entirely ready to be part of the world. My job is undemanding but judgemental yet uncommunicative when I'm not very productive. I work only half time, plus the occasional extra to help build up leave, and it's still a bit too much. Because of half time plus that I will have been there less than a year by the time baby is here, I get no guaranteed unpaid leave and certainly no paid leave I didn't earn through vacation or extra hours worked. And if I quit before a year I have to pay back a $5000 bonus. It's basically the only reason I'm not gone already. But the management is toxic. I got messages from my close coworkers alerting that my task lead and his boss were badmouthing me in the hallway while I had been out for a week with debilitating anemia. I straightforwardly asked them to please message me directly with any dissatisfaction about my performance and ideally occasional feedback to know that I am performing as expected when this is not the case. I was told they are too busy for that. I am switching teams as a result but old task lead's boss is still a few levels up in my chain of command. Plus it's basically like I have to learn a whole new job and tool chain. I am overwhelmed, discouraged, and exhausted. I also feel trapped due to the bonus and the impression that I should feel lucky. Like I have a job that is half time and remote with flexible hours. Due to my job title and experience (about 10 years in software) and our past financial luck and work and debt payoff efforts, that half time job covers all of our bills with some left over so my husband can be working on a business that is just tipping into making profit. But I don't want to work in software anymore. I really want to explore and change fields to something that works better with my brain... I have ADHD and much of this work is self-directed low-urgency semi-creative work that yet has an end state of right or wrong output with ambiguous, changeable deadlines and unclear value. I do much better with things where something pops up and there is a specific thing to do a specific way immediately. I was an excellent taco bell employee. But I can't support my family on half time at taco bell. I think nursing would be a very good fit for me, but I'm very worried about working towards it and being wrong? We aren't in quite a good enough situation where I feel comfortable not working and paying to train up in a new field. I really want husband to make enough to allow me to do that, but I also don't want to cut off his company at the knees by demanding he go back to a normal job or focus less on the big picture of his company and more on small but predictable contract jobs. I feel like it might help if he was more involved with the housework and baby prep, but at the same time he works more hours than me and I've always been a proponent of the person who makes more money does not inherently owe more to the household cleaning as a result. I don't know what the solution is. I'm just tired and I want to give up and sleep for the next three months.

I failed by 3 points 😭😭 I didn't find it too bad though, the drink was fine and I am very good at killing an hour playing on my phone. Plus they did my regular check between the drink and blood draw so I really only had to kill 30 minutes. Waiting on the doctors office to call me and schedule my 3 hr.

Update! We've been doing really well going for walks! I'm getting better at drinking water. It's a process. I am sooo baaad at doing pilates. Been getting better at drums - from like "can't hold a beat with one drum" to "can hold a basic rock beat." Tomorrow I have my glucose screening for gestational diabetes, and the day after that I'm in 3rd trimester 😱

Finally got around to practicing yesterday! My coordination amongst my hands and feet is so bad. I allllmost have a very simple rhythm down if I do it slowly. With most other instruments I play halfway well, I can usually go online and find a tutorial for a song I like and generally follow along, but with drums I don't even really have like the vocabulary to even get started. Like I don't know how to read percussion music, I'm sure each thing indicates a drum hit a certain way but like ??? Got our walk in yesterday. Considering pilates today but my energy just dropped. Pregnancy development I'm getting kicked in the ribs and I do not like it.

No "workout" per se but Mr. Griz and I did do a bunch of rearranging to get a long-unused table out of our basement. Then I swept and mopped because it was pretty gross under there even though (because?) We basically haven't been down there in a year. Then we set up my drum kit down there and will move the other instruments down tomorrow, which will help clear out a room for baby's crib and on duty parent crash pad/daybed. With my body at the moment trust me it counted at least as much as a walk.

I laughed because if clicking my heels did get me to Kansas I would avoid heel clicking! Now if it brought me home instantly that would be a nice superpower. Almost certainly water weight and just one of those things. Still feels like a slight when you eat little and gain though.

Eeep! My family slightly belatedly gave me a drum set for my birthday! I've been wanting one, but I'm a bit of a music snob and my research came to "more than I want to spend 3 months pre-baby". I might have to add practicing to my to-do list.

I hate when this happens!!! Tea and cosplay sounds lovely 😍

Always more plants!!!

Oh I'm good at the reset part! Just... The maintenance. The keeping up with laundry and dishes and trash with a being whose primary functions create trash, laundry, and dirty bottles is like, howww are we going to keep on top of anything.

I had a dream of having a homestead once upon a time! While I'm kind of backing out of that dream I'm so excited to see other people doing it. I love goats.

Color coding makes me happy! Love it!

Love this! I have phases where I get really into my art and then drop it completely. Committing anything to it and recognizing your limits and needs is a very good thing.

I've recently done a little better about resetting my relationship to my phone and replacing zombie scrolling with reading. It makes a surprising difference to my mental state to just, not scroll through Facebook reels to occupy my time or not read my phone while I'm with real people. Unemployment is such an interesting time that can be fun! I'm glad you're prioritizing making good use of it.

I'm going to start a load of baby clothes.

I did a session of the pilates but it was annoying. They combine kind of like lecture and movement stuff a lot but this whole session seemed to be more geared towards postpartum rather than prenatal, even though the video is in the curriculum for the prenatal course. But mostly what irked me is the instructor said they would call it out if something shouldn't be done in pregnancy and then... Forgot to until after we already did the moves. Um, guys. This is a paid for class. Get your shit together. Also as far as I can tell there's not a good way of submitting feedback.

I knowww I realized I have legit only 3 months left if we get to full term and I'm like I find it very weird after years of waiting for years to start trying and a loss and more than a year of actually trying I'm probably actually going to have a kid and don't just have a weird hobby of inexplicably collecting baby stuff. Lately trying to figure out things like ok, my and my husband's ADHD means my house is a disaster by default, how do I make it not a literal hazard while caring for an infant?

I have! I really enjoyed them. I don't feel like I can talk about them without spoiling... But yes very much.

Oh my gosh this is SUCH A COOL THEME AND TRACKING SYSTEM.

Hellooo. Still bad at keeping my challenges updated but still doing it! I'm 26 weeks pregnant so halfway through the challenge I'll be in 3rd trimester. Whooooah. Keeping it simple. 1 - prenatal pilates. I'm doing a program which I started last challenge, and am already somehow way behind. I'm only on week 2, but the workouts are so much longer than what I had been doing! I would like to get through week 5 by the end of the challenge. 2 - walking! It's finally consistently nice out. I want to go for a walk every day, or putter around the yard 3 - drink water. Keep water bottle clean and full and with me. Side goals/mini-goals/non-health goals * Update here twice a week. * More actively follow other journals. * Get all collected baby clothes and washable fabrics washed and put away... I need some variety of dresser. * Plant my tomatoes and peppers outside.

I've been reflecting on how fascinating it is that for basically the first time I've done an exercise program, I'm not in the slightest driven by or even paying attention to weight (because it's increasing basically no matter what and that's just intended), or whether my shape is becoming more desirable (because I am supposed to become very round). It is really all very long-term and subjective and difficult to verify goals of maybe have more energy than I would without exercising, maybe my labor will be easier than it would have been otherwise. I really have to take it on faith that it's worth it, because I can't assume I'm actually going to have more energy than the week before as I keep doing this, as my energy will be affected and likely drop as I progress further, especially in late 3rd tri. I can't measure whether my labor actually ends up being easier than otherwise, because I can't compare what happens if I do it vs don't do it for the same pregnancy. It's kind of liberating though!

It's going very well! I'm not quite managing the 3 a week yet. I just did the third workout one week and one day after starting. But it's a nice challenge without being toooo challenging! They also have some mini workouts and stretches I'm incorporating more regularly, since it's easier to fit in something 5 minutes long than 40+. Last week I totalled almost 4 hours of exercise between pilates and walks. I've been doing just ok, not amazing on getting produce in. I'm still bad at remembering to fill up my water bottle and drink water.

I find I am much better at keeping up with a program or others-driven routine than a self-guided practice. My most successful fitness endeavors have been on a strict yet manageable schedule and/or a standing appointment with other people where I am explicitly expected or both.