Whisper

It always amazes me when a therapist says to do something that feels like it is too small and stupid to actually, but when I get over myself enough to actually do it, damn if they aren't right. I hope Eamon is starts feeling better soon.

Overall, yesterday went well. Helped Maggie a bit after work. I helped get her rent situation worked out, but they did apartment inspections on Monday and "tested for chemicals" and she's worried that they're trying to find another pretense to evict her. Talked to her for a while, then helped get some of her trash out before heading home. Got everything in the blue box and a few extras done. Had a really annoying shower. It often takes a few moments for the water pressure to kick in, and yesterday it just wasn't. Thought maybe the landlord was doing laundry or something. Took an entire shower under little more than a trickle of water before I tried adjusting my shower head to see if the "jet" mode would rinse me off better. At which point I realized that the problem wasn't water pressure, I had somehow left the showerhead halfway between settings. Gah, wanted to kick myself, but figured an attempt would just have me fall in the shower. Week One Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Check Goals Make this box green Established Take meds Drink 1 Bottle of Water In bed by 8:15 Practice Spanish New Brush teeth Clean cat box Woke up with a headache this morning. I'm wondering if it was because of poor timing on my meds yesterday. Day meds were taken several hours later than normal, night med was taken a bit early, both have a blood pressure pill. Maybe should have skipped one ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Took some headache stuff when I got up, drinking some water, it is subsiding. Overall, I'm feeling fairly good today.

First day of Week One, and I forgot to check my goals, getting a red box in the easiest box to make green 😭 Week One Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Check Goals Make this box green Established Take meds Drink 1 Bottle of Water In bed by 8:15 Practice Spanish New Brush teeth Clean cat box It is going to be an interesting week with my guy out. He normally opens the building, so I need to be an extra 45 minutes early every day. Also going to be hard without his expertise. I talked to him a bit Sunday evening. His speech is good, which is a relief after a stroke, but he was still in the hospital, hoping to get out sometime Monday. He's going to have rehab for a while, and doesn't know when he'll be able to come back.

Week Zero Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Check Goals Make this box green Established Take meds Drink 1 Bottle of Water In bed by 8:15 Practice Spanish New Brush teeth Clean cat box Extras Shema Praise music Pray Spiritual reading Check Blood Pressure Check Blood Sugar Stretch / yoga Walk outside Floss Bathe Active play with cats Brush cats No food after 6pm Wake up at 4 Out of bed by 4:05 Practice Violin Practice Visual Art All dishes done 5 min tidying a room Sweep/swiffer 1 room Week Zero Thursday was clearly a bad day, and I didn't hold to my bedtime over the weekend, but overall I'm happy with how it went and what my goals are. I would like to see more green in the "Extras" section, but even lightly tracking (no red) is helping me do more on average.

Thursday was a total nightmare. Lots of machines broken at work, wasn't able to take any sort of a break until 7 hours into my shift. Then when I took Maggie home, we found a 3 day eviction notice on her door, which resulted in much muchness. By the time Bell Choir practice was over, I was just done. Stopped at 7-11 and got all the junk food on my way home. And this morning I find out one of my techs had a stroke last night. Surgery to remove the clot went well, but don't know much else yet. I think we should forbid Thursdays. Week Zero Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Check Goals Make this box green Established Take meds Drink 1 Bottle of Water In bed by 8:15 Practice Spanish New Brush teeth Clean cat box

Wednesday was fairly good. Had some energy after work so finally went to the pet store. I generally don't do well with stores, end up getting really anxious, but I've been trying to transition my cats from free feeding dry food to meal feeding wet food, but how much to feed them each meal gets confusing, so wanted to look at several brands / feeding guidelines to try and figure it out. I'm trying to break it down to 3 meals, when I get up, when I get home, and before bed, but the balance between how much they'll eat in a meal, and how much they should eat in a day doesn't seem to be balancing for 3 meals, but with being out of the house 11+ hours every day, I'm not sure where to try and put a 4th. The cats themselves are being a little less than fully co-operative. They both like the wet food fine, but Sasha is highly food motivated, and ShyAnn is fairly skittish. I put the food down, they both start eating from their bowls, but if I don't police them, Sasha will leave his food half eaten, and start eating ShyAnn's, and after a few moments of sharing with him, ShyAnn will just leave. But if I do try to keep Sasha to his own bowl, ShyAnn will still run off. I don't want to have to lock Sasha up in the bathroom for feeding, but I'm not sure if there is another option that doesn't leave her underfed.

Once again, energy levels tanked as soon as I left work, but not as far as Monday. Found it kind of interesting Monday was a like a 10 falling to a 2, yesterday was like a 5 falling to a 3. I'm happy with what I got done after work. Went to bed on time. The cats refrained from puking on my bed, so fell back asleep quickly after my 2nd dose. Feeling good this morning, maybe a 7? Week Zero Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Goals Check Make this box green Established Take meds Drink 1 Bottle of Water In bed by 8:15 Practice Spanish New Brush teeth Clean cat box

I really, really hate it when someone starts doing something you didn't ask them to do and when you ask them to stop, they indignantly reply "I'm just trying to help" You just put a PLUNGER on my DESK. You are not helping, and you have no room to be offended that I didn't like you putting a PLUNGER on my DESK!

You ate the poor doggos for lunch?!

Such a cute baby 😊

My thread is tagged "rebel". This is appropriate, but I don't think I remembered to do it myself.

The moment I sat in my car after work yesterday, it felt like my energy levels fell off a cliff 😢 Got home and was seriously worried that if I sat down, I wouldn't take care of the cat box, so did that first. Stayed totally beat the rest of the evening, but I did everything inside the blue box of importance, and managed to hit a couple extras. (Thinking I'll share the extras section at the end of the week) Week Zero Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Goals Check Make this box green Established Take meds Drink 1 Bottle of Water In bed by 8:15 Practice Spanish New Brush teeth Clean cat box Went to bed a little early, slept well until I woke up for the 2nd dose of my sleep med, at which point one of the cats decided to barf cat food on my blanket. Got that cleaned up, and then just didn't go back to bed for 2 hours. Wanted to eat. Wanted to eat more. Wanted to watch a video... My sleep meds, they either make me sleep, or they make me dumb. But for the cat, they would have worked fine, but too much moving around right after taking them slid me into dumb land. I'm feeling not good this morning, but not bad either. I was able to get up properly even with the missing sleep in the middle. Yesterday I felt GOOD for a lot of it. Today, nowhere near that, but maybe a bit on the "ok" side of average for me? I'm still feeling hopeful. I felt GOOD, it is possible. I don't hate the world right now, so that keeps me on the ok side of the line. The average is trending in the right direction.

I feel good this morning (hold me I'm scared) When was the last time I felt good? Particularly on a work morning? Had some trouble falling asleep last night. Hit the stupid point with my sleep meds where I fight to stay awake instead of just letting them work, ended up taking about two hours to actually go to sleep. But I woke up before my alarm, and decided to doze for a bit, and when my alarm went off, I felt rested. I got up, got ready for work, listened to some music. I'm at work now, and I feel kind of happy. I've had the same job for 11 years now, with an early start time. Used to be 6am, but for the last five years, I've started at 5am, and I've never adjusted to it. Waking up was the worst thing I did every day, my entire body screaming in protest, so hard to just get up. Then tired all day long, and the time of day that I was least tired? Bedtime. This new med is really helping fix that. I'm starting to be tired (not sedated) at bedtime. I'm starting to wake up comfortably when I'm supposed to be waking up. I actually kind of feel like a functional human being.

I'm feeling better than I have in a long while. Work has lightened up some with the new manager. My Narcolepsy doctor added an extra medication that seems to be helping a lot. For the first time in probably the better part of a year, I don't feel completely burned out. I feel like I can finally start making some real progress right now. Today, I made a list of all the things I really should be doing if I want to be a healthy/ functional adult. They're all fairly small, modest goals and I honestly feel like all of them should be achievable. Yeah, sure, all that should happen. But most of it doesn't happen with any consistency, and while I might manage a day or two of doing most of them, experience shows that I won't stick with them. Instead, I'm going to make a goal to look at my goals every day, commit to keeping up with 4 of them that I'm already fairly consistent on, and add just two little things to establish. If this works well, I'll try adding a couple more next challenge, until I've got myself a solid set of healthy daily habits. Week Zero Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Goals Check Make this box green Established Take meds Drink 1 Bottle of Water In bed by 8:15 Practice Spanish New Brush teeth Clean cat box Extras Shema Praise music Pray Spiritual reading Check Blood Pressure Check Blood Sugar Stretch / yoga Walk outside Floss Bathe Active play with cats Brush cats No food after 6pm Wake up at 4 Out of bed by 4:05 Practice Violin Practice Visual Art All dishes done 5 min tidying a room Sweep/swiffer 1 room

@Waanie I think you were the person that uploaded this: Correction, the original was uploaded by a different cat avatar person @Chesire I did a painting of it that I liked, but wasn't totally happy with. Today, I finally finished my 2nd attempt at it.

I think I'm happy with Jerry now. Also painted a tree.

Kitties!

We need to get your work wife to give you a swift kick out the door at 5.

Think that's all I can do with Jerry until he's had a week to dry.

I painted some today. I don't think I've done any other painted so far this year. One of the web comics I read is having a "draw this in your style" contest and I really wanted to give it a try. Still feeling totally stuck on "burned out". Finally having a manager again is helping; he's getting up to speed and I'm able to start offloading some of the shit that isn't my job to him. I talked to my Narcolepsy doctor last week. He has me using some pharmacy compounded melatonin to try and shift my sleep cycle into better alignment with my work schedule. I think it is helping some, I mean, I did paint today for the first time in months. Maggie is having a really rough time. On Thursday she went to Dollar Tree and got lost. Ended up being an hour and a half late getting me from work; been a while since that happened. Yesterday, she went to Walmart and got lost. Ended up being an hour and a half late getting me from work... wasn't really angry about, but really frustrated and just tired. Today was her birthday. She was supposed to pick me up at 9 and we were going to go to a painting group. She didn't get here until almost 10 because she couldn't find her keys. Painting had been canceled, so I suggested she come in and we could paint at my place, but she wanted us to go back to her place really quick to grab some laundry and have me help take out trash. "Really quick" ended up taking over an hour with her getting stuck. We went back to my place, but she didn't get out of the car with me. She often takes a bit, so I didn't think much at first, but half an hour later, she was still in the car. Texted her, she said she'd be in in a moment, but she ended up being outside for over 3 hours, apparently crying most of that time. Finally got her to come in. We ate some food and hang out for a while before I took her back home. I really don't know what to do with/for her.

Any luck getting used to the wedge pillow?

Looks like I might have cracked a rib, so we're going with "ignore it and hope it goes away"

Sitting at the Urgent Care, waiting to be seen and feeling kinda dumb. Yesterday I was having these really intense short lasting bursts of pain in a single spot on my left lower rib. I don't think anything is really wrong, but at the same time, I don't want to ignore a sign that there might be a real problem.