Whisper

Week Two Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Pray Shema Sing Praise Take meds Brush and floss Shower Eat fruit Eat vegetable Drink 2 Bottles Water Engage with NF This week is going much less green. Hadn't been filling things out, so did a quick and dirty best stab at it to get back on track. Colors: Red is hard no, didn't happen. Green is hard yes, hit goal. Yellow is half measure, didn't reach goal, but didn't totally fail either. Orange I don't remember well enough, but there were more misses than hits in there. I was supposed to play violin at church on Sunday, but woke up with a headache and nausea, so stayed in bed much longer and didn't do much of anything that day. Felt better by the end of the day, but this whole week has just been hard. Can't get moving in the morning, nothing left after work. My goal is to dig deep to find the energy to plug in the power cord and recharge myself, trying to be mindful of that. Yes, I'm "dead", but that little more action is needed in order to not be dead.

Week One Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Pray Shema Sing Praise Take meds Brush and floss Shower Eat fruit Eat vegetable Drink 2 Bottles Water Engage with NF First week went fairly well. Room for improvement on the brushing front, but better than most weeks have been. Getting a green box is curiously motivating for me.

So far, most of them have been really good. The worst has been "I'll finish it, but I don't think I'll order this next time". It does make planning a whole lot easier, just grab the top one and eat it, and makes evening less stressful, nothing to figure out, more tempting than the drive through options around me. Portion sizes seem to be good for lunch, but a bit small for dinner. Working on adding a bit more in the evening.

I have thoughts that I am trying to share, but I am worried that they are not well articulated. I'm going to share the thoughts anyway, just, like, know they might not have transferred through my fingers properly. I'm leaving my sad face. You are your brain, and I like you, so I like your brain and would strongly prefer we not just flat out replace your brain. People like to brush things off as being "just in your head", but inside your head is the most amazingly complex system that we know of, and overall, your brain is working to make a truly good person. Not perfect, not where you would like to be, but good none the less. You don't need a new brain, your brain doesn't need the heavy hammer treatment to get knocked back into alignment, more a few delicate taps of the rubber mallet to fine tune the calibration.

Week One Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Pray Shema Sing Praise Take meds Brush and floss Shower Eat fruit Eat vegetable Drink 2 Bottles Water Engage with NF

That's some tree falling in the woods level of philosophy stuff right there. The tree definitely feel, even if we didn't hear it.

Week One Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Pray Shema Sing Praise Take meds Brush and floss Shower Eat fruit Eat vegetable Drink 2 Bottles Water Engage with NF

I have abandoned the idea of being a fully functional adult that cooks meals and shit. My brother got me a box of meals from Factor that I tried the other week. They seem healthy, have veggies with them, only take a couple minutes to microwave, and so far, all the ones I've tried have been really good. So, that's the plan. Get 12 of those a week and not worry about lunch and dinner. Not the cheapest option ever, but I'm fairly sure it'll prove to be cheaper and healthier than drive-thru / door-dash. Took the word "fresh" off the goal as generally speaking fresh fruit = spoiled fruit for me, but I've got some fruit cups, and some frozen fruit mixes I'm going to try out.

I was feeling too "wall of text"y up there, so broke it up. Now there are little boxes separating the wall! I'm so kind to my poor readers. The last challenge that I didn't really do was for basic self care. Daily Take meds Brush and floss Shower Eat a fresh fruit Eat a fresh vegetable Engage with NF They say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting different results. They also say that if at first you don't succeed, try, try again. I don't think "they" are listening to themselves. All those are good and Imma keep 'em, but there are a few things I want to add. 1. My pastor keeps encouraging us to pray the Shema every morning and night, so I'm going to try that for this challenge. 2. I know that my mood is better when I sing praise music, so I'll turn on iHeart and sing along as I'm getting ready in the morning 3. I need to drink more water, especially at home. So goal is two bottles every day. 4. All of this works better when I have a nice visual chart of it, so, yeah, goal is to post that every day as part of interacting here. Week One Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Pray Shema Sing Praise Take meds Brush and floss Shower Eat fruit Eat vegetable Drink 2 Bottles Water Engage with NF

Weak and weary as I am Helpless as a wandering lamb All but lost, without a fold My waywardness has left me cold Things have been hard. I think things have always been, just different flavors of it, and different levels of ability to cope with it. Things are hard, but they are not insurmountable, and they are hard, but in better ways than they have been hard in the past. I tend to think often of resonance. One thing produce a frequency of sound, of motion, and another thing responds. I think the most "classic" example is an opera singer shattering a glass with a high note. But there is the drum cymbal that starts to vibrate when no one is playing it, but other music is happening, or the violin in my hands when I am not playing, or guitar strings picking up radio stations. Resonance can be amazing and beautiful, amplifying and uplifting. Resonance can be dark and ugly and destructive. I've ever been of a Melancholic disposition; too much black bile, what can I say ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Far too prone to resonating with my anger and frustration. A friend once described my song selections as "music to cut your wrists to". I've been overwhelmed and trying to not spiral. Work all last year was hard. Old manager retired, new manager came in and made me his de-facto lead / supervisor. Department was short handed by default and we lost people, so there was just more and more to do. New manager finally got me promoted to Lead, just in time for him to decide to retire and for me to become de-faction Manager. The two events were so close together that they were announced to the rest of Maintenance in a single meeting. It's been over 3 months. Still no new manager. We finally brought two more techs on, which is good, but I need to train them, which is more for me to do. And everyone keeps expecting me to take ownership of things that are not the job of the Lead Tech, and arguably not even the job of the Maintenance Manager, but who else is going to do them? Anyway, I've been just totally spent at work and often angry and pushing back, and when I come home, there just doesn't seem to be anything left but trying not to resonate with the negative. So more and more has been cut out. The cymbal dampened, the violin muted, the guitar muffled. Everything deadened so the screaming doesn't start. Empty and still in a pillow fort until I must crawl forth once more to do battle with the day. I can't say it isn't working. I totally haven't killed any of my coworkers. But it isn't growing, isn't thriving. Just existing from day to day. Today, I find myself thinking of a nearly dead phone. If I stop using it and leave it sitting there, the charge will maybe hold a bit longer, but without the active effort of plugging it in, it isn't going to start to recharge. I'm nearly dead and trying not to fall into shadows. I need to not be still in the twilight, but move into the light.

Had two 4-day weekends in a row. First one had Christmas Eve and Christmas and took all the spoons. New Years weekend I managed to not leave home for four days in a row and it was really good. Work is still really crazy. I'm pushing them to look at compensation for the fact that I've been defacto manager for a quarter of a year now. Sure they gave me raise right before that, but I agreed to be a lead, not do all this stuff. On the bright side, I'm currently training two new techs. More to do in the short term, but it'll take pressure off once I get them going. Debating trying to jump into the next challenge.

Monday I forgot to take my pill holder to work, but did take them at home with dinner, and got them put with my lunch stuff to make sure I brought them today. Took a shower, washed my hair and shaved. Didn't brush or floss. I have at long last confronted my fear of my work water bottle; it was fine, no dark plot to kill me in my sleep. So I've been drinking water, which is good.

Brace yourself for a shocking bit of information: I'm not wearing any clothes right now. doom Doom DOOM! I'm taking a bath for the first time in probably 4 years. Hadn't taken one at my current place, and place before this only had a shower. My knee has been stiff and bothering me, so I'm hoping a hot soak will help it. I survived Wednesday. We had our annual internal safety audit and the whole process of getting ready for it and doing it was super stressful. Some context on my work situation; I've been a Maintenance Tech at the same manufacturing plant for 11 years now. Over that time I've had more responsibilities put on me, beyond what a tech would do, but with no real recognition or compensation. About 2 years ago I started pushing hard to fix that, and the guy that had been my "manager " since I started announced his pending retirement. The "manager" is because he never really managed Maintenance. No structure, pass downs, procedures, real PMs, training... End of last year, they started transitioning to a new Manager, but instead of just Maintenance, he also had warehouse. New guy tried, but he wasn't given the support he needed, and was leaning on me heavily to the point of me being the defacto Maintenance Supervisor. A few months ago, he managed to get me a pay raise and promotion to "Lead", And then announced his retirement with two weeks notice. So, I went from being a Tech pretending to be a Supervisor, to being a Lead pretending to be a Manager. And almost all of the prep for the audit fell on me. Or at least fixing all the problems everyone else is scurrying around trying to find at the last moment. I've been totally tapped out. Last week didn't keep up with any goals at all. Moving back towards them yesterday and today. Cleaning myself, taking my meds properly, a bit of cleaning up at home too. Things should be a bit calmer with the audit done. Still going to be too much to do with not enough people to do it.

I am frayed to my last nerve. If I survive today without getting fired, things will hopefully start calming down tomorrow.

Tuesday got stuck at work late and then had bell practice in the evening. Did all the things except NF and shower. Had dentist after work today. Went fairly well, no issues but did get the flossing lecture. Made for a long day. Trying to get dinner together now.

Today is the worst part of November. The worst moment is done but still feeling extremely frayed. Part of me wants turn Blue October up really loud and just get lost in it, but that would just resonate with the hurt. Took my meds this morning. Didn't have time for lunch today, so stopped at crown burger on the way home. I don't think fried mushrooms count as "fresh veggies ", so I'll grab so carrot sticks with it. Maybe listen to the Piano Guys and do some mining in Minecraft for a bit.

Allergy testing seems like a special type of hell. I understand why they have to do it that way, but "just stop taking the stuff that's making things bearable so we can see what's really going on" is a tough pill to (not) swallow.

Haven't been doing well lately. Work went from really stressful to super stressful, and then November happened, which is always a really hard month for me. Almost everything healthy has gone by the wayside, which surely isn't making anything better, so my challenge right now is to get back to doing the basics. Daily Take meds Brush and floss Shower Eat a fresh fruit Eat a fresh vegetable Engage with NF Today I took my meds, and filled the pill holders for this next week. I brushed, flossed and showered. I eat a banana and had fajita vegetables in my burrito. I posted this.

"We'll secure the tied end better" they said, and still bars fell "We'll cut back the open end more" they said, and still bars fell. "Fine, we'll take them off" they said. And they didn't. And now a festoon is completely skewed with a bag wrapped around the motor. "Call riggers" I said, "my guys aren't qualified for this mess." "We'll call Roger" they said. Roger being my manager that retired BEFORE my manager that just retired.

One of the HR ladies asked me today who was in charge of Maintenance. Told her I was as close as it got, then gathered up the Open Enrollment forms... Tonight's installment of "Angry Work Emails" If we persist in this course of action, eventually one of these bars is going to hit an associate while it is falling and we will have a major safety incident. I am urging you in the strongest terms possible to immediately have all plastic bags removed from the festoons. They've already caused a minor incident with one of my technicians straining his back, damaged part of the festoon, bent some of the bars, and resulted in full roles of fabric being thrown into the dumpster. This needs to stop. I would like to take this opportunity to remind the audience that I am nothing more than a freshly minted "lead technician"

I love you Banshee, and I think you're awesome and I am consistently amazed by you. "Persistent in the face of chaos" indeed.

I've been having this mental block the last couple weeks where I don't trust my water bottle at work. I'm fairly sure that all I have to do to break this block is to clean the water bottle with the "clean and free" dish soap I have at work FOR THIS PURPOSE, but every time I look at it, it gets shoved into the endless mound of things to deal with later. So I'm not drinking water at work. So I'm not drinking, or grabbing soda. Because based on literally nothing, I looked at my water bottle and decided I didn't trust it, and refuse to fix it. Put a bottle of water next to my lunch box to take to work tomorrow. A lesser solution, but hopefully one that starts me in the right direction.

Went to painting on Saturday. Couldn't think to do anything detailed, so just played with colors. Sadly the blue one got messed up.

I've identified this as the moment everything went to hell. I don't think it's because of the wet hair, but I can't rule it out either

Congratulations on the job. Sucks that the pay is lower, but I'm really hoping for a non toxic environment.