Whisper Posted January 8 Report Share Posted January 8 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. 2 Quote We are not sinners trespassing in the garden of an angry God. We are prodigals come home; fully seen and deeply loved. Put together enough small wins over a long enough period of time, and you’ll find yourself in high level gear fighting dragons before you know it. Spoiler Unused for now, Quest Log: Not Silence in the Library but a Whisper in the Academy Link to comment
Whisper Posted January 8 Author Report Share Posted January 8 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 2 Quote We are not sinners trespassing in the garden of an angry God. We are prodigals come home; fully seen and deeply loved. Put together enough small wins over a long enough period of time, and you’ll find yourself in high level gear fighting dragons before you know it. Spoiler Unused for now, Quest Log: Not Silence in the Library but a Whisper in the Academy Link to comment
Chesire Posted January 8 Report Share Posted January 8 Ooo! A pretty chart. Do you have your handy pre-cut veg or fruit to make it really easy for yourself? 1 Quote daily dare 41 40 39 38 37 36 35 34 32 31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 #8 #7 #6 #5 #4 #3 #2 #1 Link to comment
Whisper Posted January 8 Author Report Share Posted January 8 1 minute ago, Chesire said: Ooo! A pretty chart. Do you have your handy pre-cut veg or fruit to make it really easy for yourself? 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. 2 Quote We are not sinners trespassing in the garden of an angry God. We are prodigals come home; fully seen and deeply loved. Put together enough small wins over a long enough period of time, and you’ll find yourself in high level gear fighting dragons before you know it. Spoiler Unused for now, Quest Log: Not Silence in the Library but a Whisper in the Academy Link to comment
Chesire Posted January 8 Report Share Posted January 8 That is some awesome self-recognition going on there. And cooking meals and shit is overrated sometimes. Seems to me you can just fill in all those boxes green right now 1 Quote daily dare 41 40 39 38 37 36 35 34 32 31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 #8 #7 #6 #5 #4 #3 #2 #1 Link to comment
fleaball Posted January 8 Report Share Posted January 8 Factor has some good shit. Good choice. 1 Quote Level 69 Battle Kitten Battle Log | Current Challenge MyFitnessPal | Fitbit | Duolingo Ici je vis la vie que j'ai choisie Je suis partie pour reconstruire ma vie C'est dit, c'est ainsi Link to comment
Whisper Posted January 9 Author Report Share Posted January 9 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 1 Quote We are not sinners trespassing in the garden of an angry God. We are prodigals come home; fully seen and deeply loved. Put together enough small wins over a long enough period of time, and you’ll find yourself in high level gear fighting dragons before you know it. Spoiler Unused for now, Quest Log: Not Silence in the Library but a Whisper in the Academy Link to comment
Whisper Posted January 12 Author Report Share Posted January 12 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 2 Quote We are not sinners trespassing in the garden of an angry God. We are prodigals come home; fully seen and deeply loved. Put together enough small wins over a long enough period of time, and you’ll find yourself in high level gear fighting dragons before you know it. Spoiler Unused for now, Quest Log: Not Silence in the Library but a Whisper in the Academy Link to comment
Chesire Posted January 14 Report Share Posted January 14 That is a pretty wall of green. How are you liking the Factor meals? 1 Quote daily dare 41 40 39 38 37 36 35 34 32 31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 #8 #7 #6 #5 #4 #3 #2 #1 Link to comment
Whisper Posted January 15 Author Report Share Posted January 15 12 hours ago, Chesire said: That is a pretty wall of green. How are you liking the Factor meals? 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. 2 Quote We are not sinners trespassing in the garden of an angry God. We are prodigals come home; fully seen and deeply loved. Put together enough small wins over a long enough period of time, and you’ll find yourself in high level gear fighting dragons before you know it. Spoiler Unused for now, Quest Log: Not Silence in the Library but a Whisper in the Academy Link to comment
Whisper Posted January 15 Author Report Share Posted January 15 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. 1 2 Quote We are not sinners trespassing in the garden of an angry God. We are prodigals come home; fully seen and deeply loved. Put together enough small wins over a long enough period of time, and you’ll find yourself in high level gear fighting dragons before you know it. Spoiler Unused for now, Quest Log: Not Silence in the Library but a Whisper in the Academy Link to comment
Whisper Posted January 19 Author Report Share Posted January 19 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. 2 Quote We are not sinners trespassing in the garden of an angry God. We are prodigals come home; fully seen and deeply loved. Put together enough small wins over a long enough period of time, and you’ll find yourself in high level gear fighting dragons before you know it. Spoiler Unused for now, Quest Log: Not Silence in the Library but a Whisper in the Academy Link to comment
Whisper Posted January 24 Author Report Share Posted January 24 I accidently reverted to my criminal ways 😭 It terns (stupid birds) turns out that I've been committing misdemeanors twice or more nearly every day for the last ten days! I was going through some old mail this weekend and figured I should get around to opening that Department of Public Safety one from last months. Lots of words which boiled down, have your doctor fill out this form and get it back to us by Jan 12th, or your driving privilege will be denied. As read on the 21st. Ooops. Thanks to the amazing technology known as the "fax machine", and the combined efficiency of both my doctor's office and the State Driver License Division, I was actually able to get it sorted out today, and am once again on the straight and narrow. 3 Quote We are not sinners trespassing in the garden of an angry God. We are prodigals come home; fully seen and deeply loved. Put together enough small wins over a long enough period of time, and you’ll find yourself in high level gear fighting dragons before you know it. Spoiler Unused for now, Quest Log: Not Silence in the Library but a Whisper in the Academy Link to comment
Chesire Posted January 27 Report Share Posted January 27 Embracing the ancient tech for the win! Seriously why can't it be an email? I hope you're feeling a bit better. 1 Quote daily dare 41 40 39 38 37 36 35 34 32 31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 #8 #7 #6 #5 #4 #3 #2 #1 Link to comment
Whisper Posted February 1 Author Report Share Posted February 1 Doing ok-ish. Not with the challenge, but, like, in general, I'm ok. Friday I moved my desk from old Maintenance to new Maintenance. We're making good progress on getting things moved and sorted. I've got two desks now. Once covered in stuff I need to sort, and one actually mostly clear to work at. More progress is needed, but at least it feels less stagnant. They've also apparently extended an offer to someone to be the Maintenance Manager, so hopefully that works out and I get to do fewer jobs soon. He can have the manager meetings and dealing with vendors and contractors. Made some real progress cleaning up at home this weekend too. A fair amount of clutter cleared away, easier to move makes it easier to breath. Making small stabs of progress in the evenings too. Trying to keep pushing forward at least a little bit. 1 Quote We are not sinners trespassing in the garden of an angry God. We are prodigals come home; fully seen and deeply loved. Put together enough small wins over a long enough period of time, and you’ll find yourself in high level gear fighting dragons before you know it. Spoiler Unused for now, Quest Log: Not Silence in the Library but a Whisper in the Academy Link to comment
Whisper Posted February 8 Author Report Share Posted February 8 Cut my arm at work today. While walking back to the bathroom, trying not to dribble on the floor, I found myself whistling "Power in the Blood" 1 Quote We are not sinners trespassing in the garden of an angry God. We are prodigals come home; fully seen and deeply loved. Put together enough small wins over a long enough period of time, and you’ll find yourself in high level gear fighting dragons before you know it. Spoiler Unused for now, Quest Log: Not Silence in the Library but a Whisper in the Academy Link to comment
fleaball Posted February 10 Report Share Posted February 10 On 2/8/2023 at 3:56 PM, Whisper said: Cut my arm at work today. While walking back to the bathroom, trying not to dribble on the floor, I found myself whistling "Power in the Blood" I want to sad face this for the cut but laugh at the whistling for some reason. 1 Quote Level 69 Battle Kitten Battle Log | Current Challenge MyFitnessPal | Fitbit | Duolingo Ici je vis la vie que j'ai choisie Je suis partie pour reconstruire ma vie C'est dit, c'est ainsi Link to comment
Whisper Posted February 10 Author Report Share Posted February 10 44 minutes ago, fleaball said: I want to sad face this for the cut but laugh at the whistling for some reason. Laugh at the whistling is good. I was laughing at myself. There is Power! (power!) Wonder working power! In the blood! Of the Lamb! 1 Quote We are not sinners trespassing in the garden of an angry God. We are prodigals come home; fully seen and deeply loved. Put together enough small wins over a long enough period of time, and you’ll find yourself in high level gear fighting dragons before you know it. Spoiler Unused for now, Quest Log: Not Silence in the Library but a Whisper in the Academy Link to comment
Whisper Posted February 19 Author Report Share Posted February 19 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. 1 Quote We are not sinners trespassing in the garden of an angry God. We are prodigals come home; fully seen and deeply loved. Put together enough small wins over a long enough period of time, and you’ll find yourself in high level gear fighting dragons before you know it. Spoiler Unused for now, Quest Log: Not Silence in the Library but a Whisper in the Academy Link to comment
Whisper Posted February 19 Author Report Share Posted February 19 Looks like I might have cracked a rib, so we're going with "ignore it and hope it goes away" 1 Quote We are not sinners trespassing in the garden of an angry God. We are prodigals come home; fully seen and deeply loved. Put together enough small wins over a long enough period of time, and you’ll find yourself in high level gear fighting dragons before you know it. Spoiler Unused for now, Quest Log: Not Silence in the Library but a Whisper in the Academy Link to comment
fleaball Posted February 28 Report Share Posted February 28 how's it going? Quote Level 69 Battle Kitten Battle Log | Current Challenge MyFitnessPal | Fitbit | Duolingo Ici je vis la vie que j'ai choisie Je suis partie pour reconstruire ma vie C'est dit, c'est ainsi Link to comment
Whisper Posted March 12 Author Report Share Posted March 12 On 2/27/2023 at 5:46 PM, fleaball said: how's it going? 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. Spoiler 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. 2 Quote We are not sinners trespassing in the garden of an angry God. We are prodigals come home; fully seen and deeply loved. Put together enough small wins over a long enough period of time, and you’ll find yourself in high level gear fighting dragons before you know it. Spoiler Unused for now, Quest Log: Not Silence in the Library but a Whisper in the Academy Link to comment
Whisper Posted March 12 Author Report Share Posted March 12 Think that's all I can do with Jerry until he's had a week to dry. Spoiler 2 Quote We are not sinners trespassing in the garden of an angry God. We are prodigals come home; fully seen and deeply loved. Put together enough small wins over a long enough period of time, and you’ll find yourself in high level gear fighting dragons before you know it. Spoiler Unused for now, Quest Log: Not Silence in the Library but a Whisper in the Academy Link to comment
Chesire Posted March 13 Report Share Posted March 13 That painting is turning out well 1 Quote daily dare 41 40 39 38 37 36 35 34 32 31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 #8 #7 #6 #5 #4 #3 #2 #1 Link to comment
Whisper Posted March 14 Author Report Share Posted March 14 Kitties! Spoiler 2 Quote We are not sinners trespassing in the garden of an angry God. We are prodigals come home; fully seen and deeply loved. Put together enough small wins over a long enough period of time, and you’ll find yourself in high level gear fighting dragons before you know it. Spoiler Unused for now, Quest Log: Not Silence in the Library but a Whisper in the Academy Link to comment
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