[The Most Loathed] learns....slowly

[Shello]

Congrats on the new job.  That sure happened quickly.  

 

As for finances, I'm in the same boat as most of you.  I wish I knew then what I knew now and I would have squirreled away more money when I was younger and my dollar could earn me more dollars.  Now I'm trying to play catch up so I can 'retire' someday and be able do what I want.  I have no plans to retire early and it doesn't really seem that close, but in terms of interest, 20 years just doesn't buy you as much security as 40 years does.  

[The Most Loathed]

22 hours ago, Sylvaa said:

 

Sounds like you've had a busy week! Congrats on the new job!

 

FYI - from a consulting perspective - Tableau is kind of tricky, depending on what you are trying to do with it. We went down that road for a while with certain projects, but ultimately scrapped the idea. If the clients you are working with don't use Tableau, it's a pretty expensive undertaking for them to get it up and running and it doesn't translate well between programs. I mean, with your background, this is most likely less of an issue, but something to keep in mind. 

Thanks!

 

My opinion is that Tableau and, frankly, dashboards are way over and misused.That said, everybody wants them. It's interesting to hear that many clients find it too pricy. I assume it's the mistake of getting everyone a desktop license and thinking you want and your own server. Their cloud solution is pretty reasonable. However, you bring up a good point. I need to work on Power BI and others as well. This year will be Tableau centric I'll get some other toys out soon. 11c

 

19 hours ago, Rooks said:

Good news on the new gig. I'm really enjoying my new gig where I can commute in under 20 minutes with a 8-10 minute walk to get into the office. It's so much better than the 45 - 60 minute commute I did at my last gig. That just flat out sucked. Also, this new place is way more accommodating about working from home whenever I need it. So yeah...

 

As for finance, I'm super glad my wife was super concerned about it when we started getting serious. Prior to meeting her, I was in much the same boat as you guys. I just put away the recommended 6% because that was what the company would match. Figured that'd be good enough. She started asking me questions and telling me what she was doing and that got me thinking and do more when I was only 28. Now I'm sad I'm didn't do more when I started working out of college.

 

Now, I'm putting away about 18% of my income and hope to max out my 401k contributions and Roth IRA contributions within the next year or so. Also, will hopefully be paying off our house in the next 2-3 years and kiddo will hit public school soon (i.e. no more daycare costs). Overall, I think that'll put us on a great path to have a boatload saved up for whatever plans we want. I honestly think I'm much the same as you, where it's get to financial freedom as soon as I can, then figure out what the future is at that point. But that leads to the question of what is freedom to me and what the hell am I going to do when I get there? I think my post "retirement" job is totally going to a custom fabrication gig where I just do contract work with wood and metal for people. And I think financial freedom is basically to have the house paid off and at least 6-9 months worth of salary in savings. At least that's how I see it going in my head currently. Either way, paying off the house has become super important to me with kiddo's health stuff. Just having the freedom of not having any outstanding loans will be beyond fantastic. But I also know that I'm saving way more than pretty much anyone I've chatted with about finances. And we live frugally given our income, where our only splurge money goes to quality food and good beer (more than we should drink) and we limit personal "fun" money to just $50 a month per person (i.e. money you can spend without discussing the expenditure with the other person). That's the one that floors pretty much all my friends and co-workers. I get a lot of "I could never live like that". 

 

So yeah... finances are goofy that we don't focus on them more. I see so many folks around me just buying stuff all the time, and I don't understand how they can afford these things. Then I remember that there's a reason so many people have thousands racked up in debt and the Credit Card institutions make money hand over foot. 

I'm glad that the new gig is working out. I recall there being some uncertainty with the transition. Getting that time back is so valuable. 

 

Putting away 18% is amazing. We were at ~15% before left her job. We probably clear 18% now, artificially, just because we have less income. I guess that's one way to get there

 

Have you considered looking into the Twin Cities Maker community. They occasionally advertise Mig and TIg Welding classes to me. I have no idea what those things mean but they seem like they could play into metal fabrication. There are also so local maker spaces with CNC machines and all the other stuff that makers get into.

 

[RisenPhoenix]

Congrats on the job offer!  Hopefully it turns out to be everything you hope it to be!

 

Re: FIRE/Retirement/Future monies

 

I started reading the FIRE subreddit when you suggested it to me ages back.  Its been sparking a couple of plans for my future, kind of for the same reasons you have: maybe someday I could just pull back on what I need for things.  Unfortunately, unless I totally retrain, my skill set is very much not something that I can freelance on.

 

But for now, I'm tucking away 10% of my income into my 401k at work (not quite maxing out 401k with my employer contribution, but close), and need to get my ass in gear to get a Roth IRA up and running so I can tuck that 5500 away a year.  And right now I'm angling at saving a whole bunch of money for a down payment on a house, which is tucked away in an ally savings account.  And then I have a bit left over for some other potential investor-y type things.  I just have been lazy and haven't read up enough on the Lazy Three Part Portfolio yet...

[The Most Loathed]

29 minutes ago, RisenPhoenix said:

Re: FIRE/Retirement/Future monies

It sounds like you're well on your way. I generally think of myself as more disciplined than average on the money thing but reading your and @Rooks's comments makes me feel like I need to review our flowsheet. I know we're a bit of wreck right now after three vacations in 6 months but that might be the best time.

 

31 minutes ago, RisenPhoenix said:

Congrats on the job offer!  Hopefully it turns out to be everything you hope it to be!

I'm optimistic, but I wouldn't take the gig if I wasn't.

 

I did take some time this morning to start browsing some of the truly All-Star Tableau Dashboards out there and I'm excited to up my game. Even if my fantasy of freelance and early retirement dosn't play out, I'm excited to up my game. 

[RisenPhoenix]

2 hours ago, The Most Loathed said:

It sounds like you're well on your way. I generally think of myself as more disciplined than average on the money thing but reading your and @Rooks's comments makes me feel like I need to review our flowsheet. I know we're a bit of wreck right now after three vacations in 6 months but that might be the best time.

 

Honestly, I'm fortunate in the sense that grad school and crippling debt taught me / reinforced in me Scrooge-like habits.  So money I always treated on a tight leash, and the globs of money I tossed at my student loans means that now that they have left up, I have a large pool of unaccounted for cash.  The *weirdest* thing for me is starting to allow myself to use some money for things besides, like, making more money.  I've been so stingy with what I spend that now it's mentally hard for me to justify spending any money.  Double edged sword and all that.

[The Most Loathed]

We came really close to getting a new dog on Thursday. We've know for at least a couple months that we'd be getting a second. Laura has been watching the adoption websites and seen lots of cute dogs come and go. We've also emailed a few local breeders to see if they have litters coming. We've rescued our two dogs so far but our overwhelming feeling from the local rescue agencies is that they are disorganized at best and possibly more of a liability to the dog than being in the wild at worst. 

Laura seemed to be gearing up for an adoption but I don't always read the signs perfectly so I wasn't overly wrapped up one way or another. She had started to call and check in a couple. Invariably, by the time she called, the dog was spoken for. She'd get doubly frustrated when the dog would become eligible on the rescues website a couple days later. 

Thursday we were having lunch and she saw a couple she wanted at our local humane society. I said something about calling and she mentioned that was typically a waste of time. I needed to work the rest of the day but she was able to hop in the car and run over there. She found a really cute Corgi/Australian Cattle Dog puppy and put her on hold. We had always talked about and older dog that was preferably house broken but  the dog was really cute so I rolled with it. We went to Petsmart and dropped $300 getting a couple things for Clem but a whole leash and collar set, bowls, kennel and bed for the new thing with the plan to go get her on Friday.

Friday I ducked out of work early so that we could bounce over there and get our new family member. We got in and the place was thronged but we were second in the adoption queue. I went and met the little pipsqueak. She was snoozing but the moment the lunch cart rolled out she was up and awaiting her dinner. We waited for a little over an hour for someone to let us take her home.

I saw the woman from the front desk walking up to everyone on her way to us, asking if they were adopting today and if they said yes, who were they adopting. Just as I pointed her out to Laura, someone in scrubs walked up to her and started saying something about "if they insist on taking her home, I can have it done in a hour". I figured this was for some other people who had walked in that day, met a dog and wanted to take it home, something we were told could not be done or we would have already had our little monster at home. 

When the vet tech type person walked away, Laura went over to talk to the woman from the front desk. She was, in fact, looking for us. She had just learned though that another dog who had been in contact with the dog we were going to adopt had come down with parvovirus, which isn't really treatable and can be fatal. It just has to run its course and maybe the dog lives, maybe it doesn't. They were going to run a blood test but it would take another hour. 

I was sent home to walk Clem while Laura waited for the test results. I got back and Laura was hanging out with a pretty cool family who had faced some of the same struggles we had. In fact, they were sitting there because they came in to adopt a dog that they had seen on the website and right about the time that they arrived, some other family had said that they thought they might adopt. They were waiting to see what the other family said. They had tried going to breeders and shelters for months. They wanted a Golden Retriever but getting one from a breeder was thousands of dollars and they just didn't stay in shelters.

Laura went and checked on the blood test and found out that they had just done the draw so it would still be an hour. There was also some talk that even if the test came back negative, they would need to quarantine the dog. We left frustrated, they extended our hold on the dog for 24 more hours. 

As we headed home Laura expressed frustrations and reservations. Clementine has a crappy immune system so we fretted, what if she got parvovirus and died, what if the test gave a false negative, and so on. Laura called our vet when we got home and they were pretty reassuring that there would be little risk. Laura felt so frustrated with the 5 hours she had now spent with these people, that they hadn't tested for things like this and just with the whole process that she called and released our hold on the dog. 

So, Clem is still and only child. Our search is on hold until after the fourth of July, our next road trip. There are still a couple rescues round here that Laura would like to work with but with the Humane Society and MARS (where we got Clem) both seeming a little questionable, she's running out of options. 

I know that @Sloth the Enduring does some fostering and I think that there is a lot about these organizations that I think we don't understand. I'd be curious to get his take on the rescue organizations. I have to admit that my general feeling is that they want to do good but they aren't actually any good at organizing events, working with people, and in some cases, the logistics of managing large groups of animals. It feels like a bunch of people who love animals but don't actually know anything about their general wellbeing. 

 

Next week is my last week at US Bank. I already have that sense of being done. I've deliberately documented everything I reasonably could from day one because I never had any intention of doing this job for multiple years. I don't know I'd leave the company necessarily but I know I wouldn't do this. Thus, it's mostly a matter of making sure everyone has everything I can provide. I've also been building projects for my peers for month, to get things to where they need to be and, frankly, sometimes just to keep them busy. They still have projects that they need to work on. 

It turns out, I'm leaving at just the right time (for me). This group is getting shifted out of its current hierarchy and to a new one, this is when they were going to make me a manager. This week we all will have a meeting about that transition. I think it's, overall, a good transition to make and honestly, making it right now is perfect because they can cycle out my current team members or redefine their jobs and get some new folks in. 

In preparation for my first week at a new job, back in the office, I'm pre-preparing my breakfast and lunch for the week. I've been doing Huel for the morning and I think it's why I've really struggled to shake some water retention and my weight has been kind of stubborn. So, last night I baked an egg casserole with scapes, chives and goat cheese. I'm excited to try it. It won't last the multiple weeks of @Rooks casseroles, nor is it intended. This will serve me for three days. Then I'll need something else to get me by. 

I'm also reminded that when you cook from whole ingredients, it takes a lot of food to make up a 2,000+ calorie diet. My whole casserole (18 medium eggs and 1/2 lb of chevre) clocks in at 1,800. I've got several pounds of pork for lunch too but I'm going to tear through that quickly. It should be tasty though.

[Sloth the Enduring]

I don’t think anyone does logistics up to your standards. I don’t mean that as any sort of insult.  You’re just really good at thinking about systems and easily see how to do things better. I’m not sure what your exact question is, but I can’t say you’re wrong in your noticings. 

 

It isn’t like the old days, everyone wants to say they have a rescue dog.  They’re in high demand and I don’t think most of the shelters have updated their systems enough to keep up.  Just a few years ago you could go to a rescue meet and greet and see dozens of dogs, that just doesn’t happen anymore because supply isn’t keeping up with demand. 

 

Our local humane society churns through dogs really quickly. Getting a dog through them is almost like hitting the lottery. That’s where we got our first dog.  

 

Our second dog came from a breed specific (pug)  rescue.  I get the feeling that these don’t have enough dogs to keep up with demand these days  and they have become another outlet for puppy mills.  I could be wrong though. 

 

Mrs. Sloth had a friend who was a crazy dog lady.  She drove a van down south sporadically and picked up a pile of dogs who lived in her basement until she found fosters and then didn’t do very well at matching up adopters. Her organization was well-meaning, but so disorganized that it turned people off of rescues, both fosters and adopters.  We never dealt with her. 

 

The first organization we worked worked with was really scuzzy. It was basically a DIY pet store with fosters caring for the dogs. She got shut down. She partnered with a cheap source of dogs down south (high kill shelter), drove them up, and fostered them out. She was really bad at matching up people and dogs. 

 

Right now we’re fostering for Second Hand Hounds  They seem like they’re legitimately in it for the dogs. They get a lot of dogs that other places wouldn’t deal with. Old dogs, dogs with medical issues, and they aren’t charging high end prices for designer dogs. They have really got it down when it comes to processing large lots of dogs out to fosters, it’s really well organized from our perspective, but maybe not as much from the adopter’s perspective. They’ve had some hiccups and growing pains as they’ve grown too. They just recently tightened up the procedures for adopting out dogs. I think there were people, like Laura, feeling burned by the process.

 

A point in their favor is that they’ve never put a dog up on the website until all the medical issues are cleared up.  Generally most of the time we have the dog it’s spent waiting for medical treatments to be finished up- worms or spaying usually. Once a dog gets on the website they get picked up really quickly unless there is a problem of some sort (medical issue, too old, doesn’t like kids, chihuahua). They have the same popularity problem as the humane society.

 

Anyway, I’d be frustrated too if I was in the market for a dog. I wouldn’t blame you if you went to a breeder. 

[Sylvaa]

7 minutes ago, Sloth the Enduring said:

Anyway, I’d be frustrated too if I was in the market for a dog. I wouldn’t blame you if you went to a breeder. 

 

YMMV, but we ended up going the old school route and finding a quasi-breeder through the local paper. The guy had a male and female German Shepherd and didn't specifically breed them, but if an accident happened, he'd sell them locally. It was a pleasant, fairly hassle-free experience and we knew all about where our puppy came from.

[Rooks]

Oof... all your talk about finding a dog makes me realize how lucky we were just to find our cat eating our trash. Haha... 

[The Most Loathed]

On 6/17/2018 at 10:44 AM, Sloth the Enduring said:

I don’t think anyone does logistics up to your standards. I don’t mean that as any sort of insult.  You’re just really good at thinking about systems and easily see how to do things better. I’m not sure what your exact question is, but I can’t say you’re wrong in your noticings. 

It wasn't taken as any sort of insult. I do kind of have the tendency to expect every organization to have their processes sorted out. I probably expect too much on that front but also, it's the one thing an org can do to make everyone's life better, especially their own. Fortunately, I know a guy on the inside.

 

@Sloth the Enduring knows this already (presumably) but for everyone else, yesterday he brought the whole family over to our little apartment to hang out for a bit. They brought Dilly with them so our dog, Clementine got to meet her. I admit to having some reservations at first about letting Clem loose in the house with her, mostly because I don't have much experience with introducing new dog to one another. The two romped and played and wrestled for a while and just generally wore each other out. There was clearly a lot of dominance games in there but it stayed civil enough.

 

Last week was pretty much as expected, a bit crazy at times, a bit slow at times. At work I tried to get all the things I knew into other people's brains to the best of my ability. To some degree I feel most limited by their ability to consume, not my ability to impart. I spent hours debriefing and wrote multipage emails just trying to document everything I could. At the end of the week there is only so much I can say that and a lot that folks have to figure out. 

If I have one disappointment in that process it was the reaction I would get when I would get to something where there was/is not process. I would look at the person I was talking to and say something to the effect of "this is the part you need to figure out". I universally got a blank stare in return. It was weird, I'm telling them that this thing should be the thing they dig into, deeply, and nothing. Come on guys, this is where you need to engage. 

 

As I type this, I'm killing time before work. My first day doesn't start until 9 am, it's 7:15 now, Clem got me up at 6. 6- 6:30 is our normal wake up time so it's all good. This all points to my one, most outstanding question. Today we need to negotiate start and leave time. It's one of those details I would have ironed out in the second interview that they skipped. It doesn't matter much either way but it's just one of those things that needs to be sorted.

Historically I've done 7 or 7:30 as a start time. It gets me out at 3:30 or 4 so I can get home, walk the dog, eat early and workout. One very real possibility is that they will say 9 am is their normal time. If that happens I get to become a morning workout guy. I'm not really a lover of morning workouts but I'll get over it and maybe someday I'll even like it. 

 

Yesterday I did food prep for the week, which I haven't done in about a year. It wasn't too bad. I did an egg casserole for breakfast with 20 large eggs, scallions, and a bunch of herby cheese. I had a serving this morning and it was pretty good. The scallions didn't really retain their flavor but the cheese was a really good pick. I also cooked up 4 lbs of chicken for supper and lunches going forward, also a little over 2 lbs of sweet potatoes and a bunch of other veggies (cauliflower, broccilini, and a veggie I can't recall the name of). I'll take some today, knowing that there is a good chance of the team wanting to do lunch out. It can keep for a day. 

 

That's kind of it for now. I haven't been posting a lot, I will probably keep things that way for a while. We'll see. 

[Sloth the Enduring]

Yeah, the meet and greet was a lot rougher than I expected. Dilly is a beta at our house and never raised the issue.

[The Most Loathed]

10 hours ago, Sloth the Enduring said:

Yeah, the meet and greet was a lot rougher than I expected. Dilly is a beta at our house and never raised the issue.

Apparently, over here, she's gonna be the boss. It was fun seeing Clem get taken to school. We appreciate you bringing here over and the care you're going to have to provide in the coming weeks. 

[The Most Loathed]

It was a good week.

 

 

So far, I really dig the new job. It's all the things I have been looking for. I like and respect the people I work with. They are making thoughtful and intelligent choices and don't get upset if I ask a question either for clarification or to understand the underlying rationale. The work seems like it will be interesting and the senior leaders are aware of their need to meet business demand but also provide employees with enriching work. My fears about not being as strong in Tableau were overblown. They love that I'm very fluent in SQL and SAS and are game to help me learn what I don't know.

My boss has four different training classes he wants to send me to . I don't always love these as most of them are designed for someone who knows not only nothing about the subject but nothing about computers. I can usually get some of the early stuff and figure the rest out on my own. That said, he's showing a real commitment to continuing training going forward. This year I'm taking a bunch of level 1 stuff but In future, I get to do some higher level classes of the sort I have never done. 

I hate my desk and chair but they are only temporary. They cause my sciatic nerve to get angry, which hurts. We have a four foot (or so) counter in the breakroom  that no one uses for anything. So, I've been taking my computer in there for a few hours each day and working and it feels much better. On the second day that I did this my boss walked in and said "I notice you like to work standing, do you want me to order you a standing desk?" Um, yeah. Also, it's been a while since I worked with a manager who saw a thing like that and just went and tried to fix it. It's really nice.

I totally realize that I'm probably still in some amount of honeymoon phase but so far, I'm in love. I didn't have this at my last job. The job before that, I did but only when I was at the HQ location, not when I went back to my own office and worked with my peers. So, I'm optimistic that I made the right choice. 

 

This week was a little light on the workouts, 3 rather than 4. I thought, last weekend, about asking for a fourth or just going running or something similar. I'm so glad that I didn't as I just ended up with a really full week. I haven't even been able to keep up on dishes. I'm really glad that the weekend is here and I can sort a few things out that I've just kind of ignored all week. It's going to a be a hot one too so, we'll be hiding indoors anyway.

 

Last week was my first week of food prep in a long time. It was so-so. I made a big egg casserole for breakfast. It was really good on day one but as time passed, I got bored with it and I think some of the flavors mellowed enough to be unnoticeable. Also, the scallions I used were tough which was not a great texture experience. Next week is short so I'm not terribly worried about breakfast prep. Long term, this is where I need the most improvement.

Lunch was sweet potatoes and roasted chicken thighs. This has been a staple before so it was easy to return to. The only issue was that on day one I grabbed my surplus sweet potatoes rather than a meal with chicken and sweet potatoes. A stupid mistake. 

The second half of the week I also grabbed a few protein bars and ate them at work. In truth, i think I was just looking for a little sweetness. I will need to decide how I want to proceed here. I had forgotten that having a snack (almonds previously) and a little sweetness (protein bar) in my day can swing it from Meh to Really Good in terms of food experience. I just have to relearn these things

Next week is only two work days for me (we're heading to Nebraska the second half) so I just bought a couple pounds of ground beef and will do those with potatoes next week. 

 

Tonight, I think we're going to watch the most recent Star Wars movie, which I have not yet seen. Tomorrow I'm going climbing. Sunday is a workout and food prep day. 

[Sloth the Enduring]

I’m the 20,000th viewer of your thread. I feel like I should get a prize. 

 

I’m glad your enjoying your new job. It doesn’t seem like you’ve been happy (jobwise) since you left Target. 

[The Most Loathed]

2 hours ago, Sloth the Enduring said:

I’m the 20,000th viewer of your thread. I feel like I should get a prize. 

I don't know how you know this but I do still owe you one or more beers.

 

2 hours ago, Sloth the Enduring said:

I’m glad your enjoying your new job. It doesn’t seem like you’ve been happy (jobwise) since you left Target. 

I have not been particularly happy since I left Target. I thought I'd be happy at the consulting firm but left because my coworkers thought it was ok to literally yell at me in meetings. I don't need that.

I rushed into US Bank to get away from that. My first role there was boring and mostly made up of waiting for people to let me do my job. When I finally settled into the idea that I would just take a boring and easy job, an opportunity came up to try and actually make people's lives better by freeing up data. I actually tried to turn that job down when it was offered to me but they were dead set on the idea that I could help. That as my last role. It was just and incompetent mess and I couldn't do enough to fix it. 

 

I was reticent to go from one bank to another but the culture is so different and in all the right ways. The work, one week in, is stimulating. I believe that even if the work starts to get boring, as it will do after a couple years, there are other opportunities for me to engage in interesting ways. 

[Rooks]

Great update TML. Glad to hear that the job area is improving so. The fact your manager noticed something like that is huge IMO. I love it when people actually seem to give a crap, just because it's so rare. So many people are so heads down trying to get stuff done all the time they forget that the people around them are the important part. Good stuff. 

[RisenPhoenix]

That is a fantastic work update!  I'm glad that it's seemingly going so well.  It's great when you land somewhere and it turns out to be exactly what you need.  Hopefully it just keeps getting better from here on out for you!

[The Most Loathed]

On 6/30/2018 at 3:33 PM, Rooks said:

Great update TML. Glad to hear that the job area is improving so. The fact your manager noticed something like that is huge IMO. I love it when people actually seem to give a crap, just because it's so rare. So many people are so heads down trying to get stuff done all the time they forget that the people around them are the important part. Good stuff. 

In my one-on-one last week I specifically thanked him for being attentive and called out this example. I don't think he knew what to do with it. As one hetero male to another, the culture is that he isn't supposed to notice, I'm not supposed to notice that he noticed and by calling attention to it I'm practically calling him not-a-hetero-male, but I did so things get awkward. I have no regrets about saying thanks.

 

I started this reply a week ago and just never finished it. Going to try now.

 

Things are still good at work. I got a mini promotion. We had a consultant doing a lot of our development and he quit his firm. I was asked if I would be willing to shift from 50% development : 50% support to 100% development. I reminded them that I still have a learning curve in front of me. If they are comfortable with that, I'll take on the work but that's the price of pushing me into that role. They were fine with it. They also funded sending me to the Tableau conference in October immediately.

 

I'm glad for this. I don't have had a mixed history with vendor conferences but I'm really trying to go all in on this Tableau thing and I see this as part of that. It's in New Orleans which isn't on my bucket list or anything but I will be able to say I've been now. My October will be crazy.

 

My only complaint is that I've been terrible about food and feel like I'm all bloated and watery. This week is my birthday so it's going to be a bad week to try and start to manage this but I'm going to try and at least writing it down in a very loose way, just to build the habit. 

 

[The Most Loathed]

I've been away for a while, which isn't all that unusual for me. Part of it was laziness, part of it was birthday run up and part of it was... things have taken a turn. I've had some personal life drama that I'm not prepared to disclose and it made me barely functional in a way that I have never been. I didn't sleep for a night then 2-4 hours for a few nights, I didn't eat then I ate everything. It's a mess. I'm a mess,

I ended up going to see a doctor and she diagnosed me with very severe anxiety and depression and prescribed Lexapro for me. Yep, I'm one of the masses now on mood stabilizers. You know what though, it was life changing. I'm still a bit of a mess due to current conditions but I suddenly found a huge, gaping hole where I had apparently gotten used to my anxiety living. I had no idea but I've apparently needed meds for a while now.

Anyway, I'm working with a therapist. I kind of hope that I don't have to be on these forever but right now they're helping a lot. 

 

Super short update, I know. I'll try to unpack it at a later date. 

[Elastigirl]

Sorry, it sounds like  life has bee really rough. Glad you found something to help

[WhiteGhost]

Hope things stabilize soon

[The Most Loathed]

First, thank you for your thoughts.

 

I have 30 minutes and I'm going to try to update you guys in that time. I won't get to everything. I have cleared the the idea of this update with relevant parties. 

 

Very short version, my wife and I are separating. I'm not going to talk about the motivations here. I'm going to say that we both still love and respect one another but this is the right thing right now. 

When this topic was introduced I couldn't really cope. That's where the Lexapro came in. I was barely functional so I went to a primary care provider and told them I was crippled with anxiety. They gave me a little quiz about feelings and said I had both anxiety and depression and prescribed Lexapro. It made a huge difference. 

I'm still slightly conflicted about being on the drug but it's helping while I seek counseling to deal with some stuff. In fact, that's the time limit on this post, I have my second session this morning. 

 

So, I plan to use this log to record some of experiences I'm having. I do not plan to talk about what happened between my wife and I. I don't plan to talk about what is happening between us other than how it impacts the day to day. I do plan to talk about challenges and successes. I plan to talk about habit changes for myself. I will talk about my feelings some too.

 

I think that's going to be it for now. This is hard for me to talk about. I'll do better talking about the day to day. Know that I'm safe. I'm working on some self improvement ad have both friends and professionals to talk to as I go through this. 

[Bearlee]

Sending you my best wishes. Hope things work out the best for you in this condition. I’m glad you have people around to support you.

[Rooks]

Sorry to hear you are going through a rough patch, sir. If you ever need someone to sit and chat outside of your normal support system, feel free to give me a ring or shoot me a text and we can setup a time to get together. Or if you want to come deadlift and take out some aggression, the home gym is open.

[Sloth the Enduring]

I’m sorry brother. I’m glad the meds are helping.