holiday weeks are always rough

 Both my dentist and my doctor do not work on Fridays.  And while I applaud them for work-life balance in theory, the reality is that it's very inconvenient for me, as a wage slave.  Friday afternoons are the only time on my schedule that are less likely to get filled with mandatory events.  

Today I'm going for removal of my cracked tooth to get a crown, and a couple of fillings.  I am so not looking forward to the time in the chair. Nobody likes the dentist but it definitely is a heightened negative experience for me.  And I like this dentist, have been seeing him for 30 years, trust him.  But still.  And when I set this appointment, which is at noon because the dentist also doesn't work later than 1:30 on Thursdays, I had nothing else on my calendar.  But now suddenly I have three mandatory things starting first thing in the morning and going on for god knows how long, and I'm double booked and it's just a shitshow.  This week has been super rough, and just trying to stay on top of things is requiring like 11 hour work days.  This defeats the purpose of a holiday and long weekend when I have to kill myself to get there.   

But then it will be the long weekend and I'm really hoping for no drama to mar it.  Goals include the usual chores, maybe going to get some raspberries to process for freezing and jam (my bushes seem to not be producing as much as I'd hoped, but they are young so it's fine).  I would like to try to go for a hike one day.  Finish the quilt (it's very close but I've been dealing with eye strain all week so haven't done it) and get it laundered.  Caulk windows and trim inside.  HOpefully start cleaning exterior of house.  Maybe plant carrots, pick dried favas, other garden chores.  I'll need to keep an eye on the beans and zucchini as they're going to start producing soon and sometimes I dont' even notice at first.  

Finished The Hunter by Tana French and quite enjoyed it.  I find many books have disappointing endings but she's so far delivered for me with satisfaction.  Started Stone Yard Devotional - it's a slow start.  Not perhaps surprising, I'm gravitating towards books with protagonists who are wholly burned out.  That I can identify with.  It's also a short book so I should easily be able to finish it before the next book is ready for me at the library.  Oh, just happened accidentally upon a discussion of a new book where the author was challenged about why would we want to shed most of civilization trappings for a more primitive world, and he asked, why would you want to waste all your life on work and watching TV?  Oh, good point.  I do feel that working so much is wasting my life.  It's only a means to an end for me and it's consuming too much of me.  

And now here I go for another day.  

missions to accomplish

 Facebook memory was a photo from four years ago of a banana flower in my backyard.  And fruit actually was produced and it was delicious, and I got to learn how and when to harvest it, store it, etc.  New tricks for me.  

And there was a completion to my time in New Orleans with that, having gotten to finally experience what I'd always wanted.  I grew up very far away from the tropics, so I am beguiled by tropical things such as fruit.  

There is a bit of method to my madness of moving so much - it's that I want to experience so many things.  A work colleague compares me to Alexis on Schitt's Creek, how I have all these random stories like she does, which amuses me.  (She very much doesn't want to like me but she can't help herself, and that also amuses me.)  

I do not just read things, I want to do them for myself.  And once I can do them, I don't want to keep doing them forever, I want to move on to something new.  I have always been this way; when younger, many things came very easily to me.  I was quite good at music, encouraged onto the oboe, and then scouted by a professional orchestra who flew me in to perform with them.  And while I enjoyed some aspects of the trip - staying with a family I often stayed with on school trips, they were always so loving to me - I remember being on the stage thinking, "OK, done it, over it."  And I shortly after that quit music altogether.  I was only 14 or 15, but I was done, on to the next thing.  I think the next thing ended up being smoking pot with hooligans in rock quarries, but I survived that too and moved on to the next things.  

I think I'm just wired differently from other people who find comfort in experiencing the same things over and over.  Maybe I have ADHD or some other neurodivergence, I have no idea.  I do certainly get bored very easily and can be hyperfocused until I am, but it's just who I am and I don't usually hurt people along the way.  And when I'm bored, it can be physically painful to keep doing the same things.  It's the opposite of comfort to keep doing them.  

LIke my job, of course.  If I were given the financial opportunity, I would quit this instant.  Not show up where I need to go in half an hour.  Go do something else.  I've always wanted to be a barista.  But of course that pays of a fraction of what I earn now, so I need to keep doing the things for about two years and seven months more.  

Tomorrow I have somebody coming to look at my front porch and I'm hoping they will charge a reasonable amount to fix the bricks and mortar.  I really don't want to put a lot of money into it, in part because I don't know that the person who buys this house in three years won't just remove the brickwork.  It does look outdated, maybe they would care about that.  I don't care about it, in part because I never use my front door and don't look at it.  

I really need to start cleaning the exterior of my house, it's bothering me.  The white gutters and trim are looking dirty, as is the light colored siding.  I'm sure there are easier ways to do this but I anticipate I'll be out there with a ladder, bucket, and rag, scrubbing it all down.  It's something new to learn.  Yes, I've owned houses before, but that's another advantage of moving so often - not having to do some of this deep cleaning.  I am also afraid that this will become a bigger project, such as if I need to repaint trim or break the screens and need to repair or replace them.  But, this will be a good weekend to start this project - a three-day weekend, can do it early in the morning before it gets too hot, but it will be warm enough to dry the house well (unlike the past week in the 60s).  

Time to start rolling towards work ...   

+0.8

Gained weight this past week.  I did have a few meals that were bread with cheese or with peanut butter, so not that surprising, but still, it's always disheartening when but for that I'd stuck to the lean eating and the other meals were vegetables/tofu or lentils.  

I just spent about an hour and saved $468 for the next year on internet services.  They also tried to save me on mobile phone but I was finished when they tried to require my social security number. That's not happening.  SSNs are for taxation purposes only and I resist any other demand for its use.  I understand that anyone can buy it on the dark web and I just had recently somebody use it to try to get a credit card in my name, but I do not have to make it even easier to use fraudulently.  I feel quite strongly about this, refusing to include it in medical information, etc.  I understand it's easier for them to come after me for debt, but I//my insurance always pays.  In fact, about 25 years ago, a lab fraudulently sent me to collections - they had never sent me bills (and this was when I lived in the same place for three years, so it wasn't a mail forward issue) and I had no reason to expect a bill (believing it was fully covered by insurance), and then they sent me to collections and years later once I started looking at things like my credit report I had to fight.  Turns out the lab had been sued for these practices - and lost.  But it was on me to prove all that to clear my credit.  

So yeah, fuck you to anyone who wants my social security number if you're not my employer or the IRS. 

I think it rained a bit last night which is very nice.  And now I need to get out with the dog to walk but my gut is unhappy so I'd rather stick close to my toilet.  

**

Made it ok, it was a very nice walk for us.  I saw all the dogs off at the distance before my dog did and was able to do quick turns and go-arounds to avoid contact.  It's never fun for any of us when she sees a dog and freaks out about the egregious injustice of their existence.

Then I swung by a breakfast foodtruck near my house that I've been meaning to try.  The prices are good and we had a nice chat (she even let me see inside her new-to-her food truck which seems a quite nice size), but the food is SUPER salty.  To be fair, I always undersalt my food to the extreme, but this is almost inedibly salty.  Oh, and now my stomach is rebelling.  It's a very large portion, two servings worth for me, but I'm afraid I'll have to chuck most of it, sadly.  It's really more for people like roofers who are sweating a ton and need the salt.  I do not need the salt.  There's also a flavor with the potatoes that I very much do not care for.  I usually only taste it in prepared camping meals and the like, so have never been able to identify it.  Yuck.  Oh well, had to try it, wanted to support her.  I may try once more with something very different.  If she asks, I'll tell her, but she had good reviews so maybe it's just a me problem, or maybe she accidentally double-salted.  It can happen.  

OK, time to roll outside soon.  I see the neighbor already pulled the dead lavender bush (that he killed) out for me and I need to do some other clean up.  Then to feed the old garlic rows and put in winter brassicas - collards (two types), broccoli, and a "perpetual kale."  And some turnips.  Then pick berries, clean, freeze.  Inside chores: make kale/white bean soup, read, quilt, caulk the windows if I feel up to it.  Caulking a lot is definitely a chore I do best when I feel up to it, when I have the focus and strength.  People sometimes marvel at how well I caulk, and I can be on par with some professionals (though not the best ones), but the trick is to be in the right headspace and not too tired.  Also, I just got a pretty nice caulk gun that makes it a pleasure. I would prefer to be in the right space to do all the caulking at one time, but we'll see.  Friend offered me her battery-operated one but that's probably too much as I need to control it well.  

A big event happened in the book I'm reading (The Hunter by Tana French) but it's only halfway through so clearly it's not the actual climax.  i think she did that in the last book, too - a huge surprise in the middle that turned out to be not as a big a deal as it seemed.  But I am hooked to see what happens next.  It's a former large city cop from the US who settles in small-town Ireland and navigates those relationships and personalities, and fortunately written by an Irish person who researches well.  So, I may finish that today, then move on to Stone Yard Devotional, before The Wayfarer comes available from somebody returning it to the library - that's quite a long book so everybody returns it late.  There's one more book in the Tana French series with these characters that she recently released which I will for sure want to read.  Oh, 63 hold requests for it already? Yeah, I better jump in that queue.  Sometimes the holds move pretty quickly - when I joined for The Correspondent I think I was #124 and now I'm 96 just a few weeks later.   I had gone to pick up some free tree collards from a FB post and the person came out tearful saying she'd just finished that book and it's so good, so I jumped on the library queue.  The other books I'm queued up for are a a range of new fiction highly recommended, with health and financial planning for a woman of my age. 

OK, time to tip that breakfast into the trash and start working outside in this wonderful weather - overcast and 60 degrees, just how I like it.  What a gift to have weather like this in late June!  

**

I'm close enough to finishing my current projects that I'm looking to the next one, and getting the mortar on my front porch repaired is moving to the top of the list.  It's quite deteriorated and one brick is now totally loose.  I hope that I can find somebody to do a good enough job without it costing a lot.  I could probably do it myself, but it would be stressful to be sure I'm doing it right (and one more thing!), and I'd have to buy equipment.  I don't want to buy any more equipment.  I only have brick on the front of my house so I can have them check it all but I think the rest is ok.  They may ask me about redoing my driveway, and yeah, it doesn't look great, but I don't want to spend money on that, because if I think about something like that, I should think about residing my house, and I really don't want to pay for that.  So yeah, keep it simple.  That's the rule.  But a loose brick on a stairwell is a safety hazard needing repair that I can pay for. 

**

 I am really looking forward the road trip about three years in my future.  I've been noting places I want to go (I'm really focused on the Badlands and I really want to spend more time around The Wave and Coyote Buttes, and New Mexico, and North Carolina, and Big Bend National Park in TX, and NYC, and Montreal, and Louisiana of course the land of  my heart, and Florida from Cuban culture to manatees, and friends along the way, and maybe some Workaway stints).  I think of how to configure my Subaru Forester and gear to maximize camping potential (and watch plenty of videos).  I want to practice on short roadtrips around here before embarking on what I expect will be several months of exploring.  Because I expect it will be my last big road trip like that.  I could be wrong, but I don't any more really enjoy the 16 hours per day of driving for thousands of miles to get to a destination with a deadline.  My body does not appreciate that sitting still so long.  But a road trip where I"m in no rush and I'm just looking around, that can be fun.  POking around and kicking tires to see if any place piques my curiosity to follow up with about becoming home.  

And the other planning piece is starting to gather books for the road.  OK, I've only gathered one so far, Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon.  I started it from the library but then realized I'd really want to read it when on the road.  I may pick up Travels with Charley (John Steinbeck) and Democracy in America (Alexis de Tocqueville), travelogues I quite liked when younger.  I have questions about what we have become and how I fit into it.  I have spent years in smalltown midwest and the South, but things have changed recently, I think, but maybe not.  Maybe it's all just hype.  But I don't think so - Arlie Hochschild set off my concerns Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right. 

Yesterday I heard a snippet on the radio of two British historians who mentioned that the American Revolution is not a big deal in the UK, eclipsed by the French Revolution and other events.  Then one went on to say that the American REvolution wasn't necessary and don't Americans recognize that?  Look to Canada and Australia, aren't they just fine, and they didn't have to go through all that revolutionary bother.  

And it really made me laugh, how he so missed the mark on who we are as Americans.  OF COURSE we needed revolution.  My anthropological training is rather rudimentary - actually, no it's not.  I trained in it through PhD coursework twice, once with an excellent academician and learned all the big ideas very well.  i just couldn't stick around either place long enough to finish a dissertation, though my projects along the way were quite good (and I also was trained in it at the masters level at yet another university). 

So I have these big questions to consider along the road, and I imagine numerous evenings camping and reading.  I do read quite well when camping, fewer distractions.  So, I think I'll start a pile of books for the road.  Three years is not that far away.  I need to enjoy what I have here while I still do - this too-large for my house and yard, a passionate dog, bicycle commuting, a good salary, etc. - and also look ahead.  

made it to noon

 Three plus hours of yardwork wears me out - I plan to sit for much of the rest of the day.

I planted, I tied up plants, I weeded, I laid a bit of mulch, I emptied out and moved a compost bin, etc.  My heartrate definitely got elevated at various times.  A good bit of exercise I'd say.  

I finally figured out why my boss is getting an additional person for us - I knew it had nothing to do to help us. No, there is an intern she really really likes, so she's trying to make her get the job.  The timing of it is weird and everything (the position is open exactly when the fellowship is ending).  And this person is not great.  She's ok, but she requires a lot of work for the rest of us.  On her fellowship type thing, she carried less than 20% of the rest of us, but commandeered so much of everyone else's time because she didn't know what she was doing and demanded so much help.  She should absolutely not be hired for our office.  Her skillset is sucking up, which is not what we need - especially because the only person who has fallen for it is my boss. 

And now to the indoor tasks - canning beans, clean out the coffee grinder, make rice for the next meal, etc. etc.   

My pear tree is super overloaded - I think I say this every year, but this year it seems so heavy that I'm kind of overwhelmed thinking about the harvest to come.  Very few of the pears are pristine - they are very high up, they fall, I gather them, they need to be eaten or processed quickly.  First I dehydrated a lot, but tbh I don't eat much dehydrated fruit.  Then I canned them in apple and white grape juice (watered down significantly), and those have been tasty all winter, but today I realized two other things: surely I can make a pear sauce like applesauce to bake with?  I'm not getting apples this year (the few on the tree are already being eaten by scavengers) and pear sauce seems a great thing to have on hand to replace oil and sweetener in baked goods.  And also - why not make my own pear juice to can the pears in??  No need to buy juice.  

To the other side of life, I think that a big part of why I want to be footloose and fancy free as soon as I can is that I am so stuck right now physically.  I can't take my dog anywhere, and leaving her is also problematic.  I also always seem to have yard and house chores.  It makes me all just want to go to the other extreme and be free.  Obviously these are choices that I'm making, but I do love my imperfect dog and make sacrifices for her.  

But when she is no more, I want to do a lot of nearby camping trips to try out different gear and setup before I embark on a massive cross-country roadtrip.  I've driven everywhere from Alaska to Florida, but usually I'm on a mission to get someplace.  I will want this roadtrip to have shorter driving days, more stops.  People to see, things to do.  

Like, when I went on my camping trip last year about this time, I was focused on a national monument which was super worth the trip, but I also made stops and found a rock formation I'm now almost obsessed with returning to, checked out hotsprings and river and lake, found some other trails, and stopped in a small town museum which was super interesting, and then lunch in another small town which was kind of creepy.  Then i came back and found out the dog had snapped at Friend, and it put a damper on things for me, but that's what I want to do a lot more of.  And hopefully increase the amount of hiking I can do.  

from the berry patch

Just went out to the berry bushes and got another 3/4 pint or so of berries.  Ate some, washed the rest to go into the freezer with the others, and when I have enough I'll make one batch of jam, and then keep the rest frozen to use throughout the year.  I don't have a sense of how much longer this season will last for raspberries, though I see the blackberries have yet to ripen.  What is confusing too is that I think I have about four different types of berries out there.  I know for sure that I have triple crown blackberries because I bought those on recommendation - they're thornless, nice flavor.  I bought two of them just over two years ago, and I think I put them in the ground a year, maybe year and a half ago.  They are now huge and sprawling, and I think I'll do an arch with them.  There are soooo many berries ripening, I'm excited for that to happen.  But all the other berries were free to me - Dear Friend brought me some, I got some off a guy on Facebook, and I think from a woman on FAcebook or maybe a neighbor.  There are definitely different types in there, obvious by growth habit and appearance, and by taste.  I like the ones best that are right by the blackberries, because they seem like a raspberry/blackberry cross, and they're very good, but they're also hidden.  

The berries of course want to take over the whole yard, but I want to keep them in a small space, just one row of maybe 15' long.  And I very much like being able to just graze, and now also to pick enough to save.  It's very nice.  

The dog thinks it's nice, too, and is always right beside me begging for some berries which she eats delicately.  

So ... I may not need to go picking or buy any raspberries/blackberries this year which saves me some cash for sure. 

The leaves are eaten by bugs pretty bad, but I'm not seeing damage to the fruit, so that's fine.  

Speaking of that, I just smushed five caterpillars from my tree collards.  I just cannot get over how well they're doing in the pots - again, free from a woman on Facebook.  I see a happy future for them in my yard, producing greens for me year round forever.  Well, or for at least the next two years for me, then hopefully the next person will like them as well.

People are so weird here about greens, not understanding them, thinking only about kale.  No, no, no.  Turnip greens and collard greens give me life, as do cassava leaves and sweet potato leaves.  I grew up with no dark leafy greens, like ever, but life in the South and Africa showed me the joys.   

**

And now it's Saturday and I had planned to go to the farmers market to get greens to cook to eat with polenta (so good), but then I remembered that I have some other meal plans first.  There's still a bunch of kale to make into soup with white beans, and a head of green cabbage to cook in some way, and frozen winter squash to make into curry (though I do need some more greens for that ... though maybe I could pluck enough little turnip greens from the garden, or maybe even a collard tree leaf or two to top off).  That should get me at least for awhile.  I do though want to stop at the grocery store tomorrow after dog walk because I saw they have jackfruit on sale and I didn't know it was shelf stable, but now that I know where to look for it, I want to try it.  And I'm getting back on the tofu train - I have a block frozen that I'll thaw and shred and season and eat with pasta and sauce.  Another block I'll bake in squares to put into the squash curry.  My snowpeas were really not very productive this year and usually I look at pulling them out around now but I'm nurturing them along to see if I can get more.  The zucchini is taking off and i won't be surprised to see flowers soon.  

And I really need to organize my freezer because it's seeming full.  Get the newest blueberries to the bottom, rotate the stock.  I think I used up all the vegetables in there but it's worth another look to be sure.  

OK, it's not raining right now though it's expected to drizzle later.  What a treat this cool wet weather is - usually it's hot and dry now (and it was just a week ago, almost 100 and so dry).   

I do like days when I don't have to leave the house, even if it's just to the farmers market.  I have a lot of outdoor chores I'd like to complete today and then also indoor things - I need to finish a Tan French book this weekend, which can be a fairly easy read but it's a lot of pages, and to finish the quilt binding this weekend.  I took a break for a couple of days because of hand cramping, but I should be able to get it done this weekend and then launder when it's nicer outside to hang it out to dry.  Outdoor chores including weeding and mulching and filling the green bin, tying up some vines, putzing around.  I may empty the Aerobin to harvest compost, and I want to plant some winter brassicas once I've fed where I took out the garlic.  

The dog has been very cuddly, and last night she paced around and finally convinced me it was bedtime so that she could snuggle in with me for a bit.  She was such a jackass when friends were over last weekend, and I think she's just over people except for a very few, mostly just me.  And that's ok.  She used to be much more social but now I think they just make her anxious, and of course then I can't trust her not to snap.  

I've been toying with different configurations of leaving my job - what if instead of quitting in 2.5 years, I just started taking my vacation time in big chunks once the dog passes?  Go to Australia for six weeks and hang out with friends. Go to Japan and eat okonomiyaki and all the other good vegetables.  Go to the chard festival in Croatia and kick around the Adriatic.  In theory it's great but the reality is really hard because of the work we do.  I can't just pop in and out, the way that I've made this work actually sane for me is to do a shit-ton of early work.  If I prepare early, I can handle the chaos close to events.  I finally got at least some of my team on board with this strategy, and it's worked really well.  So if I'm gone for a big chunk of time, when I get back I have SOOO much more work to catch up on.  So maybe I took off two weeks to check out Iceland, but then when I come back I have to power through 60 hour very stressful weeks.  And I don't see any workaround to that and still do an effective job, because I hate surprises.  So what about a sabbatical which I'm contractually entitled to?  Take off maybe six months, which at least in theory would have a lot of things reassigned, and then I could do some international travel and also my big cross-country road trip that I want to do very leisurely.  Advantage would be that I'd be able to maintain health insurance during that time and have a job to come back to.  Disadvantage is that I don't want to come back to this fucking job, I want to get out of it.  

Another consideration is that my house is estimated to have increased in value by 10% in the past three years.  Which ... at a quick glance I was thinking it'd increased 10%/year, but no, just about pace with inflation (though maybe it will sell for more because of the upgrades, though they are budget upgrades).  If I sell this house and then decide I want to live here because it is a pretty easy place to live in many ways, would I even be able to afford it?  I mean ... maybe?  I could put the sale proceeds into CDs or high interest savings accounts which may at least keep pace with inflation.  The realtor cut is always a killer. And of course, it could also sell for less, who knows what the future holds.  A home isn't a stable investment.  

My lab results are dribbling in slowly and now the website is down, but late last night I did see that while my hsCRP is high, it's significantly lower than the last time tested, so that's good.   

OK, coffee is finished, time to move gently into this day.   

things I can't change, things I can

My lab results are trickling in and overall they don't seem alarming.  The things that are high are mostly outside of my control.  Like my wonky autonomous thyroid, high red blood cell count, and now I learn about my elevated lipoprotein a.  Not elevated to the point that I need medical intervention, I'm assuming though will talk with my doctor, but high enough that I need to be aware and reduce other factors that I do have control over.

Also a few elevated things such as triglycerides and LDL and glucose, but they are all just a couple of points outside the range.  Like, triglycerides are good up to 150, mine is 153 (which is drastically better than a couple of years ago); glucose "good" up to 100, mine is 102.  (I would like to understand that a little better - this testing was done right after a very stressful event and I'd eaten quite a lot of sugar the two days prior.  The A1c was 5.4, within normal range, and lower than the 5.7 I saw last time that concerned me.)

But I also always need to remind myself: these "normal" ranges are not "optimum health" ranges.  If I were fully healthy, the numbers would likely look different.  

The good news from my perspective at least (again, will talk with doctor once everything is in), is that there may be further lifestyle modifications to make (increase regular activity, reduce stress, take vitamin D and B supplements) but no drastic intervention required.  This isn't exactly a clean bill of health, but nothing stopping me from extended travel or requiring medical supervision.  

I do believe that the basics are helping a lot - the plant-forward diet, the improved sleep, the better hydration.  Need to really solidify those and then figure out what increased activity will look like.  I absolutely will not go to a gym, hate it.  Walking was always my go-to, but with the feet arthritis it's a lot harder.  Biking is wonderful for commuting but not a fan of it for recreation (boring).  Rowing machine is SO boring.  But maybe I can get with like some qi gong and calisthenics, prioritize and maximize the time spent. Exercise a bit more willpower for better habits.  

Though I don't want to be too harsh with myself - I do actually practice pretty good willpower about many things, and it frankly takes a ton of bandwidth sometimes.  It can be exhausting.  this is why I have to slowly stack the health improvements rather than trying to change everything all at once.   

Oh crap, I agreed to cover a remote meeting for someone, forgetting I'm baking bread at that time.  Crap.  Need to figure that out - maybe try to bake earlier.  Oh, actually the bread is rising faster than I expected so maybe this will work out ok.  Vigorous sourdough for sure, yay.  

OK, time to start this workday.   

 

reclaiming my time

 Little in politics resonates for me like Maxine Waters persistently reclaiming her time in Senate hearings - refusing to politely allow people to just take away what was hers.  It represents resistance, speaking up to power - and the uncomfortable reminder that even when a Black woman is in power she has to continue to remind the room that she has earned that place and it will not be taken from her.  I have great respect for her.  

It also has a more quotidian meaning for me, the reclaiming of my time from a job that takes all my bandwidth.  Part of the issue is the hybrid remote culture, so my computer is always staring at me in my home; part is the constant access expectation of a cell phone.  And part of it is just my limitations, how hard it can be for me to shut down work when I'm dealing with complicated matters all the time.   

And while work is always busy, it should actually be manageable right now.  I make my list of tasks and they should not be taking me 10 hours a day to finish.  Yes, again, part of the problem is me - I allow myself to get sidetracked by calls for help.  I respond timely to every request.  I take on what isn't always my responsibility when I see a need.  But I'm getting better - I'm no longer volunteering to every request from my boss, and I'm no longer putting effort into making things better structurally.  If somebody is doing something wrong, that doesn't have to be my problem.  I don't have to figure out why there are glitches and poor procedures - while I'm very good at that, it takes time and effort, and it's not my job.  I startled my boss and office manager when they were trying to put something on me - I had volunteered for a small thing and they were making it bigger and I would not accept that.  "That is outside the scope of my responsibility.  Here is what I'm responsible for and am completing with this message: XYZ."  And I'm sticking to it.  

My brain hasn't caught up yet though, as I still spin on the complicated problems.  Sometimes I come up with helpful solutions in my dreams, but I want to have downtime without work consuming every space.  

So, I continue those efforts.  

I was up too early this morning because the dog thought it necessary.  The problem with being awake at 5 am is that I've promised the neighbor that I won't let the dog out until 7 am (because she barks and wakes them).  On the other hand, that neighbor's husband just burned my lavender bush to the ground, so I'm in the position of power right now in our relationship.  He clearly felt bad, came knocking on my door offering to buy a replacement plan, apologizing.  He was burning weeds and somehow killed that old lovely bush, one of the few non-natives I kept because it was quite nice.  His wife's concern was that he'd torched a plant near our fences and was going to ignite our neighborhood, so he doused it fully with water.  In the scheme of things it's actually not a big deal; i'll probably just cut it out and replace it with gaillardia, one of my favorite flowers.  And I was laughing when talking with his wife about it.  But maybe this is my leverage to ask him to help pay for the fence that I put in three years ago?  Maybe not.  But I am taking it gracefully even though there's this scorched bush in my yard that I now have to deal with.  Why on earth be an asshole about it, I know he didn't mean to do it, and he feels bad.  I'm glad he didn't take out one of the natives that has been filling in the back space nicely. 

Anyway, it's Thursday and I'm already gearing up for the weekend because I believe our heatwave is over for now.  I"ve got milk heating on the stovetop to make yogurt before work, and just fed starter to begin bread today to bake tomorrow morning as it looks like I can work from home then.  I plan to bike to the office today for the morning, then stop at the library to renew my card (it's so annoying they make me do that - it's about limiting non-residents' access).  I'm already making my list for the weekend so that I can begin today.  Finish the quilt, finish cleaning the interior window sashes, cook the snap peas I gathered form the garden with tofu, pick the favas that are browned before it possibly rains tonight, vacuum, weed behind the berries and dogwood and move more mulch there, tie up the native vines, fill the green bin with branches, weed along the fenceline for ivy that keeps encroaching, etc. etc.  The cooling of the weather definitely motivates me.  And this weekend I may work some more on compost and definitely want to plant winter crops from where I just pulled the garlic.  

And I want to start zero-summing my workhours.  So far this week I"ve worked 9 hour days, so I want to work a couple of 7 hour days today and tomorrow.  I'm not even doing the lookback to earlier weeks with much longer days, I just want a little balance right now.   

And I make these lists because otherwise work just consumes me.  It can be hard for me to even take time to hydrate, I get so hyper-focused on work.  Though, I do commend myself for doing much better lately with hydration and sleep, my two current goals.  It definitely makes a difference about how early I fall asleep if I take a book to bed instead of a laptop, so I try to go with the book.  And so much more water drunk.  I still have an occasional flavored sparkling water (no sugar of course), but mostly I'm just drinking chilled filtered tap water.  I used to fill my Berkey maybe once a week, now it's about every other day.  And these two things, sleep and water, seem to be really helpful with my well-being.  I stacked these on top of the healthy eating (plant-forward, reduce ultra-processed foods).  Once I feel a little bit more secure with all three of those things, I'll be more focused on activity.  Yes, I get activity with garden tasks and commuting and such, but I can be more consistent about getting sufficient activity almost every single day and including bursts with accelerated heartrate, and I really should start to focus on resistance strength training.  

**

Well, I did not do well with cutting back my work hours.  People always want too much of me, I need to stop being so fucking responsive and helpful.

But also, I made yogurt, prepped bread for baking early tomorrow morning, renewed my library card, bicycle commuted, and cooked snap peas and tofu for dinner.  So, that's pretty good with taking my own time. Glad to be getting back on the tofu kick - have two more boxes in my fridge to use up before I can justify returning to Costco.  Getting their organic extra firm tofu makes my day; it's like $5.49 for a 4-pack, and I like the flavor and texture a lot.