The PolyBlog

The United Way campaign is kicking my butt at work as I decided to run a bunch of trivia games and getting them to work the way I want them to in MS teams is taking a little big of work to finagle. Plus my co-coordinator and I are doing a whole bunch of event coordination, and since I’m a techie type compared to most, I am involved in lots of things I probably don’t need to be. 🙂

But today I decided to double-down on work. Next week is a REALLY busy week for work + the campaign, and I need to have all the balls rolling/flying/bouncing where they need to be. Monday is a whole bunch of test events to make sure everyone knows how things work; Tuesday is a 3 hour meeting I’m hosting for the technical side with break-out groups in MS Teams even though MS Teams doesn’t DO breakout groups (hah! Take THAT Microsoft!); Wednesday I have a bit of breathing space; Thursday is my first live trivia event with individuals, so far only about 10 people playing. Friday is a chance to breathe again. Monday to Friday I’m also running trivia by email, doing my REAL day job, and just generally bopping along.

Which means I doubled-down today to pre-set a whole bunch of things up for Monday’s test sessions, pre-saved files where they need to be, added links in all my meeting invites, tested a few things, etc. We had a meeting today with Heritage to talk about their trivia game and how it is working, which was uber helpful. And then my bilat with my boss confirmed that I’m generally good-to-go for my workplan for my team, with a few big details to be worked out.

But to get everything going? I basically worked until about 6:15, took a break until around 9:00 or so, and then did another 3h tonight to nail it all. Powerpoint, MS Teams, my own website — I was using EVERYTHING. About six things off my to do list that were going to make my Monday relatively insane. I don’t want to work on any of them over the weekend, so I’m quite happy to just be “done” in advance and hope that Monday gives me a bit of time to work on Thursday’s stuff.

I don’t really like messing up my work/life balance, and I don’t do it very often at this point in my career, but it got the job done. And it means I can stop worrying about stuff the rest of the weekend too and focus on home chores. (Oh, wait. Is that a yay or a nay? Hmm..). Heck, I even managed to squeeze in some volunteer work today for astronomy with the public library.

I rock.

Today I choose to double-down on work and get a bunch of stuff out of the way for Monday.

What choices are you making?

I generally feel like I’m having a bad day overall. Nothing major, just a lot of little things affecting my mood. And I’m trying to avoid giving in to it.

I mentioned previously that I’m a little stressed with work. While there is are lots of things going on at once, most of it is manageable. However, I also find myself waiting on some HR news, a new configuration to my job potentially, and I’d like to just “know” the direction I’m heading. I feel like I’m in a holding pattern. It’s not “bad” per se, just frustrating when I’m already busy with other things.

I also mentioned previously that I haven’t been sleeping well. I’m not waking up every three hours anymore, but I don’t feel rested when I wake up, not even with my sleep machine. I know some of it is just a COVID isolation wall, but still, a bit frustrating and lowers my energy levels for coping with run-of-the-mill challenges to my daily resilience and efficiency. Or, like everyone else, maybe it’s just a shorter way to say “I’m affected too”. I like WFH, but I am struggling to keep work and personal separate, particularly as so many of my hobbies are digitally enabled and the computers sit about 4 feet apart from each other.

On top of work and isolation buzzkills, I’ve been worried about Jacob the last couple of weeks. He’s been struggling to self-manage his work at school, and his schedule during the day, so his productivity has dropped. He’s behind on a few things, enough that the report card season prompted his teachers to send reminders on a few missing items. He’s not the only one behind in the class, but he’s playing catch up. He’s also been experiencing anxiety challenges, something that looks like it might be a larger ongoing problem for him for his future. One part of my brain wants to rail against the universe as being unfair, while another part wants to punch the universe’s laughing response in the nose. I feel like he already has enough to deal with, particularly right now with some pending decisions about surgeries.

And then there’s my health. My back was out, which messed up my digestion system and my ribs still don’t like me much today. I’m still getting frequent headaches that appear to be sinus related, but only about half the time (the quick “sinus tests” of bending to touch your toes or jumping up and down only aggravates the headache sometimes). I feel like the pre-diabetes stuff is under control generally, with my weight and medications relatively stable, but I am REALLY bored with my food and snack choices these days which frequently leads to unhealthy snacking. My right ear has been hurting on and off for the last week, and just for fun, my pink-eye disappeared but the same eye now seems to have a sty. Yesterday, out of the blue, two teeth started acting up, I’ve never had a problem before, but they are reacting to anything cold with a sharp twinge. Great. And then tonight, just for fun, I felt some of the face-numbing that I had about 5 years ago that turned out to be “undiagnosable”. In other words, we ran lots of tests, no known cause. It’s not a heart issue, no stroke, could just be stress or an allergy thing. Or my sinuses are pinching a nerve or something. Who the f*** knows. I tried to talk to my doctor last week, but the clinic is part of a hospital so they won’t let anyone come in if they have anything that might remotely seem like Covid. A sty could be pink-eye, so I can’t go in. How would I know if it was pink-eye and not a sty? I’d have to go in. See the catch-22 going on here?

Yet even with all that crap going on, it’s just noise. Mostly anyway. That’s NOT why I’m having a bad day. I’m having a bad day because it’s Remembrance Day. My father died October 5, 1996, but when October 5 rolls around, I almost forget, I admit. The day doesn’t rattle my cage. Some years it’s been late in the day before I even remember. My mother died November 16, 2012, and while it is more recent, I find too that the day itself doesn’t resonate with me. I know it’s coming next week, but I’m not worried about it. Those two dates cause me no real pain, no reason to do more than pause to remember them.

By comparison, Remembrance Day is a full stop. For my dad, it’s easy to know why…they did a poppy service for him from the Legion, and I still have one of the poppies left. Another one I put in the coffin of my mother 16 years later. Or rather, my niece did because I was doing the eulogy at the time and couldn’t have held it together if I had to do it. Sure, I miss them at Easter and Christmas, although those are more about my mom or a general ache. Remembrance Day is a sharper poke with a stick.

For a day off in the middle of the week, I actually thought I would be a bit productive today. I intended to do the ceremony with Jacob and Andrea this morning, but instead I just passed the time alone in my thoughts. Later, when I thought I might work on a couple of small projects, I passed. I did busy work and reminisced. Years ago, we did Remembrance Day potlucks with friends, but we can’t do that obviously in a COVID world, and while I thought about maybe doing some special dinner, I had no real desire to do so. It was just a “blah” day.

Work stress, not sleeping well, COVID isolation, worrying about Jacob, health annoyances, and feeling the grief of lost parents. It is not a good combo. I could have fought to push through it, but I think I would have broken instead of bending. Or I could have just given in and wallowed. I did neither.

Today I choose to avoid giving into a bad day and I’m just taking it easy. Nothing too big, nothing too aggressive. Going with the flow, even if it is a bit subdued.

What choices are you making?