Cheery's path to fulfilment - finishing the DIY, looking after myself, appreciating the garden 🌻

Cheery_Daff

Thank you @Queen_of_the_Hive Glad to hear you are making good use of free drinks too! 

Well, we had a largely uneventful and pleasant trip. Stopped off to see a friend on the way, and then over to our family party, which was jolly. Stayed in a room above a pub which was alright, although I'm clearly coming down with a cold and was snoring so much that I kept waking Mr C, who kept waking me to tell me I'd woken him, and then he ended going to sleep in the car at 5.30 😬

I fitfully dozed while he drove home, then I've been out to band practice while he dozed.

Now he's emptying the fridge, which seems to have stopped working for no discernable reason 🙄 Plug socket works, fuse works, no sign of nibbled wires that we can see (although we'll have to take the baseboard off the kitchen to see properly). Most vexing. 

We do have another fridge in the garage fortunately, so that will tide us over while we figure out whether to repair or replace this one (it's fitted into the kitchen cupboards, so can't just use the garage one permanently sadly).

Anyway, that's a job for tomorrow (and hopefully one that doesn't need to involve me)

Right now I'm thinking bath and bed and not much else this evening!

beanielou

Glad you had a good time. 

edinburgher

Flying trampolines are never good - this is why ours is secured with foot long rebar hoops!

Cheery_Daff

Very wise Ed. Fortunately there's not much round here it can hit! It's back in its proper place now, pleased to say. 

Had a nice long hot bath and now I'm going to decant myself into bed. Quite possibly with two hot water bottles, and definitely with a box of tissues 😬

rtandon27

Ack - hope you feel better soon Cheery! Sunday night sniffles are the worst!

Cheery_Daff

Thanks RT xx

Felt marginally better cold-wise after a full night's sleep. Work-wise today has been difficult again 😕 Not for any good reason - I'm really struggling with anxiety at the minute, which is not like me. I've got a docs appointment at the end of next week about possibly adjusting HRT to see if that will help, but I've got stuff to do in the meantime. It's the big 'out there' work stuff I'm struggling mostly with, not the day to day, so it's not always obvious, but the big stuff is being put off and off, and now it looks like I might not be prepared enough to meet a deadline I was aiming for in a few weeks 😕 Not a crisis (because it will come round again in a few months) and certainly not something I'll get into trouble for, but some people, including me, might be disappointed. 

I really don't want my mental state to be the reason that we don't at least try though. But at the minute I'm struggling to sit and focus for very long at all. 

Hey ho, it is what it is. I've got to the end of today and that's that. Had a chat with my sister this evening, did some flute practice, made a risotto, changed the sheets in the spare room, and hung some washing up. Pulled the spare room bed out, and the wall's proper damp behind it 🙄 I know it gets like this - there's a very narrow channel between that wall and an outbuilding, the ground in between is higher than the ground level of the house, and there's quite often water running through the channel 🙄 I often have the dehumidifier on in that room. But I slept in it last night, and worked in it all day, and clearly that plus the incessant damp is just a bit much. Anyway, wiped down with vinegar and a towel and the dehumidifier is still on. Pulled the bed properly away from the wall now. 

Tomorrow I'll make sure the craft room upstairs is clear so that can be the default spare room, at least while it's so damp and I'm working at home so much. 

YAWN.

Still not done any of the things I planned (ring solicitor, book dentist appointment etc) but a few small things achieved this evening, so that's something at least 😬

EssexHebridean

Ugh Cherry it does sound like everything is just piling up one thing after another, and that IS always stressful isn't it, even if we're not feeling anxious for other reasons as well. 

Glad you escaped damage from the storm though - and from the rampant trampoline. Honestly - why doesn't it occur to people that they need to secure that sort of thing?! 

Cheery_Daff

EssexHebridean said:

Ugh Cherry it does sound like everything is just piling up one thing after another, and that IS always stressful isn't it, even if we're not feeling anxious for other reasons as well. 

Glad you escaped damage from the storm though - and from the rampant trampoline. Honestly - why doesn't it occur to people that they need to secure that sort of thing?! 

Thank you xx sometimes things do just pile up! 

I slept well though - but woke fretting again this morning 🙄 Mr C was out for the day, and there was a risk of me spiralling like I did yesterday and getting nothing done again... 

However, I decided I just could NOT face that again, and would try whatever tactics I could to fend it off (I do realise this isn't always possible, but yesterday I really did just give in and feed the mental doom spiral, so I wanted to try a different approach today).

I set a timer (I use an online one called 'my tomatoes' which lets you write in what you've done) and did 25 min slots through the day. Work for 25 mins, then 5 mins break. Sounds really disruptive, and I often set the timer then work through the breaks, but today I decided I needed the discipline and structure (and the knowledge that I only had to be productive for 25 mins at a time).

In each break, I vowed I would either GO OUTSIDE or do a 5 min exercise video off the slimming world app.

And I did! Seemed ridiculous all day, but I did it, and goodness me, if I didn't get a decent draft of the document (that yesterday I thought I'd never produce) actually done by the end of the day 😱 all told I only did 8 x 25 min slots, plus 2 hours of productive meetings (about the same thing). Also tidied my desk, did a total of 25 mins of exercise, and went outside 3 times, during which I emptied the compost, took photographs of the chard, ascertained that the IBC is half full of water (delighted about this as it's the fullest it's ever been - i only fixed the greenhouse gutter this summer), and also ascertained that 2 plexiglass panels have dislodged out of the greenhouse (less delighted about that, but at least they weren't real glass!)

So all in all, I'm counting today as a wild success. My heart rate hasn't soared (raised slightly when exercising but not through stress) 😂 

Now having a proper evening properly off, and I'm having tomorrow properly off too - which I couldn't have contemplated yesterday. 

Success all round. 

As I say, I know it's not always possible to drag yourself round like this so I'm grateful to have been able to. I'm going to make sure I document this as a strategy for myself next time.

Right. Food!

beanielou

That’s amazing. Be proud xx

edinburgher

I might make use of that site come Thursday, could really use some enforced focus to get through as many of my dozen or so cases as I can in the next three weeks