take better care of myself

I am reinstating the rule about not checking my work email after 8:00pm or on the weekend. If it’s an emergency, my Booster president has my phone number and personal email to get ahold of me…but I don’t need day job stuff interfering with my ability to enjoy my weekend. I don’t need it keeping me from sleep at night.

On the sleep front, I found two sleep meditation podcasts and was surprised at how well they worked last night. I am used to not being able to sleep unless it is silent in the room – an ex and I used to fight over the fact that he fell asleep to the radio, which kept me awake till ungodly hours. Being able to fall asleep to someone talking and guiding me through a meditation was a nice change. I think I woke up during the night, but it’s better than nothing.

Tomorrow (Saturday) is my last day of freedom. It is the last day from now till Christmas that I don’t have to work. That’s 31 straight days of work, for those of you counting along at home. And then at the end of it, I get TWO WHOLE WEEKS OFF. Hrargleblarg.

Now granted, not all of those days are 8+ hours; they’re not all crazy days. But between school job, church job, and caroling job…every single day has some gig attached to it. And it almost always involves my voice, so theoretically, if I destroy my cords, I’m completely screwed. Yikes.

No lie, the fact that I won’t get another day completely and totally free until a month from now makes me a sad panda. To that end, I’ve already put up all our Christmas decor (minimalistic as it is), because I really won’t have any other time to do it before Xmas rolls around. I will really need take precautions to get enough sleep, eat semi-decently, and make sure I’m not overwhelmed with shtuff.

I think I can, I think I can…

...and this picture is exactly how I feel.

I am SO FRUSTRATED with bureaucratic bullshit going on at work right now. It is made worse by the fact that Thanksgiving Break starts tomorrow, and half the people who I need to talk to in order to fix things are GONE.

The crappest part? I’m pretty sure none of this is actually my fault, NOR is it my job – everyone’s just looking to me to make it better.

Having a sobbing breakdown after school in the privacy of my car while on the phone with the Man is not professional, but at this point I am so tired of everyone else’s lack of professionalism that I don’t really care.

I am hoping that tomorrow will look better after some sleep. I’ve booked two gigs for tomorrow (one funeral, one four-hour caroling gig) so hopefully just being busy will help me not fall apart as well. Someday I look forward to a life when “time off from my real job” isn’t just equating to “time I can spend on my other job”.

Everything has been feeling totally shit and overwhelming lately..to the point where when I told the Man that maybe I should go back into therapy, he agreed with me. Next step: looking at healthcare plan to see what psych co-pays look like.

Meantime, I am doing two online programs through my HMO; one is for insomnia (although I’m pretty sure that it’s mostly stress-related) and the other one for depression. After ticking a million boxes, I’m reading over the basic outline of the plan, and they give you a brief visualization exercise as an example of ways to help motivate yourself:

“Close your eyes for a second. Now picture a future version of yourself, waking up, eager to face the day…smiling again…feeling good about who you are.”

When I tried to do this, I realized that in the entire time that I’ve been teaching, I have had maybe a dozen days that I could wake up for work feeling like this. And that makes me really fucking angry and sad, because this is not a job that you can do unless you genuinely care about it. I went into teaching because it is something I love, but literally every year that I’ve been working, I have been fighting an uphill battle against some level of bullshit or another. I’ve had two separate years of being in my first year at a new school, one year of being unemployed and working as a substitute, and two separate years of being in my second year but being saddled with a bunch of bullshit classes and students that make me want to kill things at the end of the day.

I don’t think I can go through another five years like this.

For some reason, my big toe on my left foot has been intermittently going tingly/numb for the last three or so days. I notice it mostly when I’m lying down, which feels weird. I’m hoping it’s just a reaction to the fact that I’m now on my feet for about six hours a day, and I’m still not used to it.

If it hasn’t gotten better in a few weeks, I should probably make a doctor’s appointment to make sure it’s not some sort of neuropathy. That might be indicative of bigger things than just tired feet.

But I promise, it’s because I’m taking better care of myself!

The last three days have been show choir camp. DRAINING. While I haven’t had to get up super super early, it’s earlier than I’ve been getting up this summer…and I’m getting home around 7:00 or 8:00p. I am trying an experiment of unplugging (no ‘puter, no phone, no TV) after 8:00p to see if it helps me get to sleep. I don’t know whether it’s unplugging, or it’s because running camp is exhausting, but I’ve been crashing out around 10:00 or 11:00p. This is a good thing.

Next job: find time (and energy) to get to the gym :\

I hate doing weights. HATE. And even more than that, I hate doing weights at my gym, because invariably the weight room is filled with enormous muscly (usually gay) men, sweating and grunting, using stacks of weights that are often more than my entire body weight.

But I am aware that strength training and building muscle is an integral part of weight loss, so I am putting weights into my day. I am keeping my little 5lb. dumbbells next to my computer desk, and I downloaded one of those “break reminder” apps. Every 30 minutes, I get a ping to remind me to go do a set of arm exercises. Just one set of each. I’m starting easy, because I am super out of shape.

This will also be an incentive for me to cut down the time I spend on the computer :)

For my own reference:
- straight arm lateral raise
- triceps kickback
- dumbbell curl
- military press
- reverse fly

The Man and I reactivated our gym membership, so now there is no excuse for me being a big fatass. Gotta MOVE. Part of this is finding physical activity to do that I actually enjoy – because going to the gym just to run to nowhere on the elliptical trainer for an hour is basically torturing myself and paying for the privilege.

Motivation! In the form of a list of active schtuff I enjoy doing:

- hiking (esp. near the ocean)
- yoga (the noncompetitive sort, not Power Yoga for Athletes)
- dance classes (when I’m not the least coordinated person in the room)
- roller skating (after some practice, so I’m not falling down anymore)
- walking with the Man (esp. on the beach)
- bike riding (would need to get the bike checked over)
- swimming (parents have a pool)
- kayaking (with no specific destination)

I would also like to learn rock climbing and aerial silk, but those things cost more money than I am willing to sink into them right now. And I hear fun things about hula hooping, but I am afraid of looking like a twit.

Many of these are things that the Man cannot/will not join me in, which makes me a little sad. I don’t like doing this stuff by myself :(

Shooting for dance classes and yoga classes this week. I am taking bellydance through the city of Long Beach for the next few weeks, and my teacher is awesome. The gym offers yoga and Zumba. The trouble at the gym is finding a yoga teacher I like; I’ve been to several different teachers and many of them run the class like it’s an aerobics class, which sort of defeats the purpose (at least in my view).

because I’m not sure how it’s possible to be congested AND have a runny nose at the same time.

I’m glad my body waited to get sick until I’m done with school for the year. But spending the first week of summer vacation with a nasty lung-rattling cough and stuffed-up nose is kinda lame. I felt a little better after having cleaned the house, so maybe it’s allergies? And the cat is the reason I’m halfway to death?

I can’t tell if the detox tea is helping. Likewise, I am out of Mucinex, which is usually my best friend for things like this. Should also replenish Gatorade.

I’ve been eating like hell too, so maybe that’s part of it. I can’t be arsed to actually make food for myself, despite best intentions. Takeaway and sugary-stuff-in-boxes have pretty much been the mainstays of the diet for a week or two now. And yeah, I feel awful – I’m at the point where no food sounds good, whether it’s healthy or trash. Bleah.

I did get the ol’ teeth cleaned, and hooray for no cavities despite the unreasonable amount of sugar that finds its way into my body. I already had a doctor’s appointment scheduled for about a week from now, so here’s hoping that all this uck clears up before then. I don’t want to have to go back AGAIN when I’m well to have my bloodwork done.

Not. Amused.

Good article summary of an interview, in which the doctor being interviewed explains why we’re more likely to drink too much or snap at our spouses after a long, crappy day at work. In essence, he says that our ability to focus deeply will only go so far, and then it’s done: http://unclutterer.com/2010/06/07/self-control-is-an-exhaustible-resource/

Makes me feel a little bit better to know that there is some science behind my inability to resist delicious treats. Knowing is half the battle.