Days Off

Last week was rough at work.  Our Coronavirus practices sure don't help matters.  There were times when I was working alone and 4 people needed help at once and they all wanted to rush over and sit down at my desk before I had a chance to wipe everything down between customers, and people were trying to butt in and ask questions while I was with someone else.  Then there's the eyeglass frames, I have to sanitize every one that is touched or tried on.  Most people have been very polite and only try on a few but some people indicated they wouldn't be buying and still proceeded to try on 8-12 frames, and then if someone else came to try on frames before I had a chance to clean the ones from the previous shopper, I  was left with empty spots all over my frame boards and so so many frames to have to sanitize.  The other part about last week that was hard was waiting for the end of Wednesday because I took Thursday and Friday off for my kids' start of Summer vacation.  Wednesday afternoon was so slow at work that I was almost nodding off at my computer.  

But I finally made it to my glorious days off. I had ideas of projects to accomplish with those two extra days, but shortly after giving them some thought on Thursday morning I decided I was going to do what I want and stop putting everyone else in front of me.  I have been so stressed and burnt out that it was wearing on my soul.  This sun allergy really brings me down too because there's seemingly no end to the itching.  

I met with my banker on Thursday to transfer funds out of an old savings account that I had before my husband and I joined our accounts.  This will cover almost all of the cost of the classes I am taking in order to eventually switch careers.  I haven't enrolled yet, but will soon. I only get 5 months to complete the courses (there are 21 modules total) then I have to sit for the 5-hour exam to get certified.  It is going to be boring studying so I want to make sure my mind's in the right place before I drop $1,400 on it!

After the bank I came home because my older son was asking if we could get out of the house. I wanted to say no because I was so very mentally exhausted and all I wanted to do was read a book on the patio or watch HGTV shows on Hulu.  But Mom-guilt got the best of me and I said yes.  He deserves to get out of the house.  We went for a walk on a paved trail along the river.  The weather was beautiful, slightly overcast and mild, and all the green surrounding, and the flowers and birds everywhere... I was happy I said yes even though I had already taken the dog for a real walk and my feet were hurting before we started.  We walked a couple miles and got some take-out and cold drinks afterward.  

Then the dog asked to go out.  There was a heavy storm looming overhead so I got him out and tried and tried to get him to go.  I feel like it was a test of wills and I was going to stay out there walking around until he went or die trying.  Did I mention my feet already wanted to die at that point?  I had him out for 55 minutes more before the storm unleashed on us.  Then a while later he asked again and I tried for another 30 minutes to no avail.  I gave up at that point.  My body felt so bad from the near constant walking.  Here's what my Fitbit showed for steps at the end of the night: 18, 760. There's only one day that I've ever had more steps than that, and that was a day when we were moving and I had to go up and down the stairs for about 9 hours while we were working. I had 26,000 steps that day. Big usually average between 8,000-10,000 a day.

Friday after taking the dog out in the morning I noticed the incoming rain and was trying to decide if I wanted to go get groceries and have a quiet day inside, or go do something I love, search for beach glass on the shore.  I decided that since this was an extra "freebie" day I was going to have fun and headed to the beach.  It did rain on me but since the sun makes my immune system freak out, I was actually happy it wasn't sunny.  Hunting for beach glass is a ton of squatting and bending and it always makes my legs and back feel like I just did deadlifts and squats.  I stayed and did it for 3 hours, so by the time I left my legs barely felt like supporting me.  But when I got home my husband was just finishing a Zoom meeting and wanted to go out exploring.  I agreed because he does all the driving and I had a beer in the middle of the day while he was finishing up his meeting because the whole time everyone else was quarantined while I was working, all I heard and saw was people day-drinking and frankly I was a little jealous.  The beer just made me tired.  Lol.  It was another nice day to be on the beach.  We went to 3 beaches and I happened to find a little more beach glass at each one even though we weren't there for that.  We ended our day with a take out dinner from an organic farm stand and had a few glasses of sake that night.  

My body was shot from all that activity so Saturday and Sunday were the mellow, book-reading days I needed.  I left time for watching some Geneen Roth interviews because I just love her brain and how she makes me feel about myself. I have more thoughts to explore further but bedtime is going to win out for now.  

Hope everyone had an awesome weekend!