elainegrey

Lessee, i "posted" last on Thursday morning.

I have lots of work to do: end of month reports and beginning of a new fiscal year and beginning of a new iteration. However, there's the usual out of the blue stuff, which should not be out of the blue if it's usual?

Thursday was intense with a long meeting with the least integrated Project team members sharing their work: i hope it was not painful and that it moves a step towards more integration. (See my anxieties on Wednesday.) In the afternoon, i led the discussion about our commitments for the quarter and then for the next three week development cycle. I have yet to transcribe the photo of the white board into task records in the tracking database (JIRA). Then long conversations with the guy working on the Product. I leave for home late, there's a fender-bender (only blocking one lane instead of three, like on Tuesday), and i walk with Christine (feeling the asthma in my chest).

Nothing but an eight am phone call on my calendar for Friday: i should be able to get those reports done.

( What came out-of-the-blue on Friday? A day's worth of work. )So, at 6 pm on Friday, i've not done the work for the day. I'm wiped. I turn to genealogy to refresh myself and end up working on it too late into the evening.

Saturday morning, i pick up the genealogy again. What seems so rewarding to my mind is a combination of the research and the relational database backed software to which i am switching. But reward an analysis circuit in my mind much like a tetris game, fitting data together in neat ways, with a continuous learn and reward curve. The element of repetition (what might seem tedious in the data entry) allows applying what has just been learned and provides the sense of reward: yes that is better, faster, more elegant than what i had been doing the day before.

The data import to the new software may have caused some problems, or perhaps those problems always existed: i've run some reports, and see places i need to go clean up details. Some other time.

( A digression into health details leads to the conclusion that  ) I am either sick or having some sort of immune system flare. I'm not sure what the distinction is (guilt for not managing my immune system?), but my energy levels on Saturday were quite low.

I stayed distracted and Christine slept -- she's had back pain all week and a low grade depression -- until far too late in the morning. Breakfast at Hobee's was actually lunch, and on return home i ended up napping for some hours. I did work in the afternoon, but the monthly report with the milestones for the coming year (Project) and months (Product) are not complete, the task entries for the iteration remain unstarted. In the evening we did not go see "Knight and Day," which looks like amusing fluff, but stayed home to watch the Netflix movie "Blood Work," Clint Eastwood

Today's Meeting for worship is followed by Meeting for Business. Last Sunday i was drained by worship. The Meeting for Business seems likely to be intense this week as well. I weigh my commitments, to myself, to work, to the Friends community. Staying home, worshiping with Christine by sitting together for perhaps a shorter time, and working on those outstanding tasks seem to be the lowest drain on my energy and most likely to lead to peace of mind. I will miss the community time, but i don't think it's the tonic i need.

So, there's a little plan. I need to commit to myself: i am taking Friday off as vacation, possibly Thursday as well.

Christine woke this morning in a good mood, and then suddenly crashed again. Maybe we can find some joy today, as well. We have been enjoying the deck, our walks together, and the cats' affection.

In bad-good news, we realized food was spoiling not because our grocery's quality was going downhill, but because the fridge was set too warm. Fiddlesticks.

I watched as the with Deer Creek Morris Men, FFL, Mad Molly, and Wildcat Morris danced up the sun in the Palo Alto Baylands this morning, arriving miraculously as @RuTemple and her Lise did. It was lovely. Not quite worship, but a shift.

Other than that, i have spent the day discovering wonderful archives of colonial material for North Carolina, but not really making a significant shift in anything but my understanding of the geographical settlement of the state. Which is a good thing, actually, no complaints, but...

..but now i must stop before i add another couple hundred words to the over 2.5k blog post.

I did have a yummy pancake breakfast with Christine. On Friday night we went out for dinner at Mazeh Restaurant. I dressed up, and found myself wearing the necklace and shoes i made for the wedding in November. In some way, that turned into all the mourning i did for the dark months.

I don't know i've i've escaped too much (by doing such intense research all day). I know there are some phone calls i need to make to Quakers. [Made some calls] And some more calls but it's too late. *Watches mind go to the place of Overwhelm*

I have perked up, even if not perky. My chest doesn't feel as achy but my throat remains incredibly painful. Christine is threatening to take both Mr M and i to the vet. While Mr M is clearly better than he was at Christmas Eve, his digestive system still seems out of sorts. I think i just need more rest. I might work tomorrow but not go in or participate on any calls.

My appetite is pretty low, but i doubt it's enough to make up for the biscotti and cookies and candy consumed on Christmas day.

I've not done laundry, not ridden behind Christine on her new motorcycle, or have gone to seen Sherlock Holmes. We did see a bit of holiday lights.

...

Oh, DAGNABBIT. I have just found a stash of "paper work" that is six months old, and it includes a gift check for my birthday as well as other things that make me rather frustrated with that sense of life being overwhelming. BAH.

Meanwhile, i'm doing some reasonable computer housekeeping. Why is the size of my Safari preferences in the scale of tens of megabytes? Do i have that many cookies? Well, i tried cleaning out some cookies but something was wrong and they kept coming back. So i've reset safari: nuked everything. It's probably a good thing to do periodically, but, waaaaahh, i have to log in everywhere now.

...

News from Christine: Mr M is severely constipated and they're holding him at the vet for varius treatments. And, apparently he has feline hyperthyroidism which doesn't seem nearly as worrisome as the diabetes GreyBeard had.

...

Much later: Mr M had surgery tonight. It seems all is well now: we collect him tomorrow at noon. Edward went out around 4 pm and has not returned this wet and rainy night. Christine keeps going out to look.

My throat continues to hurt like hell and the congestion related symptoms are unpleasant. Christine looks like she's planning to take me to the vet.

...

I spent the evening reading submarine war diaries: the reports written that summarized the time at sea including what appear to be transcriptions of the captain's log. Fascinating reading. Found my grandfather had malaria at sea.