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Vacations are awesome
Mar. 10th, 2013 02:36 pmIcon particularly appropriate!
I took some random time off this week, partly just to use up some vacation time, partly to spend some time with my dad, and largely to "hermit out" and get some extended time inside my own head, which I haven't done in... years, it feels like. Since my sleep apnea got diagnosed a few years ago I've been a lot more functional (looking back, I'm horrified at how non-functional I was for years, even decades, without ever knowing it), and less desperate for total alone-time downtime. Plus I've just been busy, with most of my downtime spread out between crises, mourning, and visits from friends.
But after most of a week mostly alone, with very limited interactions with people, my head is in a better space than it's been in ages. I think I could use another week or two of this, but that's never going to happen, alas. Still. This is a good reminder that I really do need to just shut down every now and then, and play with my cats or watch mindless tv for a while, or even just sit quietly in the silence.
It helped a lot that I did what I almost never do on vacations, and actually front-loaded all my errand-y things into the first part of the week. Usually I plan to do that, and then my agoraphobia kicks in silently and I never quite make it out of the house, and the need to run those errands builds up over the week and stresses me out, even as my brain comes up with a million reasons for me not to do them. This week, though, I made advance plans for Monday and Tuesday for the crucial stuff, after which I didn't leave my house again, but that was okay because there was nothing else I had to leave it for, so there was nothing to stress about. \o/
What I did on myspring winter vacation:
Monday:
Spent the whole day day with my dad, getting myself put on his bank accounts and safe deposit box in case of emergencies, and "fixing" his computer by showing him how to forward an email.
Watched the pilot ep of The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, which I'd heard good things about and had bought on impulse at Costco.
Tuesday:
Brought the cats to the vet for vaccinations.
Brought the car to the mechanic for a new headlight and spiffy buffed lenses over both headlights.
Bought all the cleaning supplies and kitty litter in the world. Or at least in my local grocery store.
Watched a couple more eps of the Lady Detective, checked the Festivids site to see if there'd been any vids made for it. Alas, no.
Wednesday:
"Fixed" my dad's computer remotely, omg yay.
Cleaned the "pantry", really my oversized storage closet and kitty litter space. Cleaned it a LOT, down to washing the walls. Threw out seven giant bags of crap, one normal-sized bag of kitty litter, and one normal-sized bag of regular weekly trash. (This was baffling to me. I had done a massive cleanout on this room out a year or so ago, turning it from a junk dump to a functional room where I could get at everything easily. I had no idea there was still so much crap in it.)
( Proof! )
Moved my car to a safe spot on a side street in the face of a rumored storm, even though from the sound of it it was mostly going to fizzle, maybe a couple inches total.
Watched another ep of the Lady Detective.
Thursday:
Rested on my laurels after admiring my awesome clean pantry for a while. Played endless rounds of broken-toy games with Hobbes, with Darien jumping in any chance he could.
(Seriously. Broken toy. Hobbes loves feathers on a string, but they keep chomping the feathers off. Then Dari somehow yanked the remaining feathers out of the little plastic holder thingie, which swung empty at the end of the string and turned itself into the most exciting toy EVER OMG. They've been playing with that broken bit of plastic for days. I don't even.)
Watched tons of Storage Wars, Auction Kings, and Property Wars in a zoned-out haze of relaxation. (Time to give up on Storage Wars and Property Wars, though -- I've seen enough of both to be fed up with the way people jerk each other around and bid things up just to make it harder/more expensive for other people. Bleah. Auction Kings is more fun; it's about cool stuff, not obnoxious jackasses. And since they seem to have given up on the annoying Whatever Brothers from last season, it's back to being pure entertainment for me.)
Admired the pretty weather, with constant snowfall in temps warm enough to keep the roads clear.
Watched POI. \o/ Started writing reaction post.
Friday:
Got woken up by my boss, who had lost power in the storm that had decided to stop fizzling and morph into a heavy wet giant of doom. Covered for him for a couple of hours till his power came back, cranky but resigned - crappy way to end a vacation week, but he's given up vacation days for me when I've had emergencies, too.
Sucked it up and called an insurance company to request a quote for auto and renter's insurance, after years of being vaguely dissatisfied with my existing company. Dithered for a couple of hours, then actually went ahead and did it, go me!
Watched lots of Law & Order: SVU, weirdly; that used to be a go-to mindless show for me but I haven't watched it in a couple of years. Guess the burnout finally wore off. It's perfect for days when I want a storyline to follow but don't want to devote the energy to actual investment in anything that happens.
Watched Grimm, which is finally back, in its most bizarrely-scheduled year ever. (... out of two years.)
Rediscovered my deviantArt account and actually started using it a little. I still don't really get how dA works, but hey, pretty fanart.
"Rediscovered" Tumblr, which for some reason I'd stopped checking -- I think because I was behind and wanted to catch up before I... went back... I don't know, blocks are weird. And turns out Tumblr's still very time-suck-y.
Saturday:
Shoveled. A day behind the rest of the neighborhood, because my landlord's son told me he wasn't shoveling till Saturday morning (which for him meant 4am, apparently - his sleep schedule is even weirder than mine), so the front walk was buried until then. Surprisingly, this turned out to have been a good thing for me; I'd been resigned to having to shovel very heavy, wet snow after a warmup, but instead I got out to my car across the street and discovered that the people parked around me had done a kickass job, and left me barely any work to do. \o/
Finished and posted the POI reaction post, for a miracle. I start so many posts I never finish.
Watched another ep of the Lady Detective.
Spent lots more time on Tumblr and deviantArt.
Sunday:
Completely failed in my attempt to adjust promptly to Daylight Savings. Oh well. It's always a couple weeks of misery and oversleeping for me, soothed by the lingering daylight in the evening. It's going to be light tonight till almost 7pm!!
Planned for the rest of the day: roast a turkey breast, finish a more rambly POI post, finish the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series (short series), write a story, clean the rest of my house.
Hopefully I'll at least manage to roast the turkey breast. The rest is icing.
As always, there are a ton of things I'd planned to do and never did. I was going to organize my bookmarks (and sync Pinboard and AO3 bookmarks), update links on my recs pages, maybe make some new recs for the first time in years, maybe work more on my months-old VVC DVDs review so I could post it, write a story or two. I was totally definitely going to at least spend an hour every day working on things like the bookmarks and the recs pages. I was going to read tons of fanfic, and catch up on books I've been meaning to read for ages, and watch at least one vid every day.
Yeah, not so much. But that's okay. It's as important to be quiet sometimes as it is to be busy. And I forget too easily how much better I feel when I'm quiet.
*contented sigh*
I took some random time off this week, partly just to use up some vacation time, partly to spend some time with my dad, and largely to "hermit out" and get some extended time inside my own head, which I haven't done in... years, it feels like. Since my sleep apnea got diagnosed a few years ago I've been a lot more functional (looking back, I'm horrified at how non-functional I was for years, even decades, without ever knowing it), and less desperate for total alone-time downtime. Plus I've just been busy, with most of my downtime spread out between crises, mourning, and visits from friends.
But after most of a week mostly alone, with very limited interactions with people, my head is in a better space than it's been in ages. I think I could use another week or two of this, but that's never going to happen, alas. Still. This is a good reminder that I really do need to just shut down every now and then, and play with my cats or watch mindless tv for a while, or even just sit quietly in the silence.
It helped a lot that I did what I almost never do on vacations, and actually front-loaded all my errand-y things into the first part of the week. Usually I plan to do that, and then my agoraphobia kicks in silently and I never quite make it out of the house, and the need to run those errands builds up over the week and stresses me out, even as my brain comes up with a million reasons for me not to do them. This week, though, I made advance plans for Monday and Tuesday for the crucial stuff, after which I didn't leave my house again, but that was okay because there was nothing else I had to leave it for, so there was nothing to stress about. \o/
What I did on my
Monday:
Spent the whole day day with my dad, getting myself put on his bank accounts and safe deposit box in case of emergencies, and "fixing" his computer by showing him how to forward an email.
Watched the pilot ep of The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, which I'd heard good things about and had bought on impulse at Costco.
Tuesday:
Brought the cats to the vet for vaccinations.
Brought the car to the mechanic for a new headlight and spiffy buffed lenses over both headlights.
Bought all the cleaning supplies and kitty litter in the world. Or at least in my local grocery store.
Watched a couple more eps of the Lady Detective, checked the Festivids site to see if there'd been any vids made for it. Alas, no.
Wednesday:
"Fixed" my dad's computer remotely, omg yay.
Cleaned the "pantry", really my oversized storage closet and kitty litter space. Cleaned it a LOT, down to washing the walls. Threw out seven giant bags of crap, one normal-sized bag of kitty litter, and one normal-sized bag of regular weekly trash. (This was baffling to me. I had done a massive cleanout on this room out a year or so ago, turning it from a junk dump to a functional room where I could get at everything easily. I had no idea there was still so much crap in it.)
( Proof! )
Moved my car to a safe spot on a side street in the face of a rumored storm, even though from the sound of it it was mostly going to fizzle, maybe a couple inches total.
Watched another ep of the Lady Detective.
Thursday:
Rested on my laurels after admiring my awesome clean pantry for a while. Played endless rounds of broken-toy games with Hobbes, with Darien jumping in any chance he could.
(Seriously. Broken toy. Hobbes loves feathers on a string, but they keep chomping the feathers off. Then Dari somehow yanked the remaining feathers out of the little plastic holder thingie, which swung empty at the end of the string and turned itself into the most exciting toy EVER OMG. They've been playing with that broken bit of plastic for days. I don't even.)
Watched tons of Storage Wars, Auction Kings, and Property Wars in a zoned-out haze of relaxation. (Time to give up on Storage Wars and Property Wars, though -- I've seen enough of both to be fed up with the way people jerk each other around and bid things up just to make it harder/more expensive for other people. Bleah. Auction Kings is more fun; it's about cool stuff, not obnoxious jackasses. And since they seem to have given up on the annoying Whatever Brothers from last season, it's back to being pure entertainment for me.)
Admired the pretty weather, with constant snowfall in temps warm enough to keep the roads clear.
Watched POI. \o/ Started writing reaction post.
Friday:
Got woken up by my boss, who had lost power in the storm that had decided to stop fizzling and morph into a heavy wet giant of doom. Covered for him for a couple of hours till his power came back, cranky but resigned - crappy way to end a vacation week, but he's given up vacation days for me when I've had emergencies, too.
Sucked it up and called an insurance company to request a quote for auto and renter's insurance, after years of being vaguely dissatisfied with my existing company. Dithered for a couple of hours, then actually went ahead and did it, go me!
Watched lots of Law & Order: SVU, weirdly; that used to be a go-to mindless show for me but I haven't watched it in a couple of years. Guess the burnout finally wore off. It's perfect for days when I want a storyline to follow but don't want to devote the energy to actual investment in anything that happens.
Watched Grimm, which is finally back, in its most bizarrely-scheduled year ever. (... out of two years.)
Rediscovered my deviantArt account and actually started using it a little. I still don't really get how dA works, but hey, pretty fanart.
"Rediscovered" Tumblr, which for some reason I'd stopped checking -- I think because I was behind and wanted to catch up before I... went back... I don't know, blocks are weird. And turns out Tumblr's still very time-suck-y.
Saturday:
Shoveled. A day behind the rest of the neighborhood, because my landlord's son told me he wasn't shoveling till Saturday morning (which for him meant 4am, apparently - his sleep schedule is even weirder than mine), so the front walk was buried until then. Surprisingly, this turned out to have been a good thing for me; I'd been resigned to having to shovel very heavy, wet snow after a warmup, but instead I got out to my car across the street and discovered that the people parked around me had done a kickass job, and left me barely any work to do. \o/
Finished and posted the POI reaction post, for a miracle. I start so many posts I never finish.
Watched another ep of the Lady Detective.
Spent lots more time on Tumblr and deviantArt.
Sunday:
Completely failed in my attempt to adjust promptly to Daylight Savings. Oh well. It's always a couple weeks of misery and oversleeping for me, soothed by the lingering daylight in the evening. It's going to be light tonight till almost 7pm!!
Planned for the rest of the day: roast a turkey breast, finish a more rambly POI post, finish the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series (short series), write a story, clean the rest of my house.
Hopefully I'll at least manage to roast the turkey breast. The rest is icing.
As always, there are a ton of things I'd planned to do and never did. I was going to organize my bookmarks (and sync Pinboard and AO3 bookmarks), update links on my recs pages, maybe make some new recs for the first time in years, maybe work more on my months-old VVC DVDs review so I could post it, write a story or two. I was totally definitely going to at least spend an hour every day working on things like the bookmarks and the recs pages. I was going to read tons of fanfic, and catch up on books I've been meaning to read for ages, and watch at least one vid every day.
Yeah, not so much. But that's okay. It's as important to be quiet sometimes as it is to be busy. And I forget too easily how much better I feel when I'm quiet.
*contented sigh*
