Welcome to Tuesday

CWs: work, mental health-adjacent, tea mention

Well, here we are. Barely into the week. It’s already been a busy one. I took Friday off, so it’s a short week, but there’s a lot to do before we get there. And I have a training on Thursday that will be most of the day. I signed up for it months ago and I’m looking forward to it, though, so it will be great. The training is on how to practice good self-care and avoid burnout, which is something I very much need for my job and life.

Today was incredibly gloomy, dark, and rainy. An Oregon day, if you will. I loved it and I miss those kinds of days. I grew up with them and whenever we get them here in Colorado, it makes me unreasonably happy. I could hear the rain falling and watched it while I worked. It was lovely. We get sun most of the year here, which is nice in itself, but I’d much rather have a sunny, rainy day, or a sunny, snowy day, than just about anything. There is something very dreamy about a sunny, rainy day. Which, again, is not what we got today, it was just a rainy, dark day. Happy.

The rest of the week, aside from my training, should be pretty calm, and then calm next week as well, which is lovely. I’m reading lots (three books currently, switching every night), and very much enjoying everything. Dali seems like he was a mystery wrapped in an enigma and also completely full of it. I like a lot of his art, though, and I am seeing weird corners of it, juvenilia and earlier works, that I have never seen, and that’s cool. And it’s interesting to get the biographical sketch running through the massive assortment of paintings. I also really enjoy having tea before bed. It is a really nice way to unwind and decompress from the day. I know this sounds like common sense, but really, I’m just starting to appreciate these things more.

Part of my tea and reading before bed ritual is due to my lovely, but also very bitey and annoying, kitty Lyra. If I get in bed to read, she will scratch at the bed and covers and try to get me out of bed. And it’s just not worth fighting with her, honestly. So I hang out in the living room on the couch, read, and drink tea before bed. At around 11:30 most (week)nights, then I get in bed proper and start trying to go to sleep. If I’m lucky, she will have had her fill of food for the moment, and she will hop in bed with me and curl up between my legs atop the blanket. So that is really sweet of her. I wish I could read in bed still, but ever since we got her, it’s a no-go, but oh well.

I’m writing this a little while before I need to feed the girls. I feed them wet food at 9 every night, and Xya will absolutely let me know if I’m late (or even 30min early, she’s scratching at my office door). We think Lyra doesn’t really care about wet food, she’s just feeling left out (FOMO, as the kids say), but she gets her part of the can, and Ajax gets treats (he’s on medicated special food, so he can’t generally eat much else). My spouse reminds me once in awhile how I used to feed Xya at like 3am, randomly, when she’d wake me up, and then my spouse recommended I just feed her not long before we went to bed, rather than the middle of the night. And it stuck, so Xya is just on board now, and that’s what we do. Cool with me. We usually buy about 15-16 cans at a time from our local pet food shop (love it, they are so sweet and friendly there!), which means she’ll be good for about a month at a time.

Anyways, I’m already feeling the business of the week, but it’s OK. We’re making it through, and tomorrow will be calmer (fingers crossed). Hope y’all are having good weeks thus far. <3