Lazy Valentine

We started lounging on the couch early this morning. Summer had some coffee, and then I warmed up some leftover waffles and a pancake for breakfast. After a while, we sent the dog to get Eaddie out of bed, and then she eventually had Eli come over for the day. They talked about making pizza or chicken, and then both, and then ended up only making pizzas for dinner. Summer and I hardly left the couch. I had an anxiety attack at some point, but I got our room booked for Eaddie’s trip. Then we mostly watched YouTube while it rained all day. I guess we could’ve done worse.

Rats

Dryday

Somehow I failed to get into a rhythm with drinking today, and I barely had any water. I felt a little more focused, so it may have just been how busy I stayed. My longest battle was with the Windows 11 Home edition PC that was on the shelf, since I didn’t have a way to upgrade it to a Pro license for Intune management. I’m still not comfortable spending money, and I went back and forth with Dylan to see what Howard could do for us.

I had an anxiety attack sometime in the day while I was standing in the tech closet, possibly because I had my chin down to my chest. That seems to be a recurring cause. I was pretty hungry for most of the morning, but snacked quite a bit and didn’t get into my Soylent. We ended up going to Arby’s for lunch, and I used a deal to get a free French dip for later.

The afternoon went by pretty quickly as I crunched on the digital signage a bit. I fired off a few emails, and then on the way out, Janice said that the office staff would still be off for President’s Day. I headed on home, stopping at the lube to catch Summer as she wrapped up her long day.

We got to the house and the kids were there laying around. Summer showered and I spread out some rat poison she brought home. Then I made her a plate of leftovers and ate my sandwich from earlier. Then the kids left and Summer and I finished watching the MKBHD feature. I think I may have enjoyed listening to the podcast about it more, but the video was still great. Their passion for their work is infectious.

less than three

The Cheese Stands Alone

I heard some rustling in the dining room this morning, and shook down some boxes to expose a rat, who scurried around the corner faster than I could believe. The dog has no traction, but the rat moved like it was on rails. I thought I heard another one, but could never find it, so I knew we had to excavate the corner sooner than later.

We got to work and I actually felt pretty good, but quickly turned sour as my stomach did flips. We made it to lunch, and it was nice outside, so we went to Taco Bell. Muad’Dib did great sitting at the picnic table outside while I waited forever to get our food. There were multiple employees standing, and no discernible reason for the food to have taken so long. I eventually made it back outside and we shared some fries and chicken bits.

Afterward, we stopped by Sonic for some cheese sticks and then made it back to the office. It was a long afternoon, but I finally submitted my first purchase order with Howard. I like my new reps so far, and hopefully I can execute this digital signage well enough to impress some folks.

Summer was in the shower when we got home, and I still felt gross for a little while. I thought I might go help Neil with a computer, but ended up having leftovers for dinner with Summer, and then cleaned up the stack of boxes in the dining room. Hopefully I can keep things moving enough to keep the rats from moving back in, and then I’ll have to go full-extermination mode.

Gains

Lessons Fought

Eaddie called me a little after midnight, which of course startled us both. I tried to answer, but then she walked around the corner toward the bedroom and said she needed help. Summer jumped up too, but I dressed and followed her outside to investigate. Eli was sitting in the Pathfinder in the driveway right behind my car, and had gotten stuck on the ice slope.

We couldn’t even walk on the ice because it was so slick, so I got a couple containers for the kids to shuttle water back and forth. Eaddie was minimally helpful, and sassed me any time I told her to do anything. Summer eventually came out with my axe and started whaling on the ice to break it up. After a couple hours, we finally got free and climbed out of the driveway. I mentioned Eaddie’s attitude to Summer, and she decided to address it right away before the kids left. Of course Eaddie started crying in frustration, which broke Summer down. I meant for it to be discussed later, but apparently Eaddie had previously expressed wanting to be called out on the spot. They left and Summer and I struggled to go back to sleep.

As tired as I was in the morning, we made it to work for a long day. Rhonda said Muad’Dib had peed on Teddy’s bed in their office, which surprised me since he’s usually right around me. I tried to stay focused, but had a pretty bad anxiety attack in the morning. We got mozzarella sticks from Sonic, then a box from Taco Bell since it actually felt reasonably nice outside. Some old jackass parked crooked next to me, but luckily I could Summon my car out of the spot and load Muad’Dib back in when we left.

The afternoon dragged on a bit, and then we headed home. Janice gave me some money for gift cards from Old South and Brown’s, but the latter would be closed until the next day. The girls were at the house when we got there, but things seemed quiet. Summer bathed and I left to pick up some food. Eaddie denied hunger, but I knew she would eat, so I picked up a bunch of wings from Buffalo Wild Wings, and then a plate from Panda Express. Buffalo Wild Wings was terribly slow, and the boneless wings were terribly small, and of course Panda Express had boxed up my order half an hour before I finally got there.

We all sat down to eat, which was nice, but then Summer quietly summoned me to the bedroom for a talk. I think we both knew Eaddie was really upset that Summer had reversed her decision to get out by the end of the week, but I guess they talked about it and it had them both very bothered. I went to talk to Eaddie about it myself, and I felt like we had a pretty good conversation. Of course I won’t know how she really feels, but hopefully she and Summer can revisit later, and I’m sure we’ll be fine if we can all agree to focus our energy in a positive way.

Eaddie left to practice at Witherspoon, and I rushed to bed without much of a catch-up session with Summer. The less energy we have to spend on catching up for things like this, the better.

Beat the keys out of it.

All or Nothing

Friday was good until it got bad enough to become good again. I stayed pretty busy at work, but struggled in the afternoon as the girls went looking for houses. I stopped by PetSmart when we got back to town, because I needed something to interrupt how I was feeling, and I got Muad’Dib a bunch of treats. Mark needed some computer help as well, so I stopped to see him for a bit too. When I got home, I managed to sit down and talk with Summer for a long while, and eventually we were able to agree that they would slow down long enough to breathe and catch back up from all the recent heaviness. We’ll give it three months without any more of that added stress, and focus on some therapy and heavy communication to see if we can maintain some momentum with our positive change. Eaddie came around and I took them to Waffle House for a late dinner, and we had a good time.

Eaddie was gone all Saturday, so I took Summer to Cracker Barrel for breakfast. They were depressingly slow compared to Old South, and after eating our food, we figured out why. We went back to PetSmart to use another coupon for some food, and then briefly stepped into T.J. Maxx before making it back to the house. We cleaned up a bit and stayed busy most of the afternoon until we decided to go to New China for dinner. I wanted to stop to see my parents on the way back, and Summer nervously went along. Mom had a surprising amount to say, and Summer came home upset for a while, but we talked a little more before bed and then woke up with clearer thoughts.

Summer got some Spam and I made breakfast sandwiches for the three of us. Eaddie left and Summer went to the gym, and I cleaned up the kitchen. Later on, we walked to Walgreens with Muad’Dib to try and get Summer’s prescription, but they were closed. I eventually warmed up some spaghetti for dinner, and at some point the day before we had started watching Wonderman, so we continued that in the evening until bed.

Document the process and build a roadmap to success.

Wear

Summer got up to go to work this morning so they could start cleaning up the properties. I was worried she would get stuck in the driveway, but she actually got out just fine. I tried to get things warmed up a little bit in the house, and then started working from home. Eaddie was up and wanted tuna for brunch, so I made a whopping three cans of that for pitas. I eventually got cleaned up, and I thought Summer was going to pick up some groceries so I could make a split pea soup, but that didn’t happen.

By the time she got home, Summer just wanted to bathe and watch TV. I made some rice to go with the leftover chicken and vegetables, and warmed up the spaghetti for the girls. They watched Storm Chasers for a bit, and then I followed Summer to the bedroom where she watched Jungle Cruise. Afterward I tried talking with her some more, but she just started getting really negative again, and I couldn’t break her out of it.

I went to my office for a while to wrap up the evening, and had an anxiety attack just as I was getting ready to go to bed.

because an echo is always followed by silence.

Fire and Ice

It was a little harder to get up this morning, and I just wanted to stay in bed a little longer. Summer took Muad’Dib out into the snow again, and I made some breakfast for us, which ended up being our only meal for the day. I fried some potatoes, shallots, and garlic with any spices that spoke to me from the cabinet. I fried the eggs before I remembered there was bacon, so that was a little late. everything was really good though.

Summer sat cross stitching again for nearly the entire day. I had trouble keeping a roaring fire going for her, and bounced around trying to clean up some more. I had an anxiety attack sometime in the afternoon, but otherwise I just tried to keep things a little lighter than they have been.

Eaddie never came home again, so Summer didn’t make her tomato soup. I went outside and tried to use my show thrower, but the ice was a bit too hard for it to work super well. It wasn’t bad, but I also wasn’t dressed for the work.

We ended the evening with a big bowl of popcorn and Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3. Things seemed better by the end of it, but all I can do is continue to put in the work to clean up what we have.

Fire Poker

Shop Chop

I really wanted to stop for breakfast this morning, but we got out late after I couldn’t find Muad’Dib’s collar. I later learned that Eaddie took it off of him in the night because he kept shaking with it on, and I guess it bothered her. We squeezed in and I got right to work on email signatures. I spent a lot of time formatting and organizing staff photos, but CodeTwo made it as easy as possible. I didn’t love working in Affinity for photo editing, but I’m sure it’d be great with some experience.

When lunch time came around, I queued up a few places depending on the weather. It ended up being pretty cold and windy, so we went to Wendy’s for a burger that was twice the price for something easily twice as good. I had an anxiety attack right in the middle of it, but it came and went without too much of a daze afterward.

The afternoon was more of the same, to the point that my mouse hand ached from all the repetition. I finally sent an email to the sales folks with instructions on how to remove their own device-set signatures, and then got everyone that was still in the office fixed up before I left.

When we got to the house, the kids were in the living room while Summer was having a bath. I took Muad’Dib for a walk, and he seems to know that we always go straight to my parents’ house when I’m on foot. Mom was in the middle of making bánh u̕ớt, so we stayed for dinner before walking back to the house. He took me down Ridgewood this time, and then we laid down with Summer as she fell asleep to WandaVision.

I still had to enable my work email signatures, and Jon apparently didn’t like the photo that was in the favorites folder, so I had to edit that as well. It didn’t take too long, and then I went to bed early.

Affinity for carpal tunnel.

Mortality

I got out a hair earlier this morning and considered stopping at Hardee’s, but just headed straight to work instead. I felt a little bit odd for much of the day, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. I begrudgingly tinkered with Intune and the Android tablets and phone I had, and made minimal progress. All roads continued to lead back to certificate-based authentication.

We took a break to go to Sonic for lunch, and a guy in a stall next to the picnic tables chatted with me about Muad’Dib. He was a good boy who got lots of tots. The Smasher was actually pretty good, too.

The afternoon crept by, and I felt worse and then better until quitting time. I had brought my Onewheel to ship for RMA service, so I asked Summer if she wanted to walk with us in the evening instead. She started her vericose vein procedure in the afternoon, and needed to walk on it a bit. By the time we got to the house, she had dinner about ready, so we ate instead.

Eaddie sat down to eat with us and it was a good meal. Eli showed up a little later for some, but then went home for second dinner. I had stopped by the Neighborhood Market on the way home to try and return some poor quality beef jerky, but was turned away because I was outside the return window, so I called the number on the packaging instead. It took a little while, but a nice lady said she would send a giftcard to reimburse me. Then I moved to the couch across from Summer and put on Ricky Gervais’s new special on Netflix. I didn’t think it was terribly funny, but watched it through before moving on to some MKBHD before bed.

The meatbags are failing.

²

It was damp out today, and slightly drizzly, but not too gross. There was a truck off the side of the road going the other direciton just as we got to Morrilton, and we could see traffic backed up from there. Things were quiet for me, and I tried to replicate my focus from yesterday. I did fairly well, but everything I was doing led me back to square one. I just need to decide whether to spin up a new DC and go hybrid, or pay for more cloud services.

When lunch came around, we went to McDonald’s for a McRib. After waiting a while, they came out and said they weren’t selling it any more, and offered to make me something else. I forgot how pitiful the McCrispy was, and got that. It tasted fine, but was just a small, sad sandwich. I ended up redeeming points for some McNuggets before I left.

A little while later, I had an anxiety attack at work. I wish I had a better way to track this along with some vitals from my peripherals, and I’m surprised there isn’t an app for that. The rest of the afternoon went by kind of slowly, and I was alone upstairs for much of it.

The ride home was quiet and fast. My parents were making egg rolls again, so I ran over with Muad’Dib. Summer was already in the shower when we got to the house, so she met us over there when she was done. Julie and Kevin showed up, and I got a little spun up as we were starting to put food together. I felt like my heart was racing and I felt a little dazed, but I think Julie’s aggressive loudness just had my blood pressure up, so I just had to relax and let it pass.

We all actually sat together and ate together for once, which was nice. Muad’Dib did a wonderful job sitting in the laundry room, and we had a good run back to the house afterward. My heartrate was about the same as it was during my episode and I felt fine, so I’m sticking with blood pressure with a side of dehydration since I was a little bit shy on my water quota.

Eaddie and Eli were at the house watching Breaking Bad when we got there, so Summer went to bed while I wrapped up fairly early myself. I think the sleep helps, though the afternoon anxiety attack and evening daze had me a bit puzzled.

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