Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (20)
October 13, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $1,816.35; Rural libraries, $321.62.
Week 30 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Week 30, Day 206: Mondays continue to live down to their reputation. It was a Very Monday Monday. Partly this was an effect of Friday being so bad, things piled up heavily even though I put in some time over the weekend.
PiC commented that it’s feeling like fall now but I hadn’t noticed that until he pointed it out. It still doesn’t feel like fall, except I just realized that it’s getting dark earlier and THAT feels like fall/winter.
JB has requested a rain coat AND an umbrella and I’m not sure I believe we’re going to have need of either. But if we do, I’ll happily take suggestions for good places to look for decent quality kid umbrellas out there.
Week 30, Day 207: This morning really stunk, not coincidentally because I was overseeing kindergarten, but the afternoon was much better.
I took a real break from work at lunch, both to actually eat lunch and make a pan of enchiladas for dinner. Cooking is so soothing when I’m using it to dodge regular work.
JB was more reasonable, overall, and much less whiny. They went and did their chores with a minimum of grumbling and then took the initiative to prepare a snack for us both. They were so proud of themselves. I like this phase a lot better than the other phases.
Week 30, Day 208: Another bumpy day at work and I expect the whole month to be this way as I’m juggling five times as much work as usual, but we did achieve two other things.
We signed our closing docs for the refi!!! I am so excited to have this process close soon.
We also did a masked exchange, the big box of comics to them and a big goody bag for JB, with our long time friends. It’s been several years since we were in touch more than just briefly and I didn’t realize how much I missed their company. It was lovely catching up with them for a bit but it did mean my work plans were knocked awry again.
I’ve spent this whole week working like gangbusters and still feeling behind every single day. Sigh. Better luck tomorrow?
Mentally that feeling behind feeling is tough but it’s even tougher to power through it because I’m ten kinds of exhausted. My muscles all ache. My bones ache. I have sharp shooting pains. I haven’t slept well in weeks. I can’t lean back, that hurts, I can lean forward, that hurts, I sit up straight for a while and my muscles are fatigued at double the rate. I finally sent myself to bed early and after propping myself on a mountain of pillows, finally felt a little relief. So if course my conscience pokes me and I feel obligated to fetch my computer to work some more. For once I stand (lay) firm. I need to rest first and refuel or else I’ll be even less able to cope tomorrow. Rest is good. Rest is deserved.
Week 30, Day 209: I am mildly/moderately freaking out over the idea of how we’ll navigate 2021 with a new baby, who knows what’s happening with school for JB (we won’t be expecting for them to start bringing kids back until January and even then it’ll be the most vulnerable kids first) and our jobs and and and….
At times like these, lists help me get centered.
- I’m really happy to have shelved the rental. I know that I won’t feel completely done with it until we complete our taxes next year, though.
- I’m really happy to have closed on our refi and I’m looking forward to feeling closure for that. I doubt they will be sending me a ticker tape parade like I deserve but I’d like to be able to open up our online account access over at New Bank and see the mortgage taken off our Chase account.
- My search for closure resulted in spending an hour confirming that we have backed up digital copies of all our closing documents for the purchase and sale of the rental, the sale of the old place, the purchase of this place, and the refi. Then that foot high stack of documents are headed to the shredder!
I’m thinking about what else I still need to do to feel less unsettled.
- A friend dropped off some boxes of old baby clothes and I have to sort those.
- A handful of boxes are cluttering my office again, things from storage needed
- PiC needs to move furniture around to make space for our long-term WFH situation and to secure them with anti-tip packs.
Week 30, Day 210:
Finally Friday! I definitely hit a wall between the physical exhaustion and the emotional/mental strain of trying to do everything for everything all week and failing to do it all.
My therapist chided me that “good enough” has to be in the context of being in a pandemic, pregnant, working full time, managing a household, caring for my family, and hanging onto my sanity but for some reason that message just bounces off me today.
Carving out time for myself feels like indirect punishment because I keep having to face the consequences of not working and cleaning and organizing 24 hours a day. But I suppose it was inevitable that I’d have these massive dips in feeling like I’ve got it together. It has to go hand in hand with those many moments I DO get things done.
My son loved his Skip Hop umbrella and rain coat. They were of great quality.
Congratulations on your pregnancy!
Yesterday was actually a really nice, productive start for the week! Then insomnia kept me up past 1 am, and a leaking roof had husband & me crawling around the attic with a bucket at 4:30 am, so now I’m feeling like I’m just one bad moment away from a mommy meltdown. Hopefully I’ll be able to lower my expectations enough to make it through the day without incident.