Embracing my inner dragon...

I have survived the week and have escaped mostly unscathed.  My stress levels remained high all week so I didn't get as much sleep as I should have.  I got my flu shot and had some sort of reaction; not only did I have a reaction at the injection site (a raised welt that was sore and warm to the touch - I still have a knot in the muscle at the injection site and I got my shot Wednesday morning) but I also had some intestinal discomfort/issues.  The combination did not leave me as a happy camper and it didn't necessarily help my stress levels.

On the plus side, I did hear from two of the jobs I applied for last weekend; one was a preliminary phone call from the corporate HR department (they'll pass my answers along to where I applied for them to decide to interview me or not) and I received an email from another company requesting a FaceTime interview which I think went pretty well (they had to finish their interviews, pass the candidates the liked to the next level and then do second interviews with the candidates they select).  So with all of this, we'll see what happens.  I have sent applications to a few more places as well.

I have done some local apartment hunting but have found that I am very limited to what's available to me because of my two dogs - it doesn't matter that they're old, little guys; lots of places here are not overly pet friendly and if they are, the rent is astronomical.  For the headache they have been at times, I have had them both since they were puppies and they have been my babies.  I actually had someone suggest to me this past week that I should just give them up since they're "only dogs and not only that, they're old dogs..."  Sorry, I can't do that; yes, they're old dogs and I don't know how much longer they'll be with me regardless but they're still my babies, I have fought tooth and nail to keep them and in the divorce decree I was charged with their care.  I think the one at least can tell that something is changing because I couldn't find him for a bit today and then I found him hiding under the kitchen table (there are times I swear he's part cat the way he hides sometimes - if I bought one of those cat tree climbers for him, he would probably be thrilled...).

With tomorrow being Halloween, the staff and I at work will be dressing up like we normally do.  Every year, we come up with a theme for our Halloween costumes and this year's theme is "mythical creatures."  Since I'm usually a villain or bad guy of sorts, this year I am going to be a dragon.  I have a dragon hooded sweatshirt, one of my large dance skirts, a dragon tail and leggings that have scales on them.  I even have a little stuffed dragon that will be going to work with me as my baby dragon sidekick/minion. With everything going on in my life currently, I think I need to learn to embrace my inner dragon...

Well my dear readers, I need to take a little bit of time tonight to make sure I have everything together so I can transform into my dragon-self for work tomorrow so I should probably bring this to a close for tonight.  I would ask what I did last week, that if you're the praying type, please say a prayer for this Gypsy as some big changes are coming my way in terms of where my quest is leading me.  Thanks for joining me and for your support!  =)

Freaking out

I am freaking out...  Three days ago I found out that the people I have been renting from are looking into selling their house so I need to find a new place to live.  In my more sane moments, I know that everything will work out but those sane moments have been few and far between these past few days.  I have gone from just looking at the problem at hand to the absolute worst case scenario that I'm going to end up homeless, sleeping on the streets and one of those people standing on a street corner holding a cardboard sign.  Even just typing those words just now, I am utterly freaking out...

When I first moved into this place, it was supposed to be a temporary living situation after my divorce and I was looking into a new job.  The job fell through so I stayed at my job, have moved my way up, stayed in the apartment and yet I still feel like a failure.  I'm sure some of that is coming from feeling as if my life is falling apart because I'm not sure what I'm going to do housing wise but it is how I'm feeling currently.  I found out Thursday night, have gotten very little sleep since then (since a lot of these completely overwhelming thoughts hit me in the middle of the night) and last night and today I have shed quite a few tears.

One of the first thoughts I had when I found out about this upheaval was, I can finally go home...  I actually took the initiative and was on-line job hunting yesterday for several hours and I even applied for a handful of jobs.  I'm not sure if anything is going to come from sending out those applications but I did it (even though it was really scary to do so).  At this point, all I can do is wait and see if anything comes from sending them out and go from there.

A reoccurring thing people have told me is I need to remember to keep breathing.  Breathing is such a simple thing that we sometimes take for granted and I remember my parents telling me to do that when the wasband walked out; they kept reminding me to "breathe, if nothing else, just breathe."  There have been times that I have felt my breath getting stuck somewhere in my chest cavity and I feel either as if I'm on the verge of a panic attack or a complete mental/emotional breakdown - I'm not sure which would be better at this point...

I know that in times of trouble, it's important to turn to your faith and that's one of my problems - over the past I'm not sure how long, my faith has been wavering.  That's really difficult for me to admit since faith has always been a cornerstone of my family.  When I'm rational (and I know that has been called into question over the last few days) I know that God hasn't left me but it's difficult to figure out how I'm going to head back in that direction.

Well, my dear readers, I feel myself getting overly worked up and emotional again so I think I should probably bring this to a close in an effort to be able to get some sleep tonight.  If I'm going to attempt to keep myself from falling apart while at work tomorrow I'm going to need all of the help I can get...  If you're the praying type, please say a prayer for this Gypsy to find the next direction I am to head - right now I feel as if I'm lost in the dark and I'm freaking out.....

Touch

I'm not exactly sure what happened but this past week, I looked in the mirror one morning after I woke up and I saw someone old looking back at me.  I don't know if my birthday from last week is catching up to me, if the hours at work are now taking their toll on me physically (as they already have taken an mental/psychological toll on me) or if it's a combination of things; but I feel as if I look old all of a sudden.  Something for me to work through...

This past week at work, the kids were out of school so we had them all day, everyday.  Some of the kids decided that they needed to decorate the building for Halloween and we let them go with it.  There are now spiderwebs everywhere, pipe cleaner spiders, hand drawn witches/bats/vampires/ware wolves/goblins all over, and they even made a graveyard filled with tombstones with some of their names and the names of staff members.  It was kind of fun to see their thought process through it all but when they started to make tombstones for the staff it made me wonder, "what did we do to you guys?!"  On the tombstones, most people they had written their name and how old they were; on mine, they wrote my name and I "lived a happy life" but no age - I guess they didn't want to write that I was 112 (that was what I told them last week when they asked how old I turned on my birthday).

Out of nowhere, I also got a call from another center asking if two of their staff could visit my site for some accreditation assistance.  I didn't mind helping them out but one of the things that they tried to ask if they could just copy all of the work that I had done in order to use as their own.  Um.... no....  I don't mind helping out but I am not for just copying someone else's work.  Having them come to talk about their struggles did make me want to help them but it also made me feel as if I was being forced to do "group work" like from school which absolutely makes me cringe.

Along with having the kids for full days this past week and having our visitors, we also had a staff meeting on Tuesday night.  We had it off site (which was a first for us) and along with the meeting, we had a "celebration" for all of our hard work during our inspection.  The boss had worked with another department to supply appetizers for during the meeting; I didn't think they looked appealing (there were deep fried artichoke hearts which I don't care for at all and what looked to be over-cooked quesadillas) so I didn't eat anything.  Since I chose not to partake, I had several people ask me what was wrong and why I wasn't eating - I even had a couple of people ask me if I needed a hug...

Now, if you're new to reading, I'm not overly a touchy/feely person and I don't feel comfortable hugging just anyone - I actually tense up.  I've had people question me about it since I get uncomfortable hugging most adults but I don't mind hugging kids - I think it boils down to questioning the motives behind the hug...  Kids hugs are pure in my opinion and because I have trust issues with most adults, I question if a hug is a hug or if they are looking for a place to stab me in the back.  That may be a sick and twisted way to look at a hug but that's how I feel about them; I really have to feel comfortable with or trust the person that I'm receiving a hug from and that's one of the reasons I tense up.  This was actually one of the things that came up in the personality/management training I participated in a couple of months ago - don't touch me or my things and we'll be fine.

Well, my dear readers, I am going to bring this to a close for tonight.  I have given myself some things to think about and I also need to get ready for the week ahead.  I hope you have opportunities for your own muchness as we go into the week and that you do things for you.  =)

Time for me...

I learned something this week - if you're told you get to work a half day on Friday and you don't take a lunch with you to work since you are planning on working a half day, you're going to be tasked a project that will not allow you to leave half way through the day...  I ended up leaving about an hour and a half before the end of the day (that still means I worked approximately a 10.5 hour day) and that's only because my Sports Coordinator and my Operations Clerk forced me out of the building; they seemed ready to forcibly escort me from the premises.  I was supposed to work yesterday so my Sports Coordinator could have the afternoon off but she was able to rearrange some things so I was told to take yesterday off as well.  Honestly, I didn't feel guilty at all leaving work early on Friday and I didn't feel guilty not going in yesterday; I still worked just shy of 60 hours this past week.

Since I haven't really had any time off lately, I actually took myself to the movies and to the aquarium (it's probably been a year and a half since I've allowed myself time to go to the aquarium - even though I have an annual membership pass).  I ended up staying only a couple of hours since it got pretty crowded but it was fun to go just the same.  I got some really cute photos of some sea otters for one of my nephews (they're his absolute favorite) and it was nice just to sit and watch the different sea animals.

I did something this week that I don't typically do - I went out with someone for dinner/drinks after work/choir one night for my birthday.  Usually I find some sort of an excuse to not go out after work since I have such a long work day and have to be up so early in the morning to start my work day.  A dance friend has been wanting me to go out for dinner/drinks after dance for some time now and I always find some reason to say "no"; when she reached out to me on my birthday, I shocked her by finally saying "yes."  Granted, she had to convince me a little bit but she finally convinced me to head out.  She and I had a good time and decided that we'll have to go out again one of these days - turns out that she and I have a lot more in common than dance and we decided that it was nice to have a friend who "got" us.

One of the kids asked me this past week asked me how old I was and I told her that I was 112.  She looked surprised for a second and then said, "Um... if you were 112, you'd be in a wheelchair."  Her response left me stunned because I didn't expect that answer from a 1st grader.  For my birthday, one of my staff members brought in Doctor Who themed gift bags for the staff and what was really cool/sweet about it was she doesn't watch the show but did the research for the bags since it's one of my favorites.  She told me after doing the research for the gift bags, she's become intrigued by the show and wants to start watching it herself - yay, another one has been converted!

Something I have decided with my birthday being this past week is I am going to go into the next year really embracing my weirdness and not trying to hide it away in order to make others comfortable.  I already often feel uncomfortable in situations where I have to be around people (it's the introvert in me) so why should I make myself even more uncomfortable trying to be someone that I'm not?  I'm still trying to devise how that's all going to come together but it's a goal I am setting for myself.  I will start working on my goal with my day off tomorrow.

Well, my dear readers, I'm going to bring this to a close for tonight, attempt to get some rest tonight, and enjoy my day off tomorrow.  Thanks for joining me and I hope you find some time for you!  =)

too much...

On Friday this past week at work that I needed to shut my door; not only to get my work accomplished but to shut myself in.  As I closed the door to my office, in my head I visualized the saying "my alone time is sometimes for your safety."  I started my day by thinking I was going to do something nice by buying donuts for my staff.  One of my staff actually asked me what the catch was when they saw the boxes of donuts in the staff room.  Really?!  Can't I just do something nice?  I wanted to tell them, if you don't want the donuts, don't eat the donuts...

This weekend wasn't much of a weekend for me (luckily I didn't have to work the shift I was supposed to yesterday) and I'm not looking forward to facing work this week.  It is the start of our fiscal year so we have to wrap everything up and prepare for the year ahead so it's going to be crazy.  I think the fact that I haven't been sleeping well has made my attitude plummet and that makes me retreat into myself even further.  One of these days something has got to give - I either need to figure out how to de-stress or sleep or something or I'm going to end up losing it...

It would probably be helpful if I knew I had a day off in my future.  Next weekend is a long weekend but I have to work on Saturday (and it's looking like it's going to be a full day) and then we're going into a week of work where the kids are out of school.  There are times I really wish that I was better with saying, "I have put in my time, I'm going home" or "I have put in enough hours for me to take the day off, so that's what I'm going to do."  Right now, we're short staffed and I feel compelled to pick up the slack.  I know that I come by this compulsion honestly since my entire family is the same way; when I was talking to my Mom today, she told me that one of my brothers is struggling to find time to eat lunch on a regular basis at work - my response, "Yeah, and?"  She was not overly surprised by my answer and she responded with acknowledging that we're (my siblings and I) all the same and have inherited it honestly (both my parents are the same way).

I just heard something that caught my attention, "You don't need to drive yourself crazy in order to be productive."  I should consider having that on a plaque in my office at work in the hopes that one day I'll be able to believe it.  I don't know if I fully believe it yet but I will work on overcoming my compulsion to work how I do.

I keep saying that I need to do things for me and I unfortunately haven't done so yet.  Hopefully I'll at least take a little bit of time for myself this weekend since my birthday is this week and I'll be spending the day at work and at choir practice.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do but I'm hoping that it will be spectacular.

On that note, my dear readers, I am going to bring this to a close and see if I can't come up with some sort of a plan (even if my plan involves me telling myself that I'm not allowed to plan and I need to spend time doing things for me that are spontaneous).  Thank you for joining me and I hope you are able to do something for you!  =)