Monthly Archives: August 2020

It’s Not Always Easy To Go Easy (or Doing What I Can)

Posted on August 17, 2020 | Comments Off on It’s Not Always Easy To Go Easy (or Doing What I Can)

This past week of workouts was just a struggle for me. I had so many things working against me and I really couldn’t find a way out of it. I was dealing with a lack of motivation, lack of interest, and the pain and nausea that I was expecting. If I was feeling ok, I still didn’t want to work out. When I felt more like working out, I was feeling sick. I felt like I couldn’t win. And each time I had a bad workout, I felt even worse after it was done because I felt like I failed somehow.

I had video workouts on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday this past week. I tried to do what I could, but I wasn’t really doing the videos. I wasn’t feeling encouraged or motivated to do them. I felt like I wasn’t doing each exercise to the fullest and I was just kind of playing around. I know that doing something is better than doing nothing, but I couldn’t convince my brain that was true.

It didn’t help that I’ve been seeing friends in different parts of the country able to go to their gyms again. I’m especially jealous of my friends who can go to Orangetheory where they live. My last class in the studio was 5 months ago. And I miss it more and more every week that I’m not back there. I miss the coaches, everyone in the class, the workouts, the community feeling and encouragement, and feeling like I’m accomplishing something amazing when I finish a workout. I feel like my workouts when I’m dealing with nausea are so much better when I’m in the studio because I can work with so many more modifications. I used to feel more confident about when we would be able to go back, but now I’m less optimistic about it. I’m scared that it won’t be until next year that we can be back. And feeling like I’m missing a huge part of my life isn’t easy. I know that I’m not the only person dealing with this right now, but that doesn’t necessarily make it easier.

So for now, I just have to do what I can on my own. And for right now, that does mean doing the video workouts 3 days a week. I am working on finding alternatives to those because maybe I just need more variety. But it’s also easy to just do those videos since I know how to get everything set up and I don’t have to think too much about it.

What does help is having one workout each week on Zoom. This week, we had to move it to Saturday, so it was my last workout of the week. Having someone coach me feels so good and so familiar. Having my friends on the screen with me makes me feel less alone. Even though I was feeling the worst on Saturday, I know that was my best workout. It also was easily the hardest. If I could do Zoom workouts every time, I think that might be perfect (and I am looking into seeing if that could happen with different coaches).

Our workout on Saturday was a great all-over workout. We worked core, legs, and arms. And some of the exercises were not just strength but cardio too. For most of the workout, we all work together on intervals. For example, we have 6 different exercises that we do for 40 seconds on and 15 seconds off and go through the series 2 or 3 times. We also had one block where we had 3 exercises to do in 1 minute. It didn’t take the full minute, so whatever time we had leftover we got to rest. And we did that 5 times. I still don’t have my weights that I am getting for my birthday, but I was feeling really weak so the weights I use right now (like my water bottles) worked fine for me.

Even though there were a few times where I truly thought I would have to run to my bathroom to throw up, I finished that workout feeling amazing. I know I didn’t work as hard as I could when I feel normal, but I still finished that workout on the high that I am used to. It was the best way I could end my workout week.

I potentially have another week of dealing with pain and nausea this week. And I’m going to try my best to do what I can. My new weights might also be arriving this week, so that could be awesome if it happens. I know that I won’t be able to do the best or hardest workouts if I’m feeling ill, but I know I will try. And for me right now, trying is sometimes all I can ask of myself. If I’m not feeling like I want to work out, I just have to try. I can’t give up and do nothing. Even though there definitely were days this past week where I felt like it.

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Default ThumbnailI Hate Having A Hard Workout Week (or Not My Usual Workout Recap) Default ThumbnailWhy Can’t I Just Have A Normal Week? (or Another Bad Week Of Workouts) Default ThumbnailWorking Through The Workouts (Modifications Are Harder At Home) Default ThumbnailStruggling Sucks (or Thank Goodness It Was A Short Workout Week) Default ThumbnailA Mid-Week Realization (or Forcing Myself To Run) Default ThumbnailAn Up And Down Workout Week (or I Love Having Workout Buddies)

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Posted in Fitness

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Trying To Not Let My Stress Get To Me (or Continuing To Find Ways To Cope With Isolation)

Posted on August 14, 2020 | Comments Off on Trying To Not Let My Stress Get To Me (or Continuing To Find Ways To Cope With Isolation)

I feel like I keep repeating myself with how hard it is to be isolated. I’m 5 months into this and I’ve probably seen friends/family only 5 times since then. Even though I’m not the most social person, I need more social time than just once a month. I am trying to use this time to understand how my personal mix of being an introvert and extrovert works. But I’m done with that experiment in my mind and I’m ready to apply what I’ve learned.

I want to go out and do more, but I’m so terrified of getting sick. I’m stuck in this weird space of not wanting to put my life on hold but also not wanting to risk my life. I have had friends get sick and are still dealing with health issues months later. I have friends who have lost friends, family, and significant others. This is a serious virus and it should not be taken lightly. And for a while, I have been doing everything I can to never leave my house. I’m still rarely leaving my house, but I’m trying to get out at least once a week just to feel like I’m not trapped inside 24/7.

I’ve done a lot of things over the past 5 months to try to make this time as low-stress as possible. And I know that some of those things have worked because I believe I would be doing much worse now if I had done nothing. And I try to continue doing those things like having a regular schedule and trying to do some tasks every day. But I also know it’s not enough.

I’ve seen several articles about low-grade depression, especially after Michelle Obama said that she has been dealing with it during the pandemic. The more I read about it, the more I think so many of us are experiencing that right now. Low energy or motivation, sleep issues, fatigue, trouble focusing or concentrating, lack of enjoyment with things that used to bring joy. Those all sound very familiar to me. And along with low-grade depression, I know that can bring extra stress. You can be stressed about the symptoms. You can be stressed about how to make yourself feel better. You can be stressed about if you need to get more help or not.

I’m not letting myself stress about if I need more help or not. That is the one I have a clear idea of. But I have been stressed about my symptoms and how to make myself better. And it’s an evil cycle because I want to feel better and then it’s frustrating when something doesn’t work and I have to keep trying to figure out new ideas. But that’s the cycle I’m stuck in for now. I need to find ways to be happy and bring joy into my life right now. When something doesn’t work, it brings me down. Fortunately, it’s not always testing things that don’t work and I have found a few things that have helped. But I know now that I will keep having to find new things the longer this goes on. What brought me joy in March and April might not be doing it for me anymore. This is a continuous thing I have to work on and that’s exactly what I have been doing. Hopefully, soon I’ll figure out the next thing so I can bring my stress down a bit again.

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Default ThumbnailTrusting It Will Be Ok (or Dealing With Stress In A Healthy Way) Default ThumbnailShowing My Stress (or Hoping Things Will Get Better Now) Default ThumbnailAdding A Little Control In My Life (or Finding Little Ways To Be Helpful) Default ThumbnailContinuing To Support My Friend’s Place (or Learning New Ways To Help Others) Default ThumbnailFinding My Strength (or Continuing To Find New Ways To Push Myself) Default ThumbnailContinuing To Find Ways To Be Creative (or Podcasts and Online Shows)

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Self-Care Is So Important (or At-Home Beauty)

Posted on August 13, 2020 | Comments Off on Self-Care Is So Important (or At-Home Beauty)

For the last several months, I rarely leave my house. I know this is for the best and it’s what we all need to do in order to slow the spread of the pandemic. And I’ve complained a lot about staying home and the mental toll that has taken on me. But there are other things I’ve noticed about staying inside that have been getting to me. While I’m not going out and seeing people, I’m not really taking as much care or effort in my appearance.

I’m still doing basic things so it’s not like I have skipped washing my hair for weeks or that I’m not clean. I shower daily, wash my hair regularly, use lotion, and do basic beauty maintenance. And there are some beauty things that I can’t accomplish on my own or do not have the skills to do that I understand I can’t do (I have no talent with doing my own brows or pedicure so I’m not worried about that). I haven’t had my hair cut since March, but I might do a light dusting trim to get some of the split ends off (I have discussed this with a hairstylist so I know what to do and I won’t be really cutting my hair). And I did some at-home color earlier this year because I wanted to cover the grays in my hair.

I really needed to color my hair again, so I did color it at home (with salon color from my stylist) yesterday. It’s still not as good as when it’s professionally done, but it is better than nothing.

And even with the little bit of color that I was able to add to my hair, it made me feel so much better about myself. I haven’t really been making an effort with how I look, and it was getting to me. I hated seeing how many gray hairs were in my hair and how it just didn’t look or feel like me. So getting a bit of a color refresh was something that I really needed to do. I hope that I will be able to have it professionally done the next time I need it, but if not I know I won’t wait as long this time to buy some dye and I’ll do it myself for the third time.

Making an effort with my hair did perk me up a bit. And then I focused a bit on my clothes. Just like with other things, I’m not making much of an effort with my outfits each day. I’m almost always wearing yoga capris and a tank top. I don’t need anything else for just sitting in my house. Technically, I don’t have to even wear that much, but I don’t believe in wearing the same thing all day that you slept in. So I do always change my clothes in the morning. But I’m not feeling cute with what I’m wearing. My outfits feel very utilitarian and not stylish. Part of it is that I know I gained weight and don’t want to try on my clothes because I’m scared of how I’ll feel. But I do need to put more effort into myself.

Just because I’m spending almost all my time alone in my house doesn’t mean I shouldn’t care. I should care about how I feel about myself, even if nobody else sees it. I can dress cute if I want to or make an effort with makeup just for fun. Maybe I should take this time to experiment with makeup and hairstyles because nobody will see my mistakes. I can’t just be in a rut with not caring about myself beyond what needs to be done for hygiene. It’s hard for me to think about doing things for me when I usually make an effort for someone else or because I’m going out to do something fun. But because I don’t see this pandemic ending soon, I need to learn how to practice self-care just for me and not because someone else might be seeing me.

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Default ThumbnailDoing Some Beautification (or Feeling Better From The Outside In) Default ThumbnailDoing Some Skincare Basics (or Slowly Changing My Self-Care Routine) Default ThumbnailFinally It Feels Like Things Are Normal (or A Week Of Various Self-Care) Default ThumbnailTrying To Avoid Holiday Burnout (or Staying Home For Self-Care) Default ThumbnailCoconut Oil Hair Mask (or Trying A Simple DIY Beauty Trick) Default ThumbnailBringing More Good Things To Me And Others (or Happiness and Self-Care)

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Posted in Beauty, Fun Stuff

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A Quarantine Birthday (or Just A Normal Sunday)

Posted on August 12, 2020 | Comments Off on A Quarantine Birthday (or Just A Normal Sunday)

My birthday was this past Sunday. I’m a big birthday person and love to be able to celebrate my birthday and other’s birthdays. I’m not always great about planning birthday parties for myself, but I usually do at least something around my birthday to celebrate. And this year, I was hoping to do the same.

When the safer at home orders started, nobody expected it to last this long. I remember earlier this summer they were saying that things would start reopening up and being safe by the 4th of July. And when I heard that, I started thinking about what I might want to do for my birthday. I wasn’t thinking of planning anything big, but I started to think about if I wanted to do another night at a bar or something like that. But I didn’t start planning anything because I knew things could change and I didn’t want to plan something that wouldn’t be able to happen.

And some restaurants are open for outdoor eating and other public places that are open outdoors, but for the most part, things are still closed. And I didn’t want to do a distant hangout at a park with a lot of friends or something like that. So I realized by July that I most likely wouldn’t be doing anything for my birthday. I do have something still planned for later this week (and hopefully that won’t change), but nothing really like I’m used to.

So on my actual birthday, things weren’t that different from most of my Sundays. I did laundry. I cleaned my house and did other chores. I wrote a blog post. I tried to make a plan for things for the week. Nothing exciting at all. I did order delivery food, which is something I’m trying to do less often, so that was something special. And of course, I got a lot of texts, messages on social media, and phone calls from family and friends.

I think my favorite call was from my brother and sister-in-law because it was a FaceTime call with Rory! He seemed very interested in the phone and I think he could tell it was a person on the screen. He kept coming really close to the phone and it felt like Attack of the 50 Foot Baby!

That was so much fun and I loved getting to see my nephew! It made me smile and made the day feel special. And it did help to break up a day that didn’t feel that different from most of my Sundays. And my Sundays don’t feel that different from most of my days except for some of the chores I do on Sundays only. So anything to make the day feel different is a big treat and makes me very happy.

I had a friend ask me if I feel any different being 37 than I did being 36, and honestly, I don’t. I don’t normally feel different, but this year feels even more the same as always. I joked that I feel the same as I did back in March because it doesn’t seem like life as moved since safer at home started. I feel like my life has paused and nothing has progressed. And in some ways, that’s true. I don’t hate getting older, but in some ways, I do wish that I could have paused my age this year too.

For about half of being 36, I couldn’t do much of what I wanted to do with my life. I feel like that was lost and wasted time. I know I can’t judge myself against who I used to be before the pandemic, but it’s still hard. So I’m trying to just appreciate what I did get done while I was 36. And as far as what I plan on doing while I’m 37, my main focus is staying healthy. And that probably means staying home by myself a lot. But losing this time means I will be alive in the future. And that’s what’s most important. And hopefully, things will be better before I turn 38 and I can accomplish some great things this year.

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Posted in Celebrations

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Officially Getting A New Cousin (or A Zoom Wedding)

Posted on August 11, 2020 | Comments Off on Officially Getting A New Cousin (or A Zoom Wedding)

There are so many things that we are doing these days that nobody would have expected to do before the pandemic. Virtual hangouts are so common that many people have Zoom fatigue. Even though I know people have live-streamed weddings before, that’s usually done for people who couldn’t be there (like how my grandparents watched my brother’s wedding on Facetime because they couldn’t fly). But now, if you are getting married almost everyone has to be on Zoom. And that’s exactly what happened with my cousin’s wedding.

My cousin Danny and his partner Alisa have been together for a long time. And from the day I met Alisa, I have felt like she was my family. She and I always call each other cousin, even though it wasn’t official. But it was official enough for both of us. Even though we felt like we were already family, I was so excited when Danny and Alisa announced their engagement and so it would be official!

I don’t know how big of a wedding they had been planning on having, but I do know a lot of things had to change because of the pandemic. They were keeping their original wedding date (August 8th), and they just had to make adjustments to keep things safe. So they had only immediate family in person at the wedding and everyone else watched on Zoom. I was very ok with that because that meant I got to watch it and that’s all that mattered to me!

The wedding was pretty early (since they are on the east coast and it was a morning wedding for them), but I was happy to be up and watching it. And since the Zoom was just for us to watch (and not them to see us), it didn’t matter what we looked like while watching. And it made me so happy to get to be a small part of their big day!

Everyone looked beautiful and I was smiling the entire time while I was watching. The camera running the Zoom stayed in the same spot the entire time, so we didn’t get a lot of close up looks, but soon after the wedding was done some photos were being posted online and I could see more of Alisa’s gorgeous dress!

I’m so happy that Danny and Alisa got married and Alisa is officially my cousin now! And I’ve already told her that when things are safer again that they need to come to CA to visit us so we can have our first official family hangout! I’m looking forward to that!

I’ve seen people joke about having Zoom bingo with checking off how many things you’ve done during the pandemic. I know Zoom wedding or baby shower has been on every bingo chart I’ve seen. So I guess now I can check off Zoom wedding!

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Posted in Celebrations, Family, Fun Stuff

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How I’m Hoping To Push Myself In My Workouts (or I Can’t Wait For My Birthday Gift To Get Here)

Posted on August 10, 2020 | Comments Off on How I’m Hoping To Push Myself In My Workouts (or I Can’t Wait For My Birthday Gift To Get Here)

Just like I wrote last week, I’m starting to get into a groove with my new workout plan. I love having a Zoom workout once a week (although I bet I would love it if I had more than that). Even though we are all working hard during those workouts, it still feels more social than what I’m doing on the other days at home alone. We have some time to chat and encourage each other and I didn’t know how much I was craving that until I got it again. And I’m so grateful for it.

There is no question that my Zoom workout is the hardest one of the week. But it’s also the most rewarding and the one that makes me the happiest. So the sweat and pain are totally worth it. I did have some pain issues this past week with all of my workouts, but it was manageable. And I know that I’m doing what I can to make it better. I just have to be patient and allow my body time to heal.

And there’s a chance I might be getting more social workouts into my workout week. There was a class that I couldn’t make it to last week that was a socially distant workout in a park. I would have loved to have been there, but it wasn’t possible with my schedule. But everyone was very far apart and were wearing masks. So I think if I can make it in the future, I will be going to that workout. I know how much any social aspect of a workout pushes me, and I need that as much as I can get it.

And pushing myself has been a recurring goal of mine since I’ve been doing workouts at home. We are coming up on 5 months of this, and finding ways to push myself hasn’t been the easiest. But I’ve slowly figured out things I can do and they have all benefitted me a lot. Adding home workout equipment and having more social workouts have been game-changers for me. I’m doing a lot better than I was when this all started. It’s taken time for me to figure things out, but I didn’t give up and I’m glad.

One of the things that has been hardest for me was figuring out how to get my strength training to be close to what I was doing in the studio. Finding weights has been difficult because so many people are building home gyms right now. I kept looking online for some, but either they were not the weights I was looking for or they were really expensive for what I could afford. But as my birthday got closer, I realized that asking for some of the weights that were a bit out of my budget might work as a gift from my parents. So I asked my dad about it and he agreed that it would be a good gift. I asked him about it several weeks ago and we spent a lot of time doing searching online for what would work for me.

I have limited floor space so originally I was thinking the weights that you can adjust might be a good option. But most of them were very expensive and they had much heavier weights than what I need. I didn’t need something that went up to 50 or 75 pounds. And when we were looking at individual weights so I could make sure I only get the weights I need, those could get really expensive as you get a few sets, and then I run into the issue of storage. So it really was a bit of a challenge for us to figure out what would work best for me.

In the end, my dad and I found a set of adjustable weights that only goes up to 25 pounds. Because the weight range on them is more limited than many other sets (which is perfectly fine with me), they were much more affordable. Still out of my budget for right now, but an acceptable price for a present from my parents. My dad did a bit of research to make sure this was the right option for me before we ordered. And now they should be arriving in the next week or two (there was pretty much nothing that would be able to get to me quicker than a week).

I’m excited and nervous for the weights to arrive. I know I’ve needed to get weights for a while. But I’m scared to see how much strength I really have lost in the past few months. I know that I won’t be able to lift the way that I did the last time I took a class at the studio, but that’s my goal to work up to again. I don’t know if I could get to a point where I am lifting more than I did before, but you never know. That could be a good second goal if I am able to get back to where I was and I’m still working out at home.

I’m so happy that even though I’ve been working out at home for a while now, I’m still finding ways to make it better for me in multiple ways. And as soon as I get my new weights, I can’t wait to see how that will push myself in the video and Zoom workouts!

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Another Isolated Therapy Session (or My Anxiety Is Normal)

Posted on August 7, 2020 | Comments Off on Another Isolated Therapy Session (or My Anxiety Is Normal)

Yesterday, I had my regular appointment with my therapist. Like my appointments often are, it was another virtual appointment. I’m always grateful that I can have my appointments over the phone or video chat because it saves me the drive (and the cost for parking). And nowadays, it’s pretty much a requirement to have virtual appointments to be safe. I have other doctor appointments that I need to do soon that cannot be virtual, so having one where I feel safe at home is really nice.

The main point of these appointments is to confirm my medication is ok and to make sure I’m doing alright. At my last appointment, we added a new medication but I stopped taking that already. It was something I started right when the pandemic started and my anxiety was getting really bad. I even started to notice some of my OCD tendencies were coming back. I don’t know if the medication was the only reason why I had those, but it was a variable that I could easily take out. My OCD seems to have gone back to where it was before, but my anxiety is still higher than normal. But in these times, I think being a little extra anxious is normal.

And after I confirmed with my therapist that my medication is still a good dosage and that I’m doing ok, I did mention that I’m a little anxious but I also understand that it’s normal. There was a post I’ve seen on social media a few times that says something like “I feel like I hallucinated the pandemic. I’m staying home, scared of getting sick, and taking precautions. And other people are just out there living their lives like normal.” And that’s really how I feel. Combining that idea and the idea that I’m alone on my own little planet with nobody around me is the best way to explain what isolation has felt like for me. I know that I’m doing the right thing and making small sacrifices will pay off in the long run, but it’s not easy when I’m in the middle of it.

But just like before, my therapist completely understood how I am feeling and reassured me that this is normal. I know that there are options for medications that I could take to make these feelings go away, but I’m really not feeling like trying medications right now. The last medication was stopped because I couldn’t be sure what was causing the side effects. I feel like trying something new would do the same. Maybe I would feel better, but I also won’t know when I could come off the medication because the world isn’t making me anxious and not the medication. I know right now I can work through these feelings. If anything changes, I can reach out and get help. But for now, I know that I’m not to the point where I need more help to be ok. I have been in that place before and am able to recognize if I get there again.

Just like so many of my recent appointments with my therapist, this was an easy one and it confirmed that I’m doing the right things for myself right now. I know that my eating disorder is a bit harder to deal with right now and I’m really working hard at that, but I also am going a bit easy on myself because I am going through something that none of us have ever experienced in our lifetimes. I can’t expect to have normal reactions in an abnormal situation.

I hope that by the time I have my next appointment, things will be starting to get better in the world. I will still be grateful to have a virtual appointment, but I would love it if I could feel like I have a bit more control and power over what I can do each day. I want to get back to the routine that I had been working on and helped to keep me on track. I have no clue if that will be possible by my next appointment. I keep hoping that something will change in this country so we can get the pandemic more under control and that will be a huge step forward. But for now, I just have to keep doing what I know will be keeping me safe, and working through the feelings being isolated brings up.

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Default ThumbnailAn Easy Therapist Check-In (or Virtual Appointments Make Things Easier) Default ThumbnailAnother Therapy Check In (or Someone Sees Progress) Default ThumbnailA Super Easy Therapy Appointment (or Just Doing A Check-In) Default ThumbnailAnother Quick Therapy Appointment (or Video Appointments Make Things Easy) Default ThumbnailSome More Virtual Therapy (or Trying Another Medication) Default ThumbnailMoving Forward With Therapy (or Educating Myself)

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Random Driving Around LA (or Anything Is Entertainment)

Posted on August 6, 2020 | Comments Off on Random Driving Around LA (or Anything Is Entertainment)

Before the pandemic, I didn’t drive my car a lot. I work at home and my workouts are very close to my house. But I did drive most days, even if it was for a quick thing. I went to Orangetheory 4 times a week and I was usually doing errands at least 3 days a week. And there were other things like auditions or going to union events that required driving. It was pretty unheard of for me to go an entire week without driving somewhere.

But once the safer at home orders started, my driving became even more limited. I wasn’t going to my workouts. I rarely ran errands on my own because I was getting groceries and supplies delivered to me. I did have to drive for some specific things, but I easily went a week without driving at all. And because I don’t want my car battery to die, I have to make plans to just go out and drive my car from time to time. I don’t always have to do this if I run errands or have appointments that I have to drive to, but it has happened a few times over the past few months. If I know I’ll be going 2 weeks without driving, I do a random drive. And that’s exactly what I did this past weekend.

I debated about driving around to see something fun or going to the beach again, but since it was the weekend and I know more people are out and about, I didn’t want to have to worry about traffic. I ended up not really driving anywhere. I drove around Culver City and the surrounding neighborhoods. I wanted to be driving for at least 15 minutes and I did that. I know I did just waste gas, but I’m also not getting gas for my car that often. I usually fill my car up once a month, but now I think it’s only been twice since March. So I can afford to waste a little.

While I was driving around, I noticed how dirty my car was. I do have a parking space at my house, but it’s not covered. So my car gets dusty or covered in pollen after a while. Since my car is gray, it doesn’t show that much. But while I was driving it really was bugging me. My normal car wash place is somewhere that you get out of your car and the employees take it through the car wash and do the detail work, but I didn’t feel comfortable going there. I wouldn’t mind someone else driving my car, but I didn’t want to have to sit in a waiting area with other people for my car to be done. And I didn’t want to go to a place where you wash your own car (again, I didn’t want to be out around other people). So the best option would be a drive-thru car wash where I stay in the car.

I actually haven’t done a drive-thru car wash in LA, so I had no clue where to go. I posted on social media asking for suggestions of places to go, and one of my friends told me about a car wash that is only a few blocks from my house. I’ve driven past it hundreds of times, but never looked into it. But since it was recommended, I decided to go there.

And honestly, it was fun doing it. It was a lot cheaper than my normal car wash place (but also not as great of a car wash and the inside of my car didn’t get cleaned) and it was so fun sitting in my car going through the car wash. They have different colored lights inside so the soap looks really pretty. Maybe I enjoyed it so much because I don’t have anything else going on in my life, but that’s ok. This entertained me and that’s what counts. The car wash was only a minute or two before it was done and I was on my way back home.

Considering that this was just a drive to make sure my car battery didn’t die, it was a fun way to spend a bit of time. I did some exploring around my neighborhood, got my car washed, and now I know that my car won’t be dead when if I need to use it this week or next week.

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Default ThumbnailEscaping My House For A Bit (or Enjoying Some Time In My Car) Default ThumbnailCarmageddon 2 (or I’ll Be The Idiot Driving All Over Town This Weekend) Default ThumbnailDay Trip To San Diego (or Driving Disasters) Default ThumbnailSo Much Entertainment So Little Time (or Scheduling Leisure Time) Default ThumbnailDriving Around For No Reason (or Finding Places That Make Me Happy) Default ThumbnailA Random Brunch With A Friend (or So Many Pancakes)

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On Hold With Work For Now (or It’s Now A Waiting Game)

Posted on August 5, 2020 | Comments Off on On Hold With Work For Now (or It’s Now A Waiting Game)

When the pandemic hit, I knew my day job doing customer service was going to be affected. And it was affected in stages. First, my hours were cut in half (same as my salary). That went on for a little while. And when that was happening, it was only me and my manager working. My manager did work a little more than I did, but we still pretty much were working together as a team.

Then, my manager had to take leave. I’m not going to go into why because that is her business, but she let me know that she wouldn’t be working and it was going to just be me. And when that happened, my hours and pay got cut even more. I was down to working only 3 hours a week (1 hour a day for 3 days a week) and my pay was cut even more. It was less than my hourly pay would be for 3 hours, but I also understood that the company wasn’t bringing in any money because all of our locations were closed down. So any payments that I could get was nice. And it wasn’t too hard because we also didn’t have a lot of customers. But even though my manager wasn’t working, she would still log in to our chat system to keep me company and to help me out when I needed an extra set of eyes to do some research.

And that’s what my life has been like for the past few months. Minimal work, but I also was collecting unemployment (you can collect to make up what you aren’t earning if you have reduced hours). It wasn’t ideal, but it was what it was and I was grateful to have some schedule and sense of normalcy.

Then things changed again.

Last week, I was put on hold from my customer service job. My manager was going to take over the hours that I was doing (which does make sense as she is the manager and there are some higher-level things they are going to try to work on now). And I was technically out of a job. I do still have my other job doing research, but that is limited hours to begin with. Fortunately, I’m not going to be losing money since I will get it in my unemployment now instead of my paycheck (although we did lose the $600 bump which is something I really needed). And I am going to log into the chat system for the hours I was working to be there for my manager the way that she was there for me. I’m technically not working when I’m logged in, but I’m there so she’s not alone and if she needs help looking something up in the ticketing system I can do so. And just like I was grateful for the limited hours I had to make things feel a bit normal, I’m grateful to be logging in so that I feel like I have a schedule and responsibility.

The owner of the company did tell me that the plan is to hire me back as soon as they can. But we don’t know when things will be back to normal again. It’s hard when our shows are large crowds in a room sitting at tables together. It’s exactly what you aren’t supposed to be doing right now. There are a few cities that are open and have shows because their case numbers are low enough, but it’s a fraction of what is normally open. But I do feel grateful that the owner said that he was planning on bringing me back. I don’t feel like I was fired. I’m just on hold until I can return to work. I still consider myself an employee of the company and there is no reason for me to think that when work starts up again that I won’t be coming back.

I’m really hoping that the unemployment bump returns because that will make me feel much more comfortable about my situation right now. I am much luckier than most people because I do have some money saved that I was hoping to use for something fun or for a future down payment on a condo, but I can use it for rent and bills if necessary. I also know I can ask my parents for help if I really need it. I’m so grateful for those options, but I hope that I don’t have to use them.

I did work on my resume and update it (and used a new template to make it look better) and I probably will look into other remote jobs that have openings right now. I don’t necessarily want to find a new job, but unless I know the unemployment bump is coming back I will need to figure out how to make money. Maybe I’ll luck out and find something that is remote and temporary and I can go back to my customer service job when that is back. I know there are jobs right now for grocery stores or delivery services because those are needed, but because I do have a higher risk of getting sick I don’t feel like taking one of those would be the best thing. So I’m only looking at openings for remote work.

I know I will get through this time. This is temporary. Things will be reopening again and my job will be coming back. I would love to know exactly when that would be happening or to have an idea of how long this will last, but we really don’t know. I doubt any of us expected to still be in this situation in August. Especially with it being worse than it was before. But eventually, it will be better. And I’ll be back to work and so will my co-workers. I do miss working with them and I can’t wait until we are virtually reunited and back to what we are used to.

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Default ThumbnailTime To Make A Game Plan (or Guess I’ll Be Doing Some Job Hunting) Default ThumbnailGetting My Butt In Gear (or Missing Out On Fun Stuff To Work) Default ThumbnailBeing On Hold With A Job (or Not Quite A Quitter) Default ThumbnailWork Work Work (or Another Very Part Time Job) Default ThumbnailReadjusting (or I Guess I Forgot What It Felt Like To Work My Work Schedule) Default ThumbnailWorking To Find Work (or Maybe My Last Work Related Post Did Get Read)

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Doing The Opposite Of My Monthly Challenge (or Continuing To Focus On The Good)

Posted on August 4, 2020 | Comments Off on Doing The Opposite Of My Monthly Challenge (or Continuing To Focus On The Good)

My monthly challenge last month was to focus on things that made me happy. I really did want to update my happiness checklist to see if there were new things I could add and take some old things off. I have been using the same checklist for a while with very little editing. So I felt like it was time for an update.

My plan was to focus my month on what things were making me happy and keeping track of those so I could see what should be on my updated checklist. And that was a really good plan when the month started. That’s just not what happened. What I ended up doing was almost the exact opposite.

Instead of tracking what I was doing each day that made me happy, I noticed things that were not making me happy and seeing if I could eliminate them from my life. And while there are a lot of things I don’t like to do that I have to do, there were plenty of things that I could just stop doing or get rid of. For example, if there was someone annoying me on a dating app, I didn’t try to stick it out. I let them know I didn’t think we were a good match or I wasn’t interested and unmatched with them. I am starting to not feel the desperate need to try to make any match work. I know there are plenty of other guys I will match with. And when dating apps were annoying me in general, I stepped away from them. If I didn’t feel like doing dishes immediately (which I do try to do), I would rinse them off and wait a bit longer before scrubbing them. And when the entire day just felt like too much for me and I needed a break, I took a nap.

While I wasn’t necessarily finding things that made me happy, I was doing things to make my day happier. And I think that is a big accomplishment for me. My checklist might still be the same, but since the overall goal was to be happier I think I did accomplish that.

And my challenge for this month feels like a continuation of last month. I want to put focus on the good things in my life. This was inspired by a podcast I listen to that is all about the good happening in the world right now. There are good things in my life right now, even when it doesn’t feel like it. I am very lucky in many ways and I want to focus more on that.

So I’m going to work on tracking the good in my life each day. I’m going to do this along with my gratitude list that I do each evening. I’m going to try to make at least 2 of the things on my gratitude list things that are good each day. That way, even when I have a bad day I can remind myself that not everything is bad.

I need this challenge as being isolated is getting to me more and more. I don’t want my mental health to be a struggle and I can see how I can get to that point if I am not proactive about it. So this is something I am doing in order to make sure I stay more positive than pessimistic each day. I know this won’t fix everything or magically make my life better, but I know that it will at least force me to acknowledge that I do have good things in my life even when I don’t feel like that is true.

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Default ThumbnailTaking A Month To Reset (or This Doesn’t Really Feel Like A Monthly Challenge) Default ThumbnailAn Isolation Monthly Challenge (or Just Trying To Keep Things Going) Default ThumbnailMy August Challenge (or Being Selfish To Be Happy) Default ThumbnailAdjusting Monthly Challenges (or Books And Happiness) Default ThumbnailBuilding Upon My Monthly Challenge (or Continuing To Work On Shopping) Default ThumbnailMonthly Challenge Check-In (or Doing My Own Version Of An OTF Challenge This Month)

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