Bear has gas this morning...

Bear has gas this morning and I think he doesn't like the feeling of needing to fart. He has no chill and every time he reaches for his butt, he lets one rip... Yes, right into his own face. 😂

We thought he may be itching, so we scratched his booty area where he has a hard time reaching and we also wiped his butt. We can't find any sign of him being dirty or of something being wrong. But he is very antsy and wiggly and keeps turning in circles to try to reach his booty.

Hopefully, this PASSES soon. 😂 Poor buddy. We don't know how else to help him. We love our strange little child, but I definitely wish we could conversate with him to know what goes through his mind.

Bear just squished a fart out of himself...

I got up around 11 today.

I got up around 11 today.  We went to the pet store for animal supplies.  We came home and did nothing.  Then Shaun and I decided to have a date, so we went to a local Irish pub for dinner and it was really good.  We even got dessert; he got the Bailey's Cheesecake that had chocolate chunks in it and I got the crème brûlée.  It had a slight hint of cinnamon and was really good.

We accomplished nothing else today.  Well, Shaun put chemicals in the pool.  I don't know what else he might have done before I got up.  But we did not start on the greenhouse.  I said approximately 100 times that I was going to vacuum, but I did not do it.  It's not like the dust and pet hair won't be waiting for me tomorrow.  😆

I know I have notifications and I swear I'm not trying to be rude; I just don't quite have the energy for communication at the moment.  I'm crashing out and I have another early start at work tomorrow, so I guess I'm heading to bed.  I'm gonna do my very best to be up an hour before work instead of sleeping until the last minute.  My treadmill doesn't come until Wednesday, but it won't hurt me to try to do some good sleep hygiene on myself.  If I need to move around in the morning, I guess I can always vacuum or de-bug/water my plants or scoop the dog poops or something.

Goodnight, friends.  ❤

I know that I'm talking too much tonight and I don't care.

I know that I'm talking too much tonight and I don't care.  I'm not even a little bit sorry.  😁

I've been eating like crap and I feel it in my skin and my bones.  I am feeling a slight amount of stress at work because of how busy I am.  Stress and bad diet flare up my psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis.  I have to do better.

I work from home so I usually roll out of bed right before work and get to it.  Then I work until 6, hang out with Shaun and the fam and watch our shows and play my games, then go to bed.

We sometimes walk the dogs or swim or do light yard work, but there is no actual exercising in my daily routine, even though the doctor who prescribed me hormones also told me to walk daily and start strength training.  This also has to change since I do my job sitting.

I have a treadmill on the way and it's going in my bedroom.  I am feeling a strong urge to reclaim some of my morning hours before work to exercise and meal-prep.  Shaun and I used to walk around the neighborhood, but that's a whole "take the dogs, get dressed, put on sunscreen and carry water" ordeal.  It feels like too many barriers.

I REALLY, REALLY enjoyed going to the new gym at JSU.  I would get on the treadmill, put on some music, and just walk.  I'm a band nerd, so I walked to the rhythm - but I walked.  I've noticed that although I enjoy music I don't listen to it in my daily life.  I can't while I work, I can't while I watch TV, I mostly just don't have the time.  So I think that I could do that while I walk on the treadmill in the morning and that would be nice.

I really miss skating, but it's hard to do at home with Bear because he thinks we're playing.  We haven't been to a park since Cubba was attacked, but there's a place we used to go that had a skate park and dog park where Shaun would take the dogs while I rolled around.  Unfortunately, it's the same park where Cub was attacked, and I'm a bit scared (for the sake of his mental health) to try to take him back.

I haven't gone to a skate park solo in a very long time.  I feel guilty leaving Shaun alone with the dogs because Bear can be a handful.  He's our toddler child and I don't know if he'll ever grow out of that.  So I've got to find a way to get in some extra movement here.  I'm going to start with walking, then maybe after I've established that routine I can work on strength training.  We have an exercise machine and there's always calisthenics, so I don't really have an excuse not to, except for the fact that I haven't made time.  But I feel like my health has thankfully mostly been ok and I need to start moving around before it's too late to preserve it.

Another thing that happened recently...

Another thing that happened recently was that I got my hearing tested.  Guess what.  I can hear.  It's just that I don't just sit around in "active listening" mode.  I'm not Google.  😂

The hearing-testers recommended that people speak to me face-to-face and that I should make sure background noise is at a minimum if I need to have a conversation.  That makes sense.  Just about the only person I don't have trouble hearing is Shadow, and I 100% believe that's because he almost always starts every conversation with "Hey Mom."  Then he has my attention and I'm also looking at him.

No one else does that.  Shaun's voice is deep so if I'm not paying attention to him I don't know what he's saying.  He also has a habit of trying to talk to me when music or the television is on.  That's a big NO for me.  It's harder to understand him and that will also lead me straight into sensory overload.

Kira comes down and will start talking out of nowhere.  I'm never prepared because she's a bit chaotic.  😆  Sometimes she's chatty and sometimes not.  And often she'll be in the other room talking and I'll not be aware that it was directed at me.  She also has a tendency to make up words (I love that about her, for real), and I feel like she and Shadow have developed a bit of a short-hand that I don't understand, so I often have to ask her to repeat herself, too.

Everyone over here acting like my ears are the problem.  I have confirmation that they're NOT, so take THAT.  🤪

But also, that hearing test was the most relaxed I've been in ages.  The put me in a soundproof booth.  I could hear my blood pumping.  It was dimly lit.  I nearly fell asleep during the test.  I need one of those in my house to retreat to.  😆

I fully admit that I'm a ridiculous person.

I fully admit that I'm a ridiculous person.  I'm ok with it.  I'm living my best life openly and authentically.  But there are times that I really think I'm closer to the neurodivergent end of the spectrum than I thought my whole life.  I should probably get tested.

Example:  I recently got a new tablet/laptop/all-in-one because my Surface tablet that Shaun bought me around 7 years ago when I started at JSU has been failing.  There have been issues with charging it despite buying a new charger, so I haven't been able to reliably use it in a while.

I also had this giant desktop-replacement laptop that I've had for 4-ish years that worked for most things, but I couldn't play my puzzle games on it as easily due to the size and the fact that it it didn't convert into a tablet.  I recently wiped and re-homed it and got something newer to replace both the tablet and laptop and it works for everything I want to use it for.  I really love it and that's great.

HOWEVER, now that I'm back to playing games on it I can't stop.  I enjoy the Microsoft Solitaire games once in a while, but they have daily challenges (5/day) going back to January.  Guess what?  I can't not do them all.  It's so dumb.  It's like if I'm going to do any of them, I MUST have a perfect record for the year.  Am I having a blast?  Nope.  It's just a compulsion and I know from years of being myself that fighting it isn't going to make it better.  If anything, I will be able to put it off, but at some point I'll panic and try my hardest to finish them all before the end of the year.  So I might as well save myself the stress and do what I can starting NOW.

I could be working on my database.  I could be writing.  I could be working on my website.  There are so many things I could be doing and would like to be doing, but I'm not.  Because Solitaire.  I'm going to either keep up with the daily games starting in January or just swear them off entirely this coming year.  I wish I'd never started them when I got this new computer, but I did and now I'm dealing with those consequences.

Another thing I'm binging hard as fuck is Dexter.  We're on the last season - FINALLY.  And I just want to finish it.  I don't know why everything has to be a "challenge" to me, but many things that should be relaxing are just... not.

How I relaxed today after this past ridiculously-long week was to snooze in my bed off and on until 4 pm.  I don't have a sleep hangover so I clearly needed the rest, but there is nothing to me more luxurious than being left alone in my bed.  I wasn't allowed to sleep in much on weekends as a kid.  Then when I had Shadow I wasn't sleeping much because I had a baby.  Then a boyfriend who wouldn't drive but wanted to be driven all over the world on the weekends, and many years of working more than one job, etc.  Sleep and being left alone have always felt like luxuries to me.  Thankfully, Shaun understands and when I need quality time with my bed, he leaves me to it.  So by the time I got up today, I felt pretty good.  I accomplished literally nothing, but at least I'm rested.

I. am. EXHAUSTED.

I. am. EXHAUSTED.

This isn't a complaint because I love my job, but I billed 41 hours this week, and had 4 hours of meetings on top of that on my timecard. I know that's probably not impressive, but some of those meetings started at 7 am and my day can't officially end until 6 pm, so that makes a tired Blu.

We really need to start building the greenhouse this weekend. I've neglected my plants and not watered them for a few weeks and a few of the smaller ones have died. ☹️ Not only that, I've found mealy bugs on 3 of them, so I need to go through all of them carefully and isolate them. I definitely have the energy for this. /s

Also, we got a new microwave because our old one kept stopping in the middle of cooking. It's larger. And pretty. It has a locking door that we had to figure out. 😂 I'm wondering if it has a silent mode so we don't have to have it make noise when food is done. I'll check later. For now, I might be crashing out. Yes, at 6 pm. 😂😂😂 I just can't do anything else right now.