singedsun

While I'm feeling better, I've pinched something in my arms I think from my now perfect set up in my bedroom where i"ve been working 9-11 hour days for the last nearly three months. So I've been trying to stay off the computer/less typing in general right now and sadly a little less time with my Spartan wife in Assassin's Creed Odyssey. 

Saturday, Matt and I went through the back room and did some cleaning and rearranging and I finally ordered a new desk for myself so I can relocate and not be sitting at my vanity all day every day (which was never intended to be a permanent workspace in the first place). Mentally, I'd always meant this space for like casual browing/youtube and relaxing. It's where my makeup and skin care is and all my witchy stuff, so it's supposed to be a calm retreat in my house. Not the place I'm working and stressed throughout the week. My desk should be here next week, so I'm trying to keep non-work time on the computer to a minimum so I can give my arm/hands a break. 

The good news is that no migraines, even with these storms and no more nausea now that I'm off that one med, and no more ear pain since the ear infection gone. I feel like it's all been incremental improvements, but the last like four or five days I've felt better than I have in like two months. I mean I never even would've been capable of moving stuff this weekend to get that back room ready for a new desk before this week. 

We had a survey go out at work this week about a possible interest in returning to the office. I think both Matt and I, given the way our jobs have been handling this time, are probably home for the rest of the year. There might even be an option for me to stay home longer than that, or move to a more half in/half out of the office work style, which both me and my dogs would enjoy I think. 

I hope you all are doing well. <3 I miss reading all your entries and I miss posting more regularly. 

I did turn in my jukebox_fest fic this weekend, which was really an effort for me to write but I think I'm happy with it. I've got my intoabar assignment which I'm so excited about and I just did my sign-up for for justmarriedexchange. So I'm excited to get back to writing in general in the near future.

Like this isn't New Music Friday yet or anything (Maker, do I wish it was Friday though) but I do need to quickly update to say that the new Fiona Apple album I mentioned last Friday "Fetch the Bolt Cutters" is so ah-maze-ing. Work has been a ball of stress (as I mentioned yesterday) and I haven't done any yoga the last three days as I was getting used to in the last few weeks, but when I have time during the day to have something on that isn't a work meeting, it's this album. I mean. It's just so good. It's typical Fiona Apple sounds, but graduated to like this whole new level of good. I'm in love. If you want some song recs off the album to try, there's "I Want You to Love Me" with all the drama that title entails. There's "Shameika which I can't even describe really but is very self empowering. OH and "Under the Table which has all the power behind it that a line like "I would beg to disagree, but begging disagrees with me" implies. Lastly, there's "Ladies" which is about leaving behind your stuff for the next woman who takes up with an ex. But really, the whole thing.

I spent $40 tonight buying bleach and dye in order to dye Matt's hair blue once it all arrives. I don't know why he picked the hardest fucking color in the world to dye yourself when you're starting with dark hair. But whatever. It's the first time in his life he's in a position to do something fun with his hair and he's decided to make it blue until he gets the call to return to work. I polled the people in my life who do this sort of thing on their own to good results to figure out what they use and what they like and I THINK I'm prepared, but I guess we'll find out when it all gets here.

It's just as well that the beauty supply places I looked at didn't have hair clippers in stock, at least not any decently rated and well-priced ones. Because I'm so tempted right now to cut off the front sides of my undercut I've been growing out. The more the back of my undercut grows out, the more annoying it ALL is and having to be on video calls (they're expecting when available at least 75% of our staff in each meeting to have their videos turned on) it's a reminder of how much I hate what it looks like right now. Now I'm not some fucking Karen that wants my hairdresser back in the salon so he can fix my hair. I have a very overactive sensory issues that mean things like itches and hair growth and rough clothing trigger anxiety in not great ways. But I WANT these front sides grown out, so I'm trying my best to just deal.

Especially since we heard today from our executives that it'll be at least two more months before anyone returns back to working in the office and even then it'll only be a small percentage of our staffs. They'll continue to increase small percentages in our offices (10-15% returning every couple of weeks) as they track what the pandemic looks like in our area and how safe it is to continue to let people back into the building. Most of our teams are small (there's eight people on my team but those people are split among three specific dedicated tasks, plus me and my manager) so losing a couple of people of a team at a time for potentially weeks at a time, would really dent our productivity. When keeping us working from home optimally is the better long-term solution. Honestly, I while I'm stressed currently, I appreciate the efforts our office is taking to contain our workers and keep people safe as possible. Plus, I think it helps drive home exactly how serious it is in the areas where our people live.

I did find out that another team has requested me to upper management as a transfer to their team, not as a team lead but to move over as a developer. Honestly, it might be a pay bump and it'd be great experience. It's not exactly the career path I was headed towards, but having people request me specifically because of my current knowledge and experience is pretty cool. Although this would be a crazy time to be switching roles and trying to train up. I have no idea what that'd look like. Something to think about though.

I'm still feeling tired and worn down by this year and the 12 months just in general. I feel like this six months-ish fatigue I'm feeling is the fact that my hormones and my body is still recooping after the hysterectomy. They did tell me it could be up to a year before I really felt back to normal. However, there's also the matter having stepped down off on my regular Fibromyalgia meds in the last several months. It's been about three weeks I've been off them altogether and I'm definitely notice there's a more defined fatigue/brain fog that wasn't there even just before. My rheumatologist update isn't for a few more months left and I for sure need to see the GYN sometime very soon since I'm up on that six months mark since surgery. I've just been putting it off. We took out the offending organ for a purpose, so I know I just need to get my shit together and make the appointment. Which cycles back around to feeling like I don't the mind or energy for most of it.

The migraines from this round of pressure systems and winter weather definitely isn't helping. After the baby shower on Saturday for my sister, my mother called one of my brothers (the one I'm close to) and asked if he knew if something was wrong with me. Apparently I was "off" in a way she didn't want to attribute to tiredness or fatigue or just generally being over her stress about having the party in my grandparents house which has been reduced to a bunch of old furniture and a few stitched together memories. They've already moved into their retirement center, but the grandkids haven't been allowed to help with any of it because they don't want certain "elements of our family" picking through the leftovers of their house. I both can't blame them but am slightly annoyed by the whole process, because it leaves my mother and step-father to do most of the work when her siblings won't help.

This whole year has just a lot; both the month and a half of 2020 and the whole last 12 months. About this time last year, I was getting in trouble at work because I was having health issues we later found was attributed to my rebelling uterus. But the stress at the office itself hasn't really subsided and I've twice now been scouted by outside agencies for lunch meetings to talk about what it'd take to get me to leave. And knowing I have big options doesn't help with the day to day stresses, when I do truly like my team.

In the interim, I'm finding it own to lash on to new shows, especially long or dramatic ones. So I've been settling back into familiar territory, which I feel like I do just about this time every year. Thank you, winter moods. Recently, I rediscovered that Miranda (the British sitcom starring Miranda Hart) is on Hulu, so I picked that up tonight and watched a few episodes. If you like heartfelt comedy and can stand a bit of cringe (and a little out of date comedy) I really recommend it. This and Black Books are my seasonal go-tos, because every episode makes me laugh at least once. But with Miranda, I also feel so much for the main character, because she's size 20 woman in her mid-thirties who is not conventionally attractive. She's treated as awkwardly loveable and honestly I relate overmuch maybe, considering the number of toys on my desk at work.

(Also of note about Miranda if you've never watched it: Tom Ellis, now better known for his role as Lucifer Morningstar on the American television show, Lucifer, plays Miranda's friend and potential love interest. There's only 3 seasons, 20 episodes and it's just good fun.

Usually one run through the three seasons of either show is good to make me feel back to normal for a little while. So a couple of days and we'll see where I am. I guess. If I need a little something else, there's always Black Books or Black Adder... or by then I might be back to dramatic horror movies for a little while. (Stoker is almost always one of my go-tos.)

honigfrosch is doing a love meme (anon or not is up to you) and I'd love for it to take off and give some people some happy vibes. My post is here.

This was an extended weekend for many of us Americans due to Martin Luther King Jr. Day. I got very few holidays off throughout the year, because my company trades globally, but this is one of them. Matt and I managed to get a little bit of cleaning/reorganizing done although it's by no means the amount we need to finish. I'm tired of my books being in books through from the shift from upstairs to downstairs shelves, so we finally carved out some space so we can start digging through boxes and putting books up. Maybe by the end of next week I can actually start getting those books out.

As part of this weekend we also finally got rid of the crib that we'd been holding onto since I found out my little sister is pregnant. Their roommate finally moved out so they have their nursery back to themselves and can prepare for the actual baby by getting the crib set up and ready to go. That does mean I have no time at all to be sending out invitations to her baby shower, so I need to do that like THIS week.

I need to figure out how to get rid of our pool table. It's a bear to carry ANYWHERE and I kind of want it gone more than I want to make any money off of it. But I also know that it's worth money and we could use money, so I'm going have to clean all our junk off of it (It's kind of cat-land right now with their beds and toys) so I can take pictures to post somewhere. There's also a bunch of other junk furniture that just needs to be taken away away. The free large trash people never answered back Matt when he called, so I guess I'll have to call a service, which is real annoying.

In the good news column (other than the minor cleaning/organizing that happened this weekend) we got the notice that the money for Matt's totaled car was delivered to the bank. So another few days for that to clear and we might be able to go out this weekend and replace his car. A used one this time, same make/model but something very close to the one he lost which doesn't take us another extra year to pay off, and will probably significantly lower our monthly payments overall. Ultimately, for such a disastrous wreck this has paid off about as well as it could have with Matt uninjured and the car completely paid for.

In fandom good news, rose_griffes senmut & I have taken over as admins for the halfamoon challenge in February. There's a post up with all the prompts so that people can plan what they might want to write in February if you're that kind of person. There's also two sets of prompts one that's lunar/moon-themed and one that's more women specific if that's your thing.

If you don't know about halfamoon, it's a challenge to create for canon female characters between February 1st and 14th. We'll have an open prompt-meme on the 1st of February that people can contribute too and then a friending meme on the 8th as people get into the swing of things. We'll post the prompt(s) each day and people can post as they finish things.

For at least the first half of the month as halfamoon runs, I'll be focusing my Femslash February ideas there. I think I'll pick up a trope bingo or ladies bingo card for the other half of the month and see how much I can commit to for the whole month. I know I'm supposed to be editing in January and February, but that's really fallen by the wayside so far this month as life kind of had to come first. But for the last two weeks of the month, we'll see what I can get done.

Since what you're likely to see in the near future is me talking about writing and upcoming deadlines for NaNoWriMo, Yuletide and Critmas (and maybe others), I thought I'd do something a little different. I've been mentioning that I set up a space in my bedroom that's kind of a space all my own where I can get away for an hour or so and wind down for the evening, use my altar space, use it as a vanity for my makeup... whatever I need for that time each morning and each evening. It's been so nice. I haven't been able to use it every night, but since I've gone back to work I've been sitting here every morning to put on my makeup.

I don't think I post a picture of my space, but I'm pretty proud of it so I like to show it off. It's changed a little bit since I took this one, but not so much. So here it is after I added the black velvet skull on the right side of the shelf my altar is on.

He's balancing the shelf out from the blue one I bought a few weeks ago.

— Elizabeth 🐺 Don't forget to love each other (@singedsun) October 8, 2019

But, since putting this place together for myself, I've also been able to get a better look at all my makeup and break out some samples I've been sitting on.

( Makeup/Skincare stuff )

Anyway, I hope if makeup/skincare is your thing, this post was interesting to you. I'm happy to answer questions, talk about other products if anyone has suggestions.

Otherwise, I hope my fellow Star Wars fans are enjoying the new trailer tonight. Leia's "Always" is PERFECT. I can't wait for December. A friend and I have been meeting each year for a movie when she comes down my way for Christmas with her family. We already have the day off planned the Monday after the movie release to go see it. :)

Even though I'm still sleeping through a lot of the day because my sleep is all off, I'm finding that when I am awake, I have a really short attention span. This is to be expected when healing and stuck in the house. I'm not free to drive on my own yet and won't be until my doctor gives the okay on the 10th of September, so I'm stuck here during the day. Since I'm on a lift-restriction and not supposed to bend too much, there's also not much I can do on my own around the house. I've given myself a little project or two, but I really need people's help to get stuff done.

There's also a lot of executive dysfunction that comes from being home and unable to do much, which goes with the short attention span. Sometimes I can just chill in front of Netflix and binge something for hours, but today all I had the attention for was short YouTube videos or half-hour tv shows that aren't following a narrative of any kind. I've been going back and catching up on old episodes of Hasan Minhaj's Patriot Act on Netflix, which is good because each episode has a different topic, there's no narrative to follow.

I did take a writing commission the other night from the person that was messaging my second AO3 account, it's only 2k words and they gave a really detailed outline of what they want. I told them I'd have it done within the week, but after a day like today where I just felt out of it most of the day, I don't really have the focus to work on it. I've got an idea on how it starts already though, so once I have the focus, I feel like I'll just be able to sit down and pound it out in a few hours.

I reached out to my sister and my best friend about coming out to visit me this week. I think if I had someone here with me, I could get a couple of things done and I know that having someone here will keep me from just losing several hours to sleep or brain fog. My sister is going to come out tomorrow and I want to go through the toddler clothes we have just in a big pile right now, maybe give her some if we have stuff that's still small enough for a baby since she's expecting.

My birthday is Wednesday and my best friend is going to come out that afternoon and said she might bring this old movie with her that we love for us to watch. I'm also hoping that the ThredUp bag I ordered might be here by then and she can help me pick out pieces to fill that up with to mail out. Matt's taking me out to a fancy dinner Wednesday night, so maybe if we don't have the ThredUp bag by then she'll be willing to help me do my makeup or something instead.

Maybe I can have Matt's mom come out again on Friday, depending on how she's feeling. Matt's dad was in the hospital over the weekend with low blood sugar/low blood pressure as a result of some medication interaction. He's home now and better, but I don't know if she'll feel up to leaving him alone come Friday or not. I'll wait until Thursday maybe before asking her.

Today I forced myself to make a couple of phone calls I've been putting off. One was to my doctor's office who rejected a medication refill I've been taking for more than a year now. There was no information from the pharmacist about why it was rejected, so I left a message with the nurse to tell me if there's something I need to do to get it filled again. I was just in that doctor's office like four weeks ago for my weekly check-up, so there shouldn't be anything weird about getting it refilled as far as I know. The other phone call was to my benefits company who is saying I'm supposed to go back to work on Monday. There's no way I'm capable of that right now. I had to leave a message with that person too. According to their website, it looks like they haven't gotten any doctor information back, but my post-op check-up isn't until the 10th, so it's not like I have any other information to provide other than the initial info the doctor gave me, telling me eight weeks for recovery. So hopefully I get calls back on those tomorrow and make plans to do whatever it is they need from me.

I tried to go to sleep early tonight, and got maybe three-ish hours before I woke up and knew I couldn't get anymore sleep for the night. The severe stomach pain I've been having the past two nights is finally lessening though. It wasn't the only thing keeping me awake, but I think by the end of the week if the pain stays low-key I might try sleeping in the bed again. Once I get back to actually sleeping laying down, I think I'll be able to get my scheduled back on track. I want to be ready to get back to normal days/schedules by the time I have my appointment on the 10th, so I'll be ready for work if that's what the benefits people say. Though if I have to resort to taking more vacation hours, I could do that too just to make sure I'm actually ready to return physically and mentally before I go back.

My sleep schedule isn't quite back to normal yet after surgery. I stopped taking the heavy meds Monday afternoon, because they were really just knocking me out everyday and they were making me really nauseous after my meals. The pain isn't so much without them that I can't just handle it, given that ibuprofen really just does nothing for it.

Tonight is likely going to be a wash though, RLS in my left leg is making it hard to stay asleep when I start to drift off and since my stomach is still healing and sore I can't really move around like I normally would to try to alleviate the pain/discomfort. So I'm just going to treat it like insomnia #fuckfibromyalgia and try to get my mind off of it for a little bit.

While I write, I'm listening to this really great fanmix I found on Tumblr for Fleabag/(Hot) Priest and it's really good so far. I'd like to throw it in my New Music Friday post this week when I get to it -- if people would want to see things like that included? I don't normally include like a playlist unless it's a full new album but would people be okay if I included the occasional fanmix in those posts? (I've done one before, but it was a gift for me, so I felt like that was different than just like this which would be something random I just came across. Still.)

We drove up to Minneapolis for CONvergence yesterday. And it took me until this morning as I was getting dressed to remember that I didn't pack any bras for the weekend. Now while this convention is VERY tolerant and people are extremely kind, I do not feel comfortable as a large woman, going without. So, I spent my morning searching for places I could order some and have them delivered by tomorrow or where in the city I could go to buy them in my size. Again, a difficult thing to do, given that most stores aren't going to just have my size on the rack. I don't know about any of you other bra-wearing folk, but for me, bras have to fit VERY specifically. I've managed to find some I like very well and I bought them in all the colors and have been wearing them for years. So having at the last minute to find some very quickly in a city I'm not familiar with, not an easy task.

I did check the devil site, Amazon, wondering if I could have them delivered overnight. Alas, the earliest I could get them would've been Monday and I'll be home by then. So I did some calling around to the few plus size stores I'm familiar with, got the car out of hotel hock and drove to try on clothes. Boy, what a way to spend the first day of a convention.

The good news, well two things: one, I was successful in my endeavor. So I can go out in public this weekend and feel supported AND comfortable. And two, Thursdays at CONvergence are pretty light days panel-wise, so I got back just in time for the first panel I'd really wanted to see: Ready, Set, Flash.

Ready, Set, Flash is like a writing game show. There's a host who gathers up suggestions from the audience, then gives the panelist five minutes to write a story using those suggestions. Then while the panelist write, the host splits the room into two teams and asks us trivia questions. The winning side gets to give suggestions for the next round of writing. At the end of the five minutes, the writers read their flash fiction and the audience judges which it likes best. It's a lot of fun, and there are some amazing little stories that come from that panel. Today, one of the panelist I wasn't familiar with just wrote all poetry for his entries and they were each amazing.

After that, I went to a Chuck Tingle panel called "Proving Love is Real". Chuck showed up in a gi, and a bag on his head stating of course that "love is real". He spoke to a Powerpoint presentation he'd created about how we can prove love in small ways, big ways and 'self' ways. It was hilarious. I have a small Twitter thread here with some screenshots of his presentation and a couple shots of him while he spoke. It's amusing the pains Chuck has taken to mask himself this weekend. We know that Chuck is a fan of the convention (a few years ago he wrote a short that was read live by Mark Oshiro during the convention and mentioned the convention in it) and many of us who have been going for a few years have theorized that Chuck is someone in the well-known writer's community up here, even if maybe he doesn't live here anymore. When he spoke, he definitely put on an affected accent, not just sort of Western-ish, but there's also a sing-song quality to it that reminds me of Emo Phillips. It's... strange. But, he was an enjoyable speaker and he's got another panel tomorrow called "Avoiding the Void" which if not full, I might try and attend.

Spent the early part of last week moving everything out of the living room so we could have new carpet installed on Thursday. Then we spent the long weekend painting said living room. I realize it's the wrong order, but we didn't have time to paint before the carpet happened so we were just extra careful to cover the new carpet when we painted. Plus it's a big room to paint so it took us MOST of Sunday just to get it painted, having set the drop cloths and tape on Saturday evening and done the clean up today.

It'll still take us a week or so to move things into that room now that it's done but just the carpet and paint done on its own, has made me feel a thousand times better. Our old carpet was bad and gross and gave me anxiety every time I spent more than a few moments walking through. Now it feels comfy and looks like it belongs in the home of a proper adult.

Part of this whole process just sets off a chain of other things to do, like moving the television from the basement to the living room and mounting it on the wall so the cats can't climb it or knock it over. And moving all the games and consoles, and dvds, which will likely also require new shelving? IDK exactly what we'll have or need space for. But I feel like it looks like a livable space now and it hasn't for a really, really long time. So it's progress.

I know everyone's so into the whole Kon-Mari thing because Marie's show just came out, even though the books been out for years or whatever. I don't really have any interest in her show or her methods. This living room project we're finishing has been something we've been working on for about six months, just little bits at a time. But I'll admit seeing the empty room right now is a really nice feeling and I'm motivated to keep it as simple as possible going forward.

The whole purpose is to make it an actual living room, which it's never properly been since we've lived here. First it was just a way point for all the stuff we moved into the house, then it was just a place to sit and eat when we had friends over, a place to host Christmas/Thanksgiving parties, and mostly just a way-station between rooms. You have to go through that room to get everywhere else in the house which is partially why it was such a mess. But the way we live right now is pretty simple and I want to have a room that's for actually living in. For watching television and playing video games and listening to music/podcasts with other people.

Once we get the last things moved and the television set up, that's exactly what I'm going to have. It's strange to be excited over something that seems so simple. (And such an adult(TM) thing.)

The living room project as it was is one of the items on page in my bullet journal called my Clean Slate list. Projects I've been putting off or putting on hold or just never getting to for one reason or another. They're not necessarily this big or expensive, but for one reason or another they're not getting done either. Feels good to check this one off the list.