It all seems rather hard

I haven’t posted for a couple of weeks because life continues to be difficult. There’s too much going on, and I’m going around constantly at the brink of overwhelm, which is no way to live life. And the irony is, just now when I logged into this blog to write about how there’s too many new and difficult things in my life, I discovered that they’ve completely changed the format.

I don’t want to be one of those old people who can’t deal with a minor computer change. But it’s 6:30 AM, I’m skipping my exercise routine to write, and the last thing I need right now is a completely unfamiliar wordpress interface.

Everything is fine, but there’s just so much. Actually, Robert is not fine, and that tragedy is just hanging out there, just out of reach, just beyond comprehension. But everything in my own immediate daily life is fine, it’s just a lot.

At work my boss gave 3-days notice last month and left. So I’m doing some of his job. Another one of the managers in our section is struggling in her job (she has a challenging team), and she is planning to take a different job soon. So I’m also trying to take on as much of her job as possible. We’re chronically understaffed, can’t get all our work done, and things slip through the cracks sometimes.

Yesterday some handwritten notes by one of my team members were accidentally forwarded by someone on a different team TO THE CUSTOMER. In our case, “customer” means “a facility we regulate”. The notes had to do with the questionable legality of an exemption we allow that’s critical to them. As soon as I realized what happened, I had to alert the Bureau Chief, because she was undoubtably going to get panicked calls from the customer. There was fall-out from that all day yesterday, and probably continuing the rest of the week.

Also yesterday, one of our dogs (Kai) had a seizure. He’s ok now. He’s had about 5 of them (that we’re aware of) in his 12 years of life. He always recovers, but it’s hard to watch. He got woosy, and slumped to the floor and shook for awhile (a minute or two – it seemed like forever). Then he was a little disoriented and subdued for about 5 minutes, and then he was completely fine. I assume he occasionally does this while we’re at work and we’d never know. But I also assume it’s not too frequently or we’d see it more often when we are home.

He’s being cute at the moment. They all just discovered there’s an inch or two of snow outside this morning, so they’re running in and out the doggie door.

Last week I had an off-site training course for 3 days, which I missed half of because I had to keep up with my job as well. So finally, with the help of John over the weekend and a coworker yesterday, I managed to get the coursework completed and sent in. But I’ve been working a lot of extra hours.

I’m also trying to get some medical things done. I’m fine, it’s just deferred maintenance, lol. I’m getting glasses and contacts. And I went to an expensive doctor about my migraines (not covered by insurance). She ordered a million tests and wants me to go to two specialists in Albuquerque, and I just can’t even. It’s too much. I’ve got way too much going on. I haven’t done a single test or anything. Luckily my migraines are doing really well lately.

Also, my car has been in the shop repeatedly. Finally I’ve discovered a good mechanic, so I won’t be wasting time and money at the dealership anymore. My car has multiple issues, and the new mechanic did a great job of fixing the issue I asked him to fix. So now I’d like to take it back for him to fix a different issue that the dealership has repeatedly failed to fix. But I’m just so tired of having my car in the shop all the time.

Of course it’s Christmas. You all know what that means. Sending cards and buying gifts and cooking for holiday potlucks and getting a tree and all of the things. We couldn’t find our tree lights, so I’ve had a bare tree up for a week.

I have the ornaments, but I can’t put them up until I have the lights! The lights go on first. At least we didn’t lose our ornaments again. That was tragic when we lost all our ornaments, including the ones I made as a child and my kids made as children. You’re probably wondering how does one lose all their Christmas ornaments? Like, where would they go? That’s what happens when you move every year. We never did find them, and have just been buying new ones for the last couple of years.

We’re currently missing a lot of random household items. I’m optimistically assuming they are at John’s house (and he’s optimistically assuming they are at my house, but he’d be wrong). Someday we’ll have it all sorted.

I’m very stressed about the task of getting the Placitas house on the market. It’s not in good enough condition to list yet, and John and I aren’t on the same page about what needs to be done and how to do it. We know we’re going to lose money on the house, it’s just a matter of how much. It’s going to take an enormous amount of work to get it ready for the market, and there’s nothing more discouraging than pouring time and money into a house you’re not going to keep. Also we’ve tried to sell it before, so we are imagining the same thing all over again – it sitting on the market for months and months.

Oh my gosh, I just discovered we’re on a 2-hour delay! I have no idea why. It can’t be more than an inch of snow.

There must be a sheet of ice under it, which wouldn’t surprise me. It was fairly warm last night. Whoo-hoo! Two hours. Two completely unexpected, completely empty hours.

I’m going to go for a jog in the snow!

Ok, never mind, I’m not going jogging in the snow. I took two steps outside just to get more dog food from the garage, and I could barely stay on my feet. There’s a thick sheet of ice under the snow.

Not only am I not going jogging, I doubt I can even go for a walk. That explains the delay. Now I’m wondering if 2 hours will be enough!