(Behind the scenes of this photo: Chip, my fur-brother, basically destroys anything he comes in contact with and he particularly loves destroying blankets by putting holes in them. This is the blanket in his crate and, well, you can see how he spends his time while he’s in there. Sigh. This crazy dude!)
The high of my week was surprising a friend for her birthday! Tomorrow is her birthday and my friends and I decided on a mid-week surprise so that she wouldn’t suspect a thing. She was properly shocked and we must give major kudos to her husband for helping us plan this and find the best time for the surprise. Yay! Afterward, we all hung out in her backyard (properly distanced, of course!) and chatted about life and coronavirus and all that jazz. (Although, I swear anyone walking by her house when we were all there would have thought we were the WORST people ever, since we had NINE cars shoved in her driveway, haha.)
The low of my week was work stress. It’s been a really stressful week in my work life, where I feel like I can’t take a minute to breathe from the moment I turn on my computer at the beginning of the day. The end of the month is always pretty crazy as I work on a monthly schedule and have to get everything done by the last day of the month, but it’s felt crazier than normal. I’ve also had a lot of other deadlines fall into my lap that are outside my normal monthly work, so it’s just been a lot.
An anti-racism resource I’d like to share is this white privilege questionnaire. It came as no surprise to me that I scored a 30 (the highest score). White people, even if you understand your white privilege, I still think it’s worth looking over the questions and recognizing all the different ways BIPOC are discriminated against.
A podcast episode I enjoyed was Tom Hanks on Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend. Yes, this episode has been out for a while, but I’m wayyy behind on my podcast queue. Tom Hanks is a national treasure and this podcast just reaffirmed my obsession with him. He is hilarious, warm, kind, and just an all-around good guy. (Also, the beginning segment with just Conan and his two co-hosts had me crying with laughter so that’s worth a listen alone.)
The best money I spent was $14 on a new pack of markers. I’ve talked before about my love for adult coloring books. I always have an open coloring book on my kitchen island next to a cup full of markers and I’ll usually color while I’m watching Netflix or Hulu, or while listening to a podcast. It’s such a fun, relaxing activity for me, but I go through markers so quickly now! I think I have to buy a new set every 6 months or so because my favorite colors always start drying out. I’m sad that Amazon doesn’t seem to have my favorite markers anymore so I had to buy a different type. Fingers crossed I like them!
My plans this weekend include… not a damn thing! Which is good because it means I can catch up on work this weekend. It’s not ideal, of course, to work on the weekend but if it takes a bit of the stress off my shoulders, then it will be worth it. I may go for a swim at my mom’s and I have my weekly writing date with M. But that’s about it for me! I’m not too bummed… last weekend was so busy that I only got to take one nap (oh, the horror!) so I’m looking forward to a much more relaxed weekend.
What was the high of your week?
I’m sorry work is stressful right now. I hope it smoothes out soon!
Thanks for sharing the privilege assessment. I am going to share it with my book club. It would be a good activity for us to do. We read How to Be an Anti-racist last month and I think I’m going to suggest to we consider reading the Minnesota one book, “A Good Time for the Truth” which is a collection about racism by MN authors. It’s very important for us to be aware of our privilege! Me and White Supremacy arrived recently and White Fragility is on its way so I plan on reading those in the coming months. I’m trying to read a book/month about race. I can’t read too many at once as I need to let everything sink in.
So funny about the holes Chips made. That would be a good halloween costume!! Ha! And yay for no plans, especially with how busy you are at work! Our weekend isn’t too busy. After work tonight I’m going over to a coworkers house for a HH on her deck. Hopefully it’s not too hot. We’ve had crazy hot/humid weather here lately – like Florida-like humidity! It’s going to be a hot, humid weekend so we will make the most of our mornings and then stay inside in the afternoon (I just can’t handle the heat when pregnant). On Saturday morning we have a playdate with my best friend and her son so I”m really excited about that. There is a coffee shop a couple of blocks away that has great GF muffins so I’ll treat myself to that and a coffee! Sunday morning we’ll swim at the local lake while Phil does the swim course and then we might go out to my MIL’s after nap if it’s not crazy hot/humid out. We need to be mostly outdoors when we visit her but if our heat index is in the upper 90s/100s, I just can’t handle being outside for hours, even if we are in the shade. So basically I’m feeling your pain with the hot/humid summers!
I am reading this late, and I hope work has gotten better this week, but maybe not, since it’s still end of month. Hugs.
LOL, Chip! Data did that to blankets too! We called him Datatella Versace and said they were his fashion designs. LOL. And sigh.
That is so great you were able to surprise your friend – was it a book club friend?
I am off to take that questionnaire; thanks for sharing!
I make my weekend plans around mine and Holden’s nap schedule. HA! When he naps, I nap, and I try not to make plans between 1 and 4 for that reason. One nap weekends are NOT cool! LOL
Thanks for sharing the privilege questionaire. I did a different bias test online (have to see if I can find it again) and ended up with a slight bias. I’ve been wondering if growing up in Europe makes a difference at all, because we did have other nationalities but not many blacks in my schools/community.
We did an exercise similar to this at my office, as part of a diversity training…it always starts out well, but when it’s opened up for comments people always try to side step their privilege….there was a lot of “my relatives don’t see color and they raised me to be the same” and “I grew up in Europe and we don’t have race problems like there are in America…” sorry, but yes, you do. You may be less conscious of them, or they may be less visible in areas where there are fewer POC, and POC may not feel secure speaking out.
ie an estimated 5% of the population is black in France. They clearly have less safety/power in numbers there. But the discrimination is worse, if anything.