My alarm wakes me up at 7 a.m. and Lila is snuggling with me. I had taken off my CPAP mask earlier in the night because it was bugging me (I have to wear it for at least 4 hours a night, and sometimes I try just to hit that threshold). We snuggle for a good 15 minutes. She kisses my hand and gnaws on my finger and lets me pet her belly. It’s a very good snuggle sesh!
I get up around 7:15, feed the girls, and then sit on the couch to play Duolingo and my NYT games. Around 7:45, I get up to make breakfast and coffee—something easy today, just oatmeal. While I eat breakfast, I scroll through the Reddit forum for The Summit. Yep, we’re all frustrated by this show!
I do my morning routine (the whole thing today, even skincare!) and halfway through, my mom Facetimes me to chat about Survivor (she wasn’t able to watch it last night, but watched it this morning). We chat for a few minutes. Then I make the mistake of scrolling through Instagram and get caught up in some comment threads. Don’t do this, you guys. It’s not worth it. Eventually, I make myself get up to finish my morning routine and then it’s time to work.
I spend a few hours working and I’m surprisingly productive. It’s nice when I can compartmentalize work life vs what’s going on in the world. I take a break around 11:15 to give the girls some treats and take a short walk to pick up my mail. And it’s a very good mail day! I get a check from Bank of America, the company that held my loan for Gladys (my car that got flooded during Hurricane Helene), because I overpaid on my loan. It’s a nice chunk of change, too! And I get two postcards – one from Birchie and one from both Kyria and Elisabeth!
I’m not yet hungry for lunch so I decide to work a little more. I clear out my emails, do a bit of editing, and QA posted content. And then I get completely absorbed in the task of checking on our writers’ assignments. I do this a couple times a month to make sure their numbers match up to what I originally assigned to them at the end of the previous month. Sometimes things get wonky – like the writer who suddenly had 20 pages more than I originally planned for him to have! Whoops. I quickly fix that. I start getting hungry around 12:30 but I’m focused on this task and want to get it done before I stop for lunch… and it’s not until 12:50 that I remember I have a 1pm meeting. I’m not going to have time to eat lunch before the meeting so I’m gonna be really hungry.
Oh, well – not much I can do about it! The 1pm meeting is to introduce our new senior director (aka, my new boss!) to our content team. It’s a great meeting, although I cringe a little when our writers have to introduce themselves and “say a fun fact.” They do a good job, though! Once the meeting is over, I immediately eat lunch! I am definitely having a blood sugar drop—I am a little shaky and feel very warm. Thankfully, my lunch is an easy one: I picked up a Pub sub last night and saved half of it for lunch today. I just have to grab the sub, some chips, and a Dr. Pepper and I’m good to go. I eat lunch while scrolling through Survivor’s Reddit forum.
I have another meeting at 2pm, but it’s just an information session about our 2025 benefits. I listen in while working on this post and doing some easy work tasks. I’m not happy about the changes, especially because it seems they’re just removing some benefits without putting anything new or better in their place. Great. Once the meeting is over, I work for a little bit and then decide I need a short siesta. I take a 30-minute nap on the couch.
I do a little more work before I need to hop into a meeting, which is a pretty good brainstorming session with other managers. We’re trying to resource plan, which is hard when there are parameters we’re dealing with. But we do the best with what we have! It’s a good meeting, though, and when it’s over, I realize I have just a few minutes before my therapy appointment!
I’ve been both looking forward to this appointment and dreading it. Mostly dreading it because talking to someone new + describing my emotions out loud + dealing with the hard things = not my fave thing. But I know I need this appointment and the timing feels serendipitous.
The therapy appointment goes really well! I like her a lot, even more when she tells me she voted for Harris so at least I know she understands my sense of despair. She also gives me some tangible things to do when I’m having a panic attack, which I appreciate. From therapy, I have learned the why behind my panic attacks but not the coping skills to implement when they happen. Hopefully, they help! And hopefully, I don’t need to use them anytime soon.
After therapy, I lay on my bed for a bit, scrolling social media (which was not a smart decision) and the girls come up on the bed for cuddles, which I very much appreciate. Eventually, I get up, feed them dinner, and take a bubble bath. I order dinner while in the bath and also play some games on my phone. Out of the bath, I sit on the couch and read my book until my dinner arrives.
Grooming session
When it comes, I eat at the table with my laptop, scrolling through Reddit forums and blogs.
I turn on the Thursday Night Football game and watch it off and on while reading my book. My mom Facetimes me and we chat for a while. When I hang up with her, I finish my book and then come back to my laptop to work on this post, read/comment on blogs, and respond to blog comments. And then I’m not really sure what I do with the rest of my evening, other than tidying up the apartment, playing games on my phone, and watching the TNF game. But suddenly it’s 11:30 and I need to go to bed! My nighttime routine is shit this week.
thursday in the life: 2023, 2022, 2020, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014
Yay for postcards. I hope they brightened what was a pretty dark week.
Gold star for pursuing mental health supports. As you know, I’ve been doing the same. It can be exhausting and it is hard work (especially having to go over traumatic things again and again with new health care providers), but definitely worth it in my experience.
And yet another stellar mug. Was that the one you got last year in the Secret Santa exchange…? From Daria? Maybe I have that completely wrong!
You’re correct! That’s the mug Daria got me. It’s truly one of my faves – I love the shape and, of course, the cats!!
The postcards were such a balm on a very bad week. <3 I really appreciate the thought!
I am glad your therapy session went well. It sounds like maybe you hit it off right away. I have heard that finding a therapist that jives with you can be hard, although it seems to me like it would also be hard to ghost them after a session or two, but maybe this is the one for you? I am also glad you got the post card! It is always fun to get mail, isn’t it? I kept a box of all of the PCs I have received over the years and love looking through it from time to time. Some of them are from when I was a kid, or are from people who have passed away and it is a nice memory to have.
Finding the right therapist can be such a process – which is hard to go through when your mental health is already at a low point. I’m not in a terrible spot right now with my mental health (election results notwithstanding) but I’m glad I found someone who I clicked with nearly immediately. Hopefully it is a long and fruitful relationship!
That’s so special to have postcards from so long ago and from people who have passed away. <3
I love seeing your mugs! If you ever think of it, do you mind sending me pics of that one please? I’d like to paint the cat from it and see the other side.
That lunch sounds so good! What did you share for your fact? LOL. When I did that big partnering session I had everyone share one thing they like to do outside of work and I really enjoyed hearing everyone talk about their outside passions. I hope they didn’t hate it.
I am glad therapy went well!
I have been avoiding socials too. Ugh.
I will get you a picture! Feel free to send me a reminder if I haven’t. I’m very bad at remembering things.
I didn’t have to share a fact, woohoo! I think mine would have been about going on a dozen cruises in my lifetime. That’s always a fun one!
Happy mail days are the best.
It seems your day has been really full and productive. Glad the therapy session went well.
Feline good! I love seeing your mugs. Two postcards and a big fat check! That’s a quite a mail haul.
Also yay for a good first session with the new therapist. I’ve done therapy on and off for the past year. The first therapist was helpful with my “current issues” list but when I wanted to go deeper into the past she was kind of like “nah, past is past”. The second was a total mismatch where the therapist was late for every session and was very judgy. Knock wood the third therapist seems to be just right!
When I was single I had way too many nights where 11:30 just seemed to come out of nowhere. Then when I moved in with Hubs and the boys we were really good about not staying up too much later than the boys, but as the boys got older our bedtime got a bit later, too. We’re still in a good place where we usually turn the lights out between 10:30 and 11.
I’m so shocked that a therapist said, “The past is the past.” Isn’t the point of therapy excavating our past to make sense of our present?! Gah, so much of my therapy is discussing the past because it impacts so much of the way I live my life! I hope you get a much better therapist for your third time. <3
You have the best mug collection ever. I also love your blankets. And I love the cats grooming each other. Muffin sometimes does that to Charlotte, while Charlotte stands there with a pained expression on her face. If it goes on too long it turns into hissing and yowling.
Glad you had that therapy appointment, and it sounds like it was a good one. I missed TNF because I was at our high school football game- but I’m settling down to watch some college football tonight.
Haha – Lila is a pro at grooming Eloise, but Eloise refuses to groom Lila. Although Lila will usually end a grooming session by biting Eloise’s neck, which then starts a wrestling match.
I’m glad you had a good initial therapy appt. It is so hard to find someone you connect with so it’s encouraging that you had a good first appt.
We watched a little bit of the TNF game too. Paul is so into football so we watched until he went to bed. And then we watched 1/2 an episode of only murders. Then I headed to bed. I was worn out. I had a poor night of sleep on Wed as the election results had set in. 🙁
Oh, it’s so great you had a good therapy session! I’m so happy to hear it! I hope the coping strategies help with your panic attacks. xo