Getting hardened fluid from a stress ball off my dresser

Monday was a productive day. I decided to reorganize what's on my dresser. I thought that it would take me an hour. Nope.

I found out that my blue M&M's stress ball had exploded. The clear fluid in the squishy stress ball must have oozed out days ago. It was solid on my dresser, between items.

I learned that the fluid is corn syrup. It's a question of submerging items in warm to hot water to melt the residue away, such as on my hand lotion. Naturally, I can't submerge my entire dresser in water. Instead, I poured some hot-warmish water on the surface and started to chip away at the mess.

Later on today, I'll finish the work. I ran out of elbow grease!

Hair loss

Years ago, when I was stressed over my mom's stroke, I lost a significant amount of hair on my head. It was scary. Most of my hair grew back, thankfully.

These days, I am losing more hair than I usually do. I am stressed and anxious. I have a feeling that the latter is a vicious cycle. I'm anxious about my hair loss, which has continued because I'm stressed out.

Well, I have concluded that my hair loss isn't due to my anxiety or stress. It's likely a combination of my hair's regular growth cycle and the fact that I have been trying my hair back every day.

When I used to head to the office, I wore my hair down. Since I've been working from home for over three months, I only have my hair down after washing it and when I am asleep.

Lately, I have been letting my hair breathe by wearing it down more. Sure enough, my hair loss has lessened.

A small detail like letting my hair down makes such a huge difference.

Deep breaths help

It's Friday. I am exhausted from the workweek.

I've been practising taking deep breaths while my eyes are closed, which helps me unwind. It calms me. The problem these days is that I am working at such a pace that I tense up, which seems to trigger panic attack symptoms.

I need to take some time to break. I'm horrible at it.

Thursday was much better, except when two people pinged me on our work instant messaging app. The disruptions and their inability to read annoyed me. It triggered my stress for a brief period. I did more deep breaths and I was fine afterwards.

As for working from home, my workplace has extended this period till the first week of July. I am taking a week of vacation then. It's much needed. I had planned to vacation somewhere. Instead, my plans have changed and I'll be doing a staycation instead.

I do need a break from this hectic pace at work, which I am looking forward to enjoying.

Panic attack - take 2

I thought that my panic attack would go away after fixing various problems that diva lady had introduced at work on Tuesday. After I fixed a few of them, I still felt tense.

My panic attack has eased a bit, but it's something else that is causing it. I dislike trying to do detective work to figure it out. Sometimes, it's not all that obvious to me.

I'm thinking now that it's the uncertainty that I had volunteered to pitch in and help diva woman with her activities, because her pace is slow to complete them and my manager doesn't have complete faith in her.

Panic is setting in because I am expecting a wave of work next week. It happens to coincide with our software release work. I have let my boss know. He said that diva would roll out a plan either last Friday or this past Monday. I haven't heard a thing.

It's the silliness of uncertainty that is causing my panic attack. Considering that I have experienced worse in the past, I feel that not knowing what diva is up to is causing my anxiety. She has no plan.

So, I just need to work with what I do know. I have work to do and I'll take things a day at a time.

Rough waters that are calmer now

My love interest and I have had a few rocky days. He is stressed out at work. We had our first major disagreement last Friday.

In a nutshell, he signed an employment contract where if he is contracting equipment and it is faulty, he needs to foot the bill to fix it. I found that odd. Why doesn't his employer help him out?

He basically needed $4500 to repair a crane, including labour. He didn't have that much money and didn't tell me about his problem it until I was his last resort.

I lost it. I like when people are open with me. He shouldn't have left things bottled up inside.

So, I told him off. I went one step further and said that it wouldn't work between us. He doesn't think straight when he is stressed out, which was another red flag. He wasn't the person that I thought I knew.

We both were upset with each other. We also realized that we are a good fit when we take a step back.

I told him that I felt disrespected. He wouldn't take no for an answer about my helping him financially. I like helping people out. I don't like the pressure. He realized that he was wrong.

I overreacted being dismissed in this whole ordeal. I took some time to think things through. He was under so much stress that I added more stress for him than was necessary. He is a decent person. He has just had a ton of bad breaks.

I thought of a better financial solution to help him out. I have been working on reducing my debt for a while now and did not budget to lend money out. I managed to juggle a few things around and can lend him money. Basically, he can't proceed with his construction work until he pays for the crane repairs. It also means that he doesn't get paid until he completes his construction work. It's a vicious circle.

Here's hoping that he negotiates a better employment contract for him and a better customer contract down the road. Lessons learned on so many fronts for both of us.

Dating a worrywart

My new love interest is a worrywart. He was trying to secure his first contract with a customer. He got so stressed out that when we were chatting on Tuesday night, he said that he couldn't have dinner and needed time to think.

Wow. That's all I can say.

Meanwhile, I had a lapse in my cold on Tuesday. My congestion went through the roof. I told him on three separate times that I was taking an early evening. Thank goodness for my humidifier.

Did he take any of what I said into consideration? Nope. Stress does weird things to him.

He texted me at 1 am my time to say that he can't sleep. Really? I said that I'm not feeling well once again. He apologized. I proceeded to switch my phone to do not disturb. I'm so glad that I did. He texted me at 6:30 am and beyond. I was sleeping in till 8 am.

The good news is that he got the contract. His very first one. I was so proud of him.

I am also thrilled that I don't have to deal with his crazy, worried text messages. I, too, can sleep well tonight.

Staycation and work

I am doing a brief weekend staycation. I am packed for the most part, as I just came back from one last weekend.

There is a snowfall warning happening. I had planned to go to work to bail the incompetent woman out. We'll see if I end up working from home instead.

Yesterday, I got our major software release out the door with my intern's help. The other one naturally has issues because incompetent woman can't figure things out.

I'm off to bed soon. I'm exhausted, but happy.

Achy body, stronger heart, and reflection

I am still achy. It helped that I worked from home on Wednesday. I got to take it easier than if I were at work.

It has taken a while for me to realize that all the stress at work and in my life has finally hit me. I truly need to take it easy.

Yesterday marked my ex-husband's birthday. I didn't feel anything. I suppose that being in such an unhealthy relationship has made me numb. I hope that he is okay in heaven.

I do feel differently about my recent breakup. I loved my guy. I didn't feel the same way about my ex-hubby. I fell out of love with him, but stayed with him until I had the strength to leave.

It's good to know that time has healed me with my ex-hubby. Here's hoping that I am at that same peace of mind with my guy soon.

Achy, knotted body

My body is one huge spasm. I probably walked too much on Saturday.

It has been ages since I've had a back spasm on my right side. Yep, it's back. At work, my lower back was achy all day on Monday.

My neck has also been pretty tight. I blame work and how knotted I seem to be over the various stresses. I also think my breakup has something to do with it.

Although I walked a ton on Saturday, I was relaxed. Working with a few people who are incompetent has affected me in an odd way. The good thing is that I am a few days away from leaving work behind and being on vacation.

Friday afternoon couldn't come any sooner!

In the meantime, I have been stretching out my back and staying hydrated. So far, it's helping.

Startled dreaming about my ex and being taken for granted at work

After a fairly long day working from home, I took a nap. I had been up since 06:45.

I had a dream about my guy kissing me on the lips and holding me like he used to. I woke up startled. I was in a slight panic.

It was a dream. I was relieved.

At first, I thought that the dream signalled that I missed him in my life. It wasn't that. I miss being affectionate with someone who will reciprocate. These days, I hug my stuffed purple sheep and penguin. It's not the same, but I am comforted by them.

Work continues to be stressful. I realize that I have some colleagues who take me for granted. I actually shut a person down because he was whining over a change that I had made to correct the version syntax that he got wrong. Apparently, I am supposed to let the world know about his mistake. He found it a pain to send everyone a revised hyperlink. I told him that my team is busy building documentation builds and pushing out a major release, which finally silenced him. He isn't a quarter as busy as I am.

My incompetent member continues to show me that she is a horrible listener and can't do tasks on her own. I don't understand why I end up with idiots on my team.

Hormones and stress factors

Hormones continue to fascinate me. For years, my menstrual cycle was completely abnormal. I could go a year without getting my period.

It wasn't until I lost sixty pounds that my menstrual cycle became monthly. These days, it's almost predictable to the day, except when there are stress factors.

In the past, if I were doing a major trip where there was a whole lot of last-minute planning, I would miss my period for that month.

Recently, I lost the incompetent colleague and knew about it a day before it happened. I feel that this event caused my period to be delayed.

My two students had their final workday on Friday. It wasn't until Saturday morning when my period came, a week after it should have.

Hormones are sensitive. I don't fully understand how they work, but they fascinate me and I need to live with them.

Stressful Monday morning, but better in the afternoon

Ah, Monday. Either it's horrible or it's okay. I got a mix today.

A new employee joined the company. She is hopefully going to take over a bulk of my work. The problem with her is that she asks a ton of questions without doing much research. It also didn't help that her laptop wasn't available until two hours later.

As I was trying to look up information, I got a ton of questions from her. Ugh. Such a bad time to be asking ridiculous questions.

She brought her laptop home. We never covered how to connect remotely. The answer was on an information sheet that she got with her laptop. Again, more questions. Double ugh.

I got annoyed. Thankfully, things turned around as the day progressed.

My guy sent me a text in the afternoon. It was bad timing, though. I let him know that I was training a new writer and was stressed out.

"Sorry to hear that. Please ping me when you're free. Hope I'm still up," he texted.
"It'll probably be late. I train until 5 pm. I'll give you a try. Miss you," I replied.
"Same here," he said, sending a kiss emoticon.
"You're sweet," I replied, reciprocating with a kiss emoticon.
"You, too," he replied.

He makes my day when I need some cheering up.

Attractive manager, and handjobs and blowjobs

I have a love-hate relationship with my current job position. I love training folks and working with students. I like research. I dislike incompetence and my huge workload. That's nothing new.

I was talking about it with my guy. We both don't exactly like the company's direction. We just grin and bear it.

My guy still urges me to continue finding employment elsewhere. I pointed out that I have not had a standard-of-living raise within the last two years. I have not received a bonus within the last three years.

I am currently dealing with a new project manager who thinks that she knows everything. Yet, she chimes into e-mails, which is irrelevant and adds more grief than necessary. She then flips it around to indicate that I seem unclear. Whatever. The proof is within the e-mail transcript that she is delusional.

She has set up a meeting for me to step through two documents for a final review with folks. I find it a waste of time, as we went through a first round of reviews. She can step people through it. After all, it's her meeting. I don't need to be there to walk folks through documents. People can read. She can handle this walk-through exercise, since she knows everything. Yes, read that last sentence with sarcasm.

She is a horrible communicator. I don't know where we get such incompetent project managers. Naturally, my manager just sits there and does nothing. It's probably because I have been handling everything well on my own.

Anyway, my guy and I had this chat about the situation.

"I think that it's great that you are looking for employment, as not getting any salary raise is not ideal," he sympathized.
"Yes, I haven't stopped. I just haven't found the right job," I noted.
"Fair enough. Once you find an attractive job, you can make your move," he agreed.
"If you were my attractive manager, I would definitely work for you. You'd have a job for me. A hand job, at least," I said.
"If I were your manager, we'd be doing a ton of jobs, like handjobs and blowjobs," he said.

It's nice when we incorporate some teasing and role-playing into our serious conversations.

My right eye is back to normal... yay!

Last Wednesday, I went to my ophthalmologist for an appointment. I used to go monthly. This appointment was the first one in two months, which is good news. It simply means that my right eye is making good progress.

To recap, I had an eye stroke back in late March. I had no idea what was going on. All I knew was that I was constantly looking through a water droplet and was getting dizzy.

I didn't think that I would make a fully recovery. Just reading up on various studies saying that it was rare wasn't the best news. My guy felt that if anyone could make a full recovery, it would be me. I didn't want to set my standards so high. He understood.

He was right. On Wednesday, I went in and did my eye test. I could read even the tiniest print during the eye test. I was shocked!

My doctor said that my right eye is 20/20, meaning that the blood splats have disappeared from my central vision. I am now seeing him every three months for my eye injections. There is still a chance that fluid will seep out.

I am thankful that my sight has been restored. It also helps that I have kept my stress and blood pressure controlled. My ophthalmologist cites bad luck as the cause. He also indicated that I am young to have this condition happen to me, so my recovery was easier. Handling a crazy workload at work back then didn't help. I am glad that things are much better these days.

My phone locked itself automatically - weird and good

I thought that Friday would be a quiet day at work. Nope. Drama and weirdness occurred.

I will go with my strange incident. After work, after a trying day, I went out to have a drink and a bite to each with a friend.

We went to a bar and grill close by our workplace. I was checking my phone while waiting for him and it automatically went into lockdown. I tried using my known password, but I couldn't unlock my phone.

After dinner, I had to drive to a different part of the area that I vaguely know. I am so glad that I have a GPS in my car. Otherwise, it would have taken me a bit longer to get there, especially when it gets dark so early in the evening.

I got home and called Google Pixel support. I must say that tech support there is pretty slick. You basically type a brief synopsis of the problem online, click a button, and in a minute, you get a phone call.

The person on the other end said that my phone had to be factory-reset. It meant that I would lose all my data.

The cool thing about this phone is that I have unlimited photo storage and my phone is automatically backed up. So, restoring my phone was straightforward. It went ahead and downloaded all my apps.

In some ways, my phone works better than before.

I asked the tech support person why my phone would simply lock on its own and not let me in. He figures that the cause was a bug somewhere, but he has noted the issue down.

I am so dependent on my phone. However, not using it for four hours felt pretty good.

My team and my guy - thoughts

I have three folks on my team. Two are full-time writers and the third is my student.

Technically, all three are new to my team. On a good note, they all get along. It's an interesting dynamic.

My student and I get along well. She does not hesitate to do any task that I give her. She does require an occasional trigger word to get her on track on a few tasks. Otherwise, she completes them with quality and I am pleased.

One writer is essentially my mini-me as far as work ethic goes. She is a self-starter and simply runs with whatever tasks are available. She is a fast learner and does have a lot of experience with an authoring tool that we will be cutting over to. She's great, her work is close to being perfect, and is taking over roughly have of my development work.

The concern is with the other writer. She is the oldest member of the team. I tell her information. It goes in one ear and completely out the other. I feel like I am a broken record.

She also does not read e-mails carefully. Often, she doesn't read them at all. She prefers instant messaging over e-mails. I am the complete opposite. I find the former distracting.

When I do work from home, I put myself into do-not-disturb mode these days. It means that you see me online, but I won't accept instant messages.

Both the student and the younger writer understand that I get a ton of e-mails. They also know that I am completely accessible through e-mail. The other writer seems to be all over the map.

She told me the other day that she felt that she was doing student work. She does have an issue with status, indicating that she is a senior writer. It's funny. She doesn't give me the impression that she is.

Perhaps it's me. I am also in that same senior writer as far as experience goes, although she has more of it. However, I do not label one task as being for a student and another for a senior writer. I do tasks that need to be done. Period.

Over the last few weeks, it occurred to me that I have a ton of knowledge. Even older technology that I have to resurrect from the dead comes to me naturally, which has been the case for the past few days. It's funny that I acquired this knowledge mainly through trial and error. I don't see any initiative with the older writer when it comes to self-learning. It's there with the younger one. The student has it, too.

My concern is that the older writer, who is supposed to take over the other half of my development duties, won't be able to hack it. She is set in her ways, which is a red flag.

The good news is that I am taking Friday off. I will be seeing my guy, so it will be a good, relaxing time away from work.

Stress - need a mental health day

I feel achy. Physically, I feel a dull ache all over my body towards the end of the day. It's such an odd feeling. It has persisted for a couple of days now.

I have a feeling that it is stress-related. One of my students is wrapping up her workterm on Friday. My other two students end their term the following week. I go back to handling everything until folks come and relieve me.

Next workterm, I only have one student. I also have one full-time person taking over most of my duties, but she needs to clear a background check. This check can take weeks.

I am supposedly moving on to do process work. However, my manager continues to dump ridiculous tasks on me. I truly don't have time to do work that he can easily do.

Tomorrow, which is really today, I am taking a sick day. I need a mental health break. I also need a physical one.

It is important to listen to what your body is saying. Mine is screaming for some rest. I can also tell that it is stress-related when the left side of my neck gets tight.

Headache and stress

There are some folks who stress me out at work. On Monday, two of them managed to do so.

I ended up with a headache after lunch. My manager sits next to me. The last time I had a headache, I ended up with an eye stroke in my right eye. It felt similar, so I took it easy.

I ended up taking a couple of pain killers, drank some hot tea, tried walking around the floor at work, and ended up relaxing in a small meeting room. It all helped a bit, but I still had a headache.

My manager indicated that if I wasn't feeling better after half an hour, I should go home. Of course, I needed to be okay driving. I ended up leaving early at 16:00.

I do feel better. It has been a while since I have felt this stressed out. Luckily, I am working from home for a couple of days. I should be able to destress.

Selling highs and lows

This post will be short. I am trying to sell my iPhone 6. I am not cut out to be a seller.

I got the buyer from hell on Sunday. Just talking about how high-maintenance this woman was will take one long post. That'll be a future post. I still haven't recovered.

I ditched her. She was causing me stress.

On a good note, I posted my ad again and got a new buyer. I'm meeting him at a coffee shop a block away from my home. I am crossing my fingers that this transaction will be smooth.

My guy is much better at selling and buying goods. I don't have the knack for it. It's a good thing that I don't sell often. I am a better buyer.

Incompetent co-workers are everywhere!

It has been a busy week. My team of students and I had to work on a software release. We got our work done on time, with quality and accuracy, and planned it as far in advance as possible.

There were some hiccups. The main one was with a project manager. She used to be a software build programmer. She was supposed to train her predecessor. She failed.

It was the perfect storm. Her predecessor decided to take a week of vacation during a major software release. If I ever did that, my manager would not be impressed!

Her backup knew absolutely nothing. To make a long story short, our deliverables needed a couple of changes to two build scripts. It was a simple update for the project manager in the past. The backup build person had no clue what to do. The person who went on vacation had to come back and also had no clue how to update these scripts.

All of us asked the project manager to help out. She didn't. I don't get it. Sure, you have moved on to a different role. However, not helping folks who do not have the knowledge to edit build scripts caused even more issues.

This project manager had the audacity to tell me in an e-mail on Wednesday to send a couple of document links to someone. She even copied my manager. I looked at her responsibilities checklist that she had attached. This task was for her to do. I also have never dealt with this person.

What did I do? I sent her the links, copied my manager on my response, and restated her statement to send them to this person.

It is obvious that she can't do her job well. I am not doing it for her. I have plenty of other things to deal with. Moreover, if she can't answer any my questions, I do not owe her any favours in doing her work.