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Home Again

/ Alyxander James / Leave a comment

Hello, dear readers, and welcome to Thursday! I had a lovely time in Chicago; somehow, miraculously, I didn’t end up with covid. I got to spend some really wonderful time with some of my queer gaming community while I was there, who I miss dearly. While the work part of the trip was pretty exhausting (it was productive and good, but just required a lot more being “on” socially than I’m used to), the social part was life-giving.

I got home Sunday afternoon, and made the mistake of not giving myself a recovery day, so this week at work has been rough. I ended up calling in sick today after waking up with a massive headache; today I’m going to try to focus on resting a bit and also catching up on the last of the homework that’s due before class tonight. We adjusted the dose of one of my meds this week, and one of the side effects has been random waves of nausea, which has not helped anything on this week when I’m already feeling pretty low on mental cutlery.

Tomorrow I have some fun plans as well as a meeting with the person who’s in charge of practicum stuff at my seminary to talk through when I can start that officially. I’m hoping this weekend can be restful and that I can start next week with a bit more energy than I had this week.

Nova was very excited to have me home, and also very upset on Monday when the end of Daylight Savings Time meant that I was working an hour later than she thought I should be. She’s adjusted pretty well the past couple of days, but on Monday she had Opinions. Please enjoy the Nova photos for this week:

Chicago

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Hello, dear readers, and welcome to Thursday! I am in Chicago for work. It’s been a whirlwind rollercoaster of a week so far – we ended up being exposed to covid over the weekend, so I’ve been testing daily and wearing a mask nonstop on this trip. So far, all of my tests have come up negative and I’m still feeling okay, so fingers crossed I’ve continued to dodge that bullet.

I don’t have much by way of updates beyond that – I was home for all of 10 days between trips, so my brain is a little scrambled and I’ve mostly just been trying to stay afloat with homework. I did find Nova the perfect Halloween costume this year, though, so I’ll leave you with pictures of that!

Whirlwind

/ Alyxander James / Leave a comment

Hello, dear readers, and welcome to Thursday! It’s been a few weeks since I’ve written – the past two weeks I was in Boston helping to care for a chosen family member who had surgery. That trip and the surgery went well, and they’re healing nicely. They have three cats, including a 5 month old kitten who was a great model when he wasn’t being absolute chaos:

While I was in Boston, we got an update from Mouse’s new mom! She’s been renamed Nezumi (Japanese for Mouse), and while it took a solid couple of months of adjusting, it sounds like she’s much calmer now and is thriving in her new home. Apparently she’s going to start doing some agility training at home! I’m so thrilled for her, and grateful that we got pictures of her in the sweater I knit for her (which apparently was a little tight across the back…although I’m not terribly surprised, as she was pretty wiggly when I was trying to measure):

This week has largely been me playing catch-up at work and with school, as I fell a little behind on schoolwork while I was gone. Yesterday felt particularly eventful. I worked a half day, then headed to a dermatology appointment (everything’s fine), then a therapy appointment, and then ended the evening with a talent show at school. It was very fun to get to perform, to experience the talents of classmates and professors, and to meet classmates and professors in person that I hadn’t had the chance to meet yet.

And the whirlwind will continue after this week. Next Wednesday I’m flying to Chicago for work, and then staying through the weekend to catch up with some friends. I think once I get home from that trip I’m going to stay put for as long as possible!

On that note, I’m going to get back to work. There might not be a blog next week since I’ll be traveling, but I’ll be back! In the meantime, have some Nova:

Back at It

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Hello, dear readers, and welcome to Thursday! I hope you’re all hanging in there.

I finally started back at work last Friday, which was actually kind of a nice day to start – it meant that I got a relatively chill day to catch up on the mountain of unread emails in my inbox and unread Slack messages from when I was out, and then I was able to really dive back into work starting on Monday. It’s been a pretty good first full week back so far – busy, but not unreasonably chaotic. I think I’m mostly remembering how to do my job.

Of course, I also realized this week that I need to cut back on my coffee consumption. I usually only drink 2 cups a day anyway, but I started developing a fairly persistent eye twitch while I was out on medical leave that has only gotten more pronounced since starting back at work, and my stomach has been kind of unhappy with me. So I’m cutting back to a single cup for now, and contemplating making the switch to decaf. I’m pretty bummed about it.

Going to have to end it here because work is picking up. I’ll leave you with some Nova photos from the past week:

Thursday Ramblings

/ Alyxander James / Leave a comment

Hello, dear readers, and welcome to Thursday! We had Monday off at work in observance of Lunar New Year, and then I ended up only working half of Tuesday because I was wrestling with a headache, so I’m all sorts of turned around about what day it is this week.

It’s been an okay week – I’ve gotten some knitting done, and am so far staying caught up on homework. I’m really enjoying my Comparative Religious Ethics class, and I’m really excited to start my next Spiritual Direction class in a couple of weeks. I also made the decision last week to switch from going for a MAL (Master of Arts in Leadership) in Spiritual Direction to an MDiv in Spiritual Direction; I’ll get to take more classes I’m interested in, and I think it’ll open up more possibilities for what I might do with the degree post-graduation. It means I’m adding an extra year or so onto my seminary journey, but I’ll still be done before I’m 40, so that’s fun.

Work has continued to feel kind of bananas, but I’m managing to stay afloat at this point. I need to nail down what I’m doing for a stretch project over the next few months (keeping in mind that I’ll be on medical leave for one of those months to recover from the hysterectomy); I have some ideas, just need to get them organized.

I’m very excited that FAWM is less than a week away! It’s always one of the highlights of my year. Even if I don’t get much writing done this time around, I’m excited to hear what everyone else comes up with.

I think that’s about it for me this week; here’s your weekly dose of Nova:

Discombobulated

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Hello, dear readers, and welcome to Thursday. This post is going up late because it has been A Week. I was anticipating a fairly laid-back January at work, and the last two weeks that has…not panned out as expected. It’s been kind of bananas, with a lot of people needing things from me and me also trying to do a better job of staying on top of the myriad of things that fall under the purview of my position. In addition to work being wild, school has started back up and there have been some technical difficulties with getting my class rolling (not just for me, but for the whole class). And today, for reasons I have yet to figure out, my back and several other joints are cranky. So I’m feeling a bit discombobulated and out of sorts today.

There’s been good stuff lately too, though. Monday I got to spend a lot of the day hanging out with my best friend, and that was lovely. I’m also experimenting with a new hobby (although now that I’ve figured out the basics it’s on pause until I get the proper equipment) – tablet weaving!

A knitting podcast we listen to sometimes was talking about weaving, and my brain latched onto the idea, and then one thing led to another and here we are.

I’ve also been reading a really lovely book called Legends & Lattes, which is billed as a novel of “high fantasy and low stakes” and is basically the fantasy equivalent of a cozy mystery, I think. It’s so good! The writing is excellent and the characters are interesting and it’s just a blast to read.

I think that’s where I’ll leave you for this week. As always, here’s your Nova fix:

Fighting for Focus

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Hello, dear readers, and welcome to Thursday. I started my day off nearly forgetting I had a 7:30am meeting scheduled (I usually start working at 8), but I managed to be almost on time, so that was a win.

I have been struggling this week to find focus. I’m still behind on the project for my Monday class, although I’m crossing my fingers that I’ll be able to get caught up tomorrow since I have work off for Veterans Day. I at least got the parts rewritten that I needed to rewrite, and if I can get this next piece taken care of tomorrow, I’ll be in a good place to be on time with the rest of the pieces. Even at work, though, I’m feeling scatterbrained and stretched thin, even though it objectively hasn’t been a particularly wild week for me. Some of it might be the weather – it’s been overcast and rainy here the past few days, and that always makes me want to just curl up with a book and ignore all responsibilities. Moving off of DST last weekend also threw me for a bit of a loop, I think.

Tonight is the penultimate session of my Intro to Spiritual Direction class, and I’m kind of sad that it’s winding down. I mean, on the one hand, it’s exciting to be moving forward with it. But on the other…it’s just a really lovely group of people, and while I know I’ll still be in class with many of them next semester, each class creates and holds a unique sort of space, and this one has been particularly lovely and supportive.

This weekend should be fun – Sunday we’re going to a drag brunch for my cousin’s roommate’s birthday, and then that evening we’re going to see Semler in concert. It should be a good time. Fingers crossed that Nova behaves for her babysitters.

Speaking of Nova, I’ll leave you with some sleepy puppy pictures this week:

Scattered Thursday Thoughts

/ Alyxander James / Leave a comment

Hello, dear readers, and welcome to Thursday! It’s been a busy week and work and a week that breaks with routine at home, so I’m a little scrambled this morning.

The first of four new team members I’ve hired in the past month started working with us on Monday. I’m very excited about this batch of new hires! Things seem to be going well so far.

I start the first of my fall classes (Intro to Spiritual Direction) this evening. I’m excited about the class, I think it’s going to be a good one and it’s exciting to be digging into the whole reason I’m in seminary. My second class (Leadership and Strategies for Social Change) starts in a couple of weeks. I initially thought I was going to have to take a third class this semester (because one class is fewer credits), but I learned last week that I do only need to take two classes to get my credit requirements for financial aid, so that was a very exciting discovery!

My husband is currently staying at their parents’ house to help their mom and brother out while their dad is away on a fun trip visiting some New England baseball stadiums. I left Nova over there with them last night; it was weird being completely alone in our apartment last night, but I managed to get some sleep (despite the fact that I drank way too much coffee yesterday), and it sounds like she did great at her sleepover.

I don’t have too much else to report this week, but I’ll leave you, as ever, with some Nova photos:

Busy, Busy

/ Alyxander James / Leave a comment

Hello, dear readers, and welcome to Thursday! I am rather late in posting today because it’s a busy week and, in particular, a busy Thursday for me. I am interviewing three people for an open position on my team today (in addition to everything else I usually have to do on Thursdays), which has me feeling a bit off-kilter. However! Next Thursday begins a week and a half of PTO so we can go to Song School, so things are looking up.

This whole week is busy, though. Between work being extra chaotic lately and regular homework and the final paper I’m starting to work on (and hoping to at least get to Shitty First Draft status before leaving for CO), I feel like I’m juggling a lot of things and I’m not quite sure I can keep everything in the air. I’m working on trusting my ability to manage multiple projects at once. It’s a process.

Not a lot to talk about this week, but I’ll leave you with your weekly Nova photodump:

Back and Still Breathing

/ Alyxander James / Leave a comment

Hello, dear readers! Welcome to Thursday. It has been A Week. In fact, it’s been Two Weeks.

Life has been utter madness the past couple of weeks. We had multiple family members end up in some sort of crisis that we had the means to assist with to some degree – I won’t go into detail, because they aren’t my stories to tell, but this is the basic outline:

  • The week before I left for my work trip to NYC, we made some last-minute plans for my husband to travel to Boston to help someone out for a week. The plan was for them to leave here on Wednesday while I was still in NY; we arranged for Nova to stay with my husband’s godmother for a few days until I got back.
  • The day I left for NY, a situation closer to home blew up, and we ended up needing to host some folks and their stuff in our apartment. My husband managed to get an extra key to our apartment from the building manager.
  • Wednesday, my husband called me in a panic because Nova had gotten into a box of dried goods while they were at an appointment. Thankfully, she had pretty much just destroyed packaging and left the actual food alone, so they didn’t need to go to the emergency vet before my husband went to Boston. That night was our giant company party (which was fun, but a lot). While at the party, I learned there were tornado warnings happening back at home. (Thankfully, everyone was okay.)
  • Friday, I planned to get to the airport early and work from there until my 3pm flight. I am not usually superstitious about Friday the 13th, but it was a doozy:
    • I had to go through the body scanner twice and then get patted down because my (lack of) junk was flagged as suspicious.
    • My laptop refused to connect to the airport wifi, and I was running low on phone data.
    • I had forgotten to charge my laptop before I left the hotel, and there was a paucity of outlets in the terminal I was waiting in at Newark.
    • Just as I was figuring out a work situation, I got news that someone I’d been face-to-face with the day before had tested positive for covid.
    • Thankfully, a coworker was able to take over most of what I’d been planning on doing from the airport as I scrambled to find alternative housing for the folks who were still at our apartment.
  • I got home, managed to get folks to their next temporary space, did a quick sweep of the apartment to make sure things were Nova-proofed, picked up Nova from my husband’s godmother’s house, got home, and crashed.

It’s been a weird week since then, being solo with Nova, but she’s been a trooper and is mostly behaving herself. I’ve been testing for covid daily, because of course, every day more of my coworkers are testing positive. I’m staying masked anytime I leave the apartment (which I was mostly still doing anyway, but I’m being a lot stricter about it now). Last night was a kickoff Zoom for the asynchronous class I’m taking over the summer, and I’m a bit nervous about the class – there’s a lot of reading, and I’m adding an intense, four-week class in June that meets twice a week on top of it. But I’ll figure it out.

In positive news, the PAP machine is doing its job – I was getting up early and going to bed late all week in NY and didn’t really crash until Saturday night. This week I’ve been continuing to get up earlier; I haven’t stayed up as late, but that’s mostly out of overwhelm at the overstuffed state of my apartment. I’m grateful that I started PAP therapy when I did and that it’s going well, because I don’t know how I would have managed otherwise.

I’m also extremely grateful for a solid support network, for therapy, and for all the hard work I’ve put into therapy over the past few years. I’m staying pretty regulated and doing a decent job of using my resources rather than melting down or spiralling into a panic, which would not have been the case if this had happened even just a year or two ago.

All that to say, I am feeling pretty depleted right now, but I’m okay. I’m going to be joining an in-person D&D game here in the Twin Cities that starts next week, and while that’s yet another thing on the schedule, it’s D&D, which is such a great outlet. Play is important and I want to do more of it. I’m hoping to spend a little time this weekend messing around with some new music equipment. My husband comes home tonight and Nova is going to be SO HAPPY (and so will I).

I shall leave you with some photos of Nova that I’ve taken since coming home: