* So anyway. I need to work on destressing. Part of that is, I think, me learning that my "this is barely okay work for you" is other people's "Wow, this is really good." I expect too much of myself most of the time and I need to work on not doing that. I also need to work on accepting that sometimes a couple of the fifteen balls you are trying to juggle will just fall, and if other people snark about it, well, ask yourself: are they helping you pick that ball up? No.
* One thing that helps is escapist reading. I am still working on "Mystery in White," which while it is not the BEST written Golden Era mystery out there (I really think that honor belongs to either Ngaio Marsh or Dorothy Sayers), is a very enjoyable book. Especially since it's set in a massive snowstorm at Christmas and right now we're entering summer.....reading about winter when it's hot out makes me feel better.
* Also crocheting. I did a lot more on the current critter (minor reveal: it is supposed to be "Oh" from the movie Home) and am now working on the head. This is a cool pattern; you make the bits and bobs (arms, legs - all six of the legs - and "ears") first, and then you attach them in as you go. So the arms are in one continuous piece with the body, which means there's less sewing up at the end and it also looks more natural.
* And heat. Even though it's gotten a little warm outside (and I have had to put the A/C on some days), I have been using the microwave-heated buckwheat things and just lying down with one on my abdomen and sometimes that helps. Or warm showers.
* Sincerely hoping 2016 gets better soon. Or I get some stability about things in my life (work, church, women's group). Or that I can somehow develop a facility for coping better with instability. (Or maybe at my next doctor's checkup, I ask for a referral to a counselor. I know, I can usually work these things out on my own but maybe right now I can't. or something. I mean, nothing is so very wrong and I'm still 100% functional and not thinking about doing anything crazy like bleaching my hair and then dying it purple but maybe I'm not dealing with the stress in my life as well as I might. Though I tend to be stubborn and say, "If stress is getting me down, the stress needs to change and go away. I don't need to learn to get better at coping with something that should not be" but maybe that's part of my problem)
* Harvard's medical library apparently has a therapy dog (a Shih Tzu, and from the Shih Tzus I've known, I think they would often make good therapy dogs). You can check the dog out for a short period of time to play with him and pet him. I admit I like this idea. I don't have pet because of allergies but sometimes I think maybe more direct exposure to real-life, funny and cute animals (either dogs or cats or maybe even a baby goat) would make me happier.
(I hope they do background checks or stuff on the people who "check out" Cooper, I wouldn't want something bad to happen to him)
We probably need therapy animals on my campus with all the stress that's been going on this spring. I bet I'm not the only one with a (likely) stress-related ailment.
* Even looking at cute animals online helps. (I confess, I have been retweeting a lot of Emergency Kittens lately). I also started following Shibebot (@shibsebot) which just tweets pictures of Shibas (mostly Shiba Inus, which seem to be the most popular breed). I started doing that because my brother and sister in law have a Shiba Inu and while I am not that much of a dog person, I like THEIR dog.
so, here is a picture of a baby Shiba that looks like a tiny fox:
Part of the reason I like Shibas is that they look more like foxes than like wolves or coyotes; somehow foxes seem less "threatening" (yes, I know: speciesist propaganda from fairy tales, where the fox is the clever rogue - or where stories are reset, as Disney did with Robin Hood - to have foxes as sympathetic characters, and wolves are most the the Big Bad Wolf.)
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