Week's almost over

I know, it's only Thursday, but today will be an easier day. Yesterday was stressful because:

a. Field lab. Having to get the vehicle, account for which students are going (wait for anyone who's running late in a previous class), get them safely out to the field site, make sure no one gets into a hornet's nest or anything, get them safely back to campus on time.

b. The tight scheduling - I had piano yesterday afternoon but also I had to wash my hair (pollen exposure in lab) and clean up the house (it had gotten bad, plus the kitchen was making me twitch because of how messy it got when I made the chicken Tuesday. And also, because I spilled some of the buttermilk I soaked the chicken in on the floor and didn't wipe it up with bleach water because I was running late AND wearing a black skirt, I kept hearing "SALMONELLA. SALMONELLA" in my head in about the same tone and cadence as the Daleks saying "EXTERMINATE")

Fortunately, lab got done early and I got home a little early. So I cleaned up, and then cleaned house, including disinfecting the areas of my kitchen that the chicken was even close to. And still had enough time, more or less, to practice piano.

But I think I find tight scheduling just stressful. Maybe everyone does. Or maybe a lot of people are better at going, "Meh, if it doesn't get done, no biggie" but I tend to see Not Getting Stuff Done as a personal failure, so.

I also just get stressed out when my to-do list is too long. A major way for me of getting RID of stress is to move stuff off my to-do list on to my "done" list. And that's one of those "the only way out is through" things.

Today I DO have a bunch of exams (biostats) to grade, and I need to finish that talk some time (though I could work on it Saturday if I had to).

And MOAR PONIES, because ponies are one of the things keeping me sane* these days:



I had to brighten up this photo a little because I took it without flash and it came out rather dark. But this is my one "adult male" pony (Boaty McBoatface, né Salty - or maybe that should be "neigh" Salty?) and Blackberry Pie (I am using her UK name for her, as that is how she was sold to me - I guess here  her name is Boysenberry Pie). Again, they were a set ordered together from the same seller, and it often seems that those ponies "go together," maybe because they traveled together.

Anyway, my imagined story of this is that Boaty has a crush on Blackberry. He's too shy to say anything (perhaps he's a cousin to Big Mac....) but Blackberry knows, and she likes Boaty too, so she hangs out with him. And they are just kind of content to stand next to each other and look into each others' eyes a little bit. (In my imagined Pony world, there is not the push to couple off or to trumpet to the world that you're Coupled....again, my imagined Pony world is nicer than the human world.)

(*FSVO "sane")