Today was....not a good anxiety day. I don't know why. I felt jumpy and unsettled all day, and my chest felt tight. I strongly suspect some of what I interpret as "I'm anxious" is really "my asthma is lowgrade bugging me" because when I stopped and did some deep-breathing exercises (there's a nice .gif online for that:)
I will say with some displeasure that what I interpret as "anxiety" may be increasing. Part of menopause? Maybe? (The clock is still ticking, I can call myself done in January if nothing happens between now and then). Maybe just all the stuff that happens so loud and so fast and so incredibly close in my life?
I do find I spent a lot of nights when I sleep squeezing either Polaris or Pfred or sometimes even just old Harry (my teddy bear, renamed because he looks like Fluttershy's friendly bear friend) up tightly to my chest and that helps me somewhat.
No, I don't want to go on another med. If it becomes crippling I will but right now it's not all the time and it's merely unpleasant when it is and I can power through it and also I do think some of this is allergies and asthma bothering me.
It would also be nice if I had more regular access to someone who had friendly dogs or cats or horses or just some kind of nice animal that would let me pet it. No, I don't need the added responsibility of a pet of my own right now but I would love to visit someone else's and maybe even once in a while walk their dog for them.
Part of it is today was the soils lab, which while it's stressful for me (the set up is more involved than any other lab, and there's a lot more careful watching to be sure people don't do unsafe things), it does seem to be valuable to the students, and they seem to enjoy it. (I wonder how many tiring things educators do because they know it benefits the students, and I wonder if the students realize the effort we put in. I don't think I fully appreciated it when I was a student.)
My one student I THOUGHT was challenging me early in the semester - the person who asked something that sounded to me like "So how did you get this job, anyway?" and I heard it as a "what kind of an idiot are you" on that particular day, but I said nothing other than to explain a bit of the coursework I had done....well, they asked to meet with me after class because they wanted advice on a minor, and in the course of talking, it came out that REALLY what they were asking is "Your job seems like something I'd be well suited for, I'd like to follow a similar career path, how'd you plan for it?"
So you never should assume. The student was just being blunt and maybe a little awkward, and I have come to realize that's kind of just their natural state, so I'm glad now I didn't say anything to them and I didn't think ill of them (though I admit I was a little leery). But I often find interacting with people hard because sometimes it's really easy to misinterpret them.
They also expressed excitement to be taking one of my upcoming classes, so, I think that's a win.
And I think a couple of the other students who maybe didn't take me fully seriously at the start because I tend to be very traditionally feminine (I wear dresses and skirts and make up and bright pastel colors in a department where most of the other women dress in dark slacks and wear minimal makeup) now do, because they've seen what I can do, and that's good. (And maybe they learned something about not assuming)
But yeah. I'm a little frazzled right now, part of it is just teaching four courses and oh my gosh the grading for those courses....
I have tentative plans to go to Sherman this weekend. Money wise, maybe I shouldn't (though I will always need groceries whether I stay here or go there) but I also admit I really just want to wander around in the JoAnn's for a bit to decompress. (Oh how I wish we had a Michael's. JoAnn's is nice but I realized they tend to be a bit thin on the simple "kit crafts" that some places used to do, and sometimes I just want a simple, I don't know, Christmas tree ornament kit where I'm sticking sequins on a ball or something like that, and it's fairly mindless and self-limited in time (unlike knitting, where it takes days to months to finish a thing). But yeah, I could go for one of those old Darice or whatever the brand was kits where you either decorated a foam shape by using pins to attach sequins to it, or some kind of super-simple small plastic-canvas-and-yarn deal, or, I don't know what. (Maybe I should dig out that latch-hook kit I bought ages ago and never got very far on).
I also feel a desire to bake something now that I have an oven back. Maybe not full on bread with kneading and everything, but maybe mix up that muffin mix I bought a week or so back and have muffins this weekend for breakfasts. (And if it EVER gets cooler, I am totally doing baked beans some Saturday when I will be home all day. Or a Sunday afternoon).
I am ready for cooler weather, though. And hopefully for me to finally get back in the swing of getting everything I need to do done in the little interstices of time I have, so I can go back to long Saturday afternoons knitting and looking out at the fall rain while something quiet and nice plays on the tv (or on Pandora music). I'm ready for the cozy season. (And I really do need to take some time and clean house again, bleagh, so it's more pleasant to be in it. Especially my bedroom)
There's also a chance my dad gets to go home in the next few days. My mom says she'd like for him to have a few more days of rehab, but that's kind of how insurance works. She is planning to get someone in a couple days a week to do PT with him, though. I know he'll be glad to be home. (I just wish he were more mobile. I wish his knee surgery had had a better outcome, that was really the start of all this stuff. Makes me not want to consider it if my knees wind up going, though maybe by then there will be some better and less-invasive treatment.)
I guess the food there isn't that great, either. (Most institutional food isn't). She did comment that one of the....not sure if you'd call them orderlies or practical nurses....commented that she liked working with my mom and dad (my mom is practically always over there) because, and I quote "You're polite to me and not demanding" (and yes, there's a racial aspect there in the people who treat her badly, maybe: the nurse in question, my mom noted, is West Indian with African heritage). But yeah, that's how my parents are, that's how I was raised. I know they're grateful for the help they've gotten and they express that to the people around them. (And really, I have found: often when you are polite to people, you get better and sometimes faster help than you might if you are rude).
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