Happy Friday everyone! TGIF for sure. I’m going to be honest; this week (and last week) has not been my best. I’ve been riding the struggle bus for a while now it feels like. Last week was the first time I missed posting an article since I started writing Clearing Out the Clutter about five months ago and I really took it to heart and felt so disappointed in myself. I had felt myself struggling all week and kept making little notes to myself of which podcasts I was listening to or what strategies I was using to get out of my funk so that I could write about it at the end of the week, and then the end of the week came around and the funk hadn’t ended.
I was hoping this week would turn things around but let me walk you through how my Monday morning started out. We were throwing a retirement party for my supervisor on Monday (one potential cause of my funk in general is just the sadness about her leaving after having worked together for over ten years and the anxiety of having a new supervisor in the very near future). So, knowing myself and how incredibly bad my memory is, I set multiple alarms on my phone to not only prepare the dish I was bringing for the potluck but to BRING the dish with me in the morning, along with her gifts. I was very worried I was going to forget them. My alarms did their job though and I was able to get the stuff in a bag and out the door on Monday morning, in addition to getting all my daughter’s camp stuff prepped and packed and out the door as well (I was even feeling a little smug that we left the house on time…woo!)
So I drop my daughter off, careful to make sure that she took her swim bag rather than the bag with the party supplies since they were pretty similar looking, and head (still a bit smugly) off to the office. It wasn’t until I parked and went to grab the one bag left in my car that I realized I only have one bag…I FORGOT MY LAPTOP at home. Are you kidding me?? All smugness down the drain, back to completely defeated.
Luckily by some miracle my morning meeting was canceled so I didn’t have anything scheduled until 11am so I ran in and stashed my food and gifts for the party and then back out to my car to go home and get my computer. Had it been any other day I would have just said nope, not coming back, working from home now. Unfortunately, I had an in person training on campus I had to attend and of course there was the party. So, I pull out of the parking lot and head home and then…of course…my gas light comes on. Just as I knew it was going to; but that morning I’d not been worried as I knew I’d make it to the office fine and figured I’d just get gas on my way home.
So I make the stop to get gas, and thennnn go home. I quickly run in, give Willis a treat and subject myself to massive mom guilt as he stares at me with his puppy dog eyes and can’t understand why I’m not taking him on a walk as I usually do when I come home mid-day from work. I grab my laptop and my iced coffee that I’d forgotten about that morning in the fridge (silver lining??) and head back to the office.
Since I was coming from my house this time rather than from my daughter’s camp, I took a different route than I had earlier in the morning. Little did I know there was construction going on and roads were closed off. As soon as I saw the orange detour sign my mood dropped even further. All in all, the detour probably ended up setting me back only about two minutes total, but it’s the principle of things and I didn’t know that would be the outcome at first, so I was incredibly annoyed!
I got back to the office just in time to get in a solid 15 minutes of work and answering emails before heading down to the training (which by the way was the second half of a two part training that ended up being exactly the same as the first half and completely unnecessary). All in all, the morning was not great. BUT, the party was great, my supervisor was surprised and the food that everyone brought in was delicious, so the complaints stop here (finally, right?!)
So, that sums up my Monday. If you want a summary of last week that I didn’t write about, all you need to think about is that meme that is making the rounds on Facebook that says “Cleaning your house with a dog in it is like brushing your teeth with Oreos”. The quality of the picture is terrible, but if you look below you’ll see my exercise mat with Willis’s paw prints all over it. Between the combination of the rain and the fact that we just removed a bunch of old paver bricks in the spot where our deck previously was which left behind a huge pile of dirt and sand that has now become Willis’s favorite spot, I spend every morning thinking about the irony of running the new Roomba at night (Flowersmell!) and then Willis immediately undoing all the cleaning first thing in the morning.
Speaking of Flowersmell, question for anyone out there who has a newer model, do they get any quieter?? I hate to complain about my life changing robot vacuum (though I know no one’s surprised I’m complaining yet again), but this thing has already woken me up a few times in the night because of how loud it is. Is it worth spending more money eventually for a newer one or are they all insanely loud??
Anyway, hopefully next week I’ll be able to compile a list of strategies that actually helped to turn this funk around and I’ll share them with you. And fingers crossed you all are having a much better week than me. Have a nice weekend!
PS. As I was looking for appropriate pictures to include at the bottom of this post, I searched stock images for things titled “frustration” and “struggle” and the images that popped up were of people having infinitely tougher times than me. So that reminded me how lucky I am and pulled me out of my pity party pretty quickly and reminded me of the item that should always be top of my list for things to snap you out of a funk, gratitude. So, I am a bit embarrassed now by my rant above, but it’s already written and why not let you guys get a laugh at Willis’s dirty paws forever taunting me.