Two full weeks of break and I’m dragging myself into it.  Sort of.  By the time this post goes live, I’ve probably woken up and headed out to the mall for some walking before the shoppers arrive.  Might even get home before it goes live.  No telling what will happen since I haven’t done it yet.  All I know is that I’m writing this post, finishing the last February one, and crawling into bed after laundry.  I definitely need it.

This week was grueling because a lot happened at work and afterwards.  I won’t bore you with most of it, but there is a highlight I’ll mention later.  A victory was that I finished hand-editing Darwin & the Demon Game.  Finished it and felt like a fraud, but it’s done.  There are some things that I need to fix in the beginning because stuff mentioned earlier in the story don’t really match up.  It’ll take a long time to add the changes and make other ones as I go.  Do I think I can finish before the break is done?

Honestly, I don’t know because the next two weeks are going to be busy.  I’m also not going to touch the book until tonight or tomorrow.  The reason is because today is a big Pokemon Go event and I’d rather be outside even if it’s cold.  It’s really a weekend-long thing, but I’m going to use today to go hard on it and tomorrow will be a smaller outing in the afternoon.  After being cooped up all week and only getting a few fresh air outings, I really want to get the cobwebs out.  I dread being stuck inside all winter because that’ll lead to me gaining weight.  Other health problems can return, so I need to get out more often.  Don’t worry though.  I’ll have 5 layers and a 22 ounce thermos of hot chocolate (with rainbow unicorn marshmallows) on my side.

The other reason I want to go out is because of the highlight.  I had my six month follow-up with the sleep doctor.  It’s to see how my numbers are and if the CPAP machine is helping me.  Before he came in, the assistant (not sure of official title) took my vitals and threw me off with the blood pressure.  I’ve had hypertension for a long time, so I braced myself for the high numbers.  Instead, I got 112/50 . . . I actually had to ask him what the numbers were for and if he was sure.  Seems my hypertension is gone because I’m getting good sleep and walking around a lot.  Hence, I really don’t want to stay sedentary all winter.  The fresh air helps too, which means the exercise bike wouldn’t be a great substitute.

Having two weeks off is going to be relaxing, but I will try to accomplish some things.  That is when I’m not with family or sleeping.  The hand edits are the big one, which will be easier when my son is working on his own creative projects.  There’s that jigsaw puzzle I want to work on and finish ‘The Penguin’.  Yeah, these aren’t all lofty goals like writing a new novel.  I’m so burnt out and anxious that getting fun stuff accomplished will be a great end-of-year victory.  Seriously, my anxiety got so bad that I ended up having false fevers one morning.  It’s happened before where I get so stressed that I have 100 degree fever for a minute until I calm down.  The term is psychogenic fever, which I’m going to make sure isn’t a thing during the break.

There’s really nothing else that I have planned beyond two special events with my son.  I won’t say it out loud because they’re secrets from various people.  It’s going to be tough jamming them in though.  The first two days we have some appointments, but I can fit one outing in after them.  The weekend has family and would be a bad idea for the second, which means I’ll have to do it a week from this Monday.  Really hoping the weather holds since it’s an outdoor thing.  I don’t have him for New Years Eve this year, so that will be an editing and binge-watching day.  Thinking of it being this comedy called ‘Tacoma FD’ and I’ll type in hand edits while watching.  New laptop means I can work on my bed in front of the TV again.  We’ll see since the last 4 days of my break see me on my own, which opens the door for a lot of editing time.

Let’s get to the goals:

1. Enjoy the break!
2. Type in hand edits of Drawin & the Demon Game.
3. Finish watching ‘The Penguin’.
4. Catch shinies today, so that I don’t have to go out much tomorrow.
5. Cook sweet and sour meatballs tomorrow for dinner.
6. Enjoy time with son when he’s here.
7. Sleep!
8. Eat more lunches from stuff at home instead of fast food.
9. Have a Happy Hanukkah.