Corner of Bourbon & Division

I overslept this morning for the first time in a very long time. I've been waking up anywhere between 4:30 and 7:30 am for the last three weeks or so, and because I've often had external commitments of various kinds, I've been crowbarring myself out of bed almost immediately and just getting on with my day. Today was the first day in all that time that I didn't have an immediate reason to get up, and so my brain took that as a sign that I should just sleep until 10:30. By the time I showered and got dressed and got the dogs organized, it was nearly 11:30 (I know, poor dogs, but they forgave me).

KK wanted to go to City Hall today for our Solemn Declarations, so we hopped in the car almost immediately and drove off. I suppose I should explain, because I haven't properly done it before except in bits and bobs here and there, and never completely. Because people have asked: no, KK and I are not romantic partners (she is lamentably straight, but also not the type I would be romantically attracted to anyway), but we have decided to become common-law spouses. We're forming a weird little family unit because we are compatible in every other way and are basically Platonic Life Partners™ at this  point. Neither one of us has any plans to move out, we share all the household expenses, and it just makes sense. So the Solemn Declaration is to officially inform the Federal Government of our marital status, and it's for the purposes of estate planning so that we each get to be the other's beneficiary for the federal pension after we retire.

I got home, and somehow the day kind of frittered away, and the next thing I knew it was time to get dinner started. I had ordered a little chick feeder and waterer for the quail, and the package came during dinner, so after dinner I checked on the quail and changed out their entire litter, since I'd decided to stop separating the males and the hens today (they kept jumping over the barrier to visit with each other anyway). The feeder and waterer are smaller than I'd like, so I may order a second set depending on how quickly they go through the food and water in a day. I will check the levels tomorrow and go from there. I also got another egg today! I initially thought there was nothing, but it turned out one was buried in their bedding, so clearly one of the ladies is feeling pretty relaxed and productive.

I didn't get any packing done today. I am honestly feeling a little overwhelmed, and the overwhelm is leading to paralysis, but this is a terrible idea for packing up the house. I don't have the time, energy, or stamina to do a last-minute packing rush in, say, the last 10 days to a week before the move. There's just too much to do. I'm going to have to find a way to snap myself out of the overwhelm. If I can pack at least three boxes a day, then that will keep things on track for me to move around May 28th, but that will require me to actually DO that, and so far I am batting zero. Ugh.

Actually, that reminds me of a cute flow chart I saw the other day that went sort of like this: This task feels too overwhelming ---> I will break it down into smaller steps ---> I have too many tasks and now I feel overwhelmed ---> I will consolidate them into one task ---> This task feels too overwhelming.

The struggle is real, what can I say?

Okay. Time for bed. Catch you on the flip side, friends!

I have noticed that my angst about work doesn't seem to necessarily be directly tied to how well or how badly my days are going. There are some days when I am reasonably productive but still feel as though I am behind the eight ball, like today. I deliberately worked more hours today because I wanted to be in early to greet our newest employee and then I stayed late on purpose to discuss another employee with her supervisor (who was working a night shift, which starts an hour after I normally end work), and arguably I got a lot done. I followed up on a bunch of things that needed following up on, I finished revising a document that I promised for someone last week, I sorted out the employee pay, solved two separate computer mysteries, and set up a whole bunch of meetings over the next few weeks. In spite of all of that, I spent the whole day feeling a general malaise about everything, feeling as though I was prioritizing the wrong things anyway.

What likely didn't help was the news that yet another employee is 90% likely to be leaving for another job at the end of July. *sigh* He has to pass one more test to qualify, but the odds are good he will pass, so that's that. If he leaves and the employee I mentioned the other day also has to go on sick leave (which he will, sooner rather than later), we will officially no longer have enough staff to run the unit 24/7.

I hate that this is happening on my watch. None of it is under my control, but the stupid anxiety voice in my brain keeps telling me that when the manager returns in the fall she is going to use this as "proof" that she was right all along and that I'm actually incompetent and that the unit failed because of me. The thing is, it's not entirely unlikely that she will act that way, even though objectively speaking all of the employees who left in the last year did so of their own accord in order to find better jobs and KK left before I was even the acting manager (because *she* was the acting manager at the time!).

I've half-joked that this feels a lot like the glass cliff, that I took the reins just as we're about to collapse under the weight of being underfunded, understaffed, and mismanaged for the better part of a decade, and that joke isn't feeling all that funny right about now.

*sigh*

In way better news, Peggy successfully slept in bed with me last night! She didn't destroy anything, didn't pee on the carpet, and didn't declare war on the cats at 1:00 am. She was a bit wriggly, but overall she cuddled up like a champ and slept most of the way through the night. I am very pleased, and I am going to try again tonight. Yesterday she was VERY tired from playing all day with her friend Shadow, so we'll see how she does after a quiet day at home while I was at work. Time will tell. :)

I got nothing done out of what I had planned, but I procrastinated in a productive way, so I am taking the win! I completely cleaned out my refrigerator and scrubbed it to within an inch of its life. It was very overdue, and now it is super white and pretty and nothing in it is expired or going bad or developing sentience.

I also washed a bunch of dishes, scrubbed the sink, and wiped down the kitchen cabinets.

I am very pleased, tbh. I slept SUPER badly last night, and dragged myself out of bed quite late this morning, and I kind of worried that I wouldn't get anything done at all, so this is definitely going in the "win" column.

I'm not sure why I slept so poorly. I kind of pushed myself to stay up instead of napping, and maybe I pushed over into overtired. Either way, I was pretty restless, and I woke up around 2am and actually worried about work? Specifically a scheduling issue combined with the fact that we're now super short-staffed. I was half-asleep the whole time, and kind of dreamed that I talked through the issue with some co-workers, and we came up with a solution in my dreams! A solution which I think can actually be applied IRL and wasn't just the result of dream logic (thank goodness). Unfortunately since I didn't actually talk to anyone I now have to talk to them and get everyone's buy-in, but I think it can work. I have rarely been the kind of person who lies awake at night and worries about work, so I hope this isn't going to be a new trend.

I am heading to bed soonish. Daylight Savings Time starts tonight, and I am NOT looking forward to losing that hour of sleep. I don't know why we've kept that ridiculous practice going. There's very little evidence to suggest it saves on energy, and the week after DST kicks in the number of accidents skyrockets because the whole population is jet-lagged. *grumblemutter*

Tomorrow I will make another attempt at getting errands run and some of the chores I had originally planned done. Tally ho!

 I don't want to make this the All Landlady, All the Time journal, so I promise to try keep it brief. I have been in touch with two paralegals today. The first is actually on maternity leave (she was recommended by a friend who obviously wasn't in the loop), but she gave me some good unofficial advice and then recommended a couple of other names for me to try. I have now secured the services of one of those firms, and will be having my first meeting with the paralegal on Wednesday. She wants me to come in with all paperwork and pictures of my house, so that she can see for herself that there's no damage to the house. Shockingly, she can't take my word for it. ;)

So, for now, I'm exploring options. While a huge part of me wants to just rip off the bandaid and get out of this place ASAP and just have done, already, I am coming to see that there are more reasons for me to just grit my teeth and bear it for a couple of extra months. If nothing else, moving in early spring will be easier than trying to dig out my barbecue, patio table, and a lot of gardening stuff from under 3-4 feet of frozen snow, not to mention that I have to dig my packing boxes out of the shed, which is also buried under the same 3-4 feet of frozen snow. As much as I am loath to deal with extra landlady shenanigans during that time (and shenanigans there will be, I am quite sure of it), moving in the spring would be much more convenient.

There are a few avenues open to me, all of which have some drawbacks and some advantages. We shall see what comes of the meeting with the paralegal and go from there I guess. Yes, that's the royal "we." ;) I can ask my landlady for a 

In the meantime, my job is changing categories, starting April 26th, if all goes according to plan. This was all put into motion years ago, when it was decided that Civilian Members were to be eliminated from the RCMP. So we're all being converted to the public service. I think I mentioned this in a previous post many months back, but I can't be bothered to go find it right now.

Anyway, none of the Civilian Members are happy about this, because it means we're losing a ton of the benefits we enjoyed before, including unlimited sick time, which I don't think is offered by anyone else in Canada. Instead we're going to be getting the same amount of time as the other public service employees, which is 120 hours a year. For most employees, that's the equivalent of fifteen days of sick leave. If, like me, you work 12-hour shifts, though, suddenly you find yourself with ten days of leave instead. Granted, most of us don't use that many days in a year, but every now and then it's to be expected that you *will* find yourself in need of long-term leave. Right now, what that means is that if you get seriously ill, you imply stay home and concentrate on getting better, at full salary. Once the "deeming" happens (as it's called), it becomes a lot more complicated. First, you have to burn through your sick leave, then any vacation time you have. Then you have to claim unemployment insurance (thus guaranteeing a not-insignificant interruption in your revenue while they determine if they're going to accept your application), and after, IF that goes through, your insurance kicks in after a year. Needless to say, unemployment and insurance is a lot less than your actual salary.

So if, for instance, you get cancer, you get to also worry about keeping your kids fed or a roof over your head as well as worrying about whether or not you're going to die. Before you say "But lots of people have to worry about that!" let me hasten to assure you that I know. The point is that we had a more progressive set of benefits, and we are going backward. The goal should not be to remove our benefits so that we're like everyone else, the goal should be to give everyone else the same security we have. Of course, that's not what's happening, and I can all but guarantee you that it will end up costing the government more in the long run than they are saving in the short run.

The other part of this is that, thanks to Bill C-7 and the elimination of Civilian Members, we also now have to unionize. Now, I'm generally pro-union, so this isn't terrible news, but I will confess that, having never been part of a union before, the unionization process is breaking. my. brain. We have several unions competing for our attention, and none of them appear to understand our jobs or see the whole picture or even be able to give us a straight answer to any of our questions. It's bloody well disheartening. 

I keep meaning to talk about watching The Clone Wars, or my continuing re-watch of Deep Space Nine, or any of the other shows I'm watching, but my brain is currently being consumed by anxiety about my living situation. When that's not happening, my brain is being consumed by anxiety about the entire world being a political trash fire. There is, of course, the living nightmare going on in the United States, but even Canadian politics are being depressing, with Trudeau going back on his promise of electoral reform, which was basically the platform on which he was elected. It's such a disappointment, even though I have to admit I'm not entirely surprised he's reneging on it.

Okay. I am off to find more painkillers in the hopes of making this lingering stress headache go away. I have fish in the oven for dinner, so at least healthy food is in the offing. See you on the flip side, LJ!

It's not a secret that I really enjoy external validation. This has been part of my identity since I was a kid. While I do derive some satisfaction out of the things I do, I've always liked it better when I played to an audience. Music, writing, cooking, whatever, I never enjoyed it more than when I could share it with other people. Sure, I can cook myself a nice meal, but why would I do that when I can cook a nice meal for more than just myself, and have other people enjoy it too? What's the point of writing a story if I'm going to shove it in a drawer, literally or metaphorically?

( Cut for length )

I'm overtired and haven't had enough sunlight lately. Part of this is my own fault. Part of this is working night shift.

In spite of my efforts to keep my posts light-hearted and positive, I've been dealing with a good dose of low-level anxiety of late. Part of this is seasonal, part of it is due to what's going on politically (nothing like having the government disintegrate during a time of economic crisis, and having there be a good chance of the whole separatism thing starting up again: 'cause what we really need is to beat that dead horse in order to make sure it's really dead).

And part of it is my own damned fault. I kind of ran into some minor financial snags lately. This is nothing, I hasten to add. It's just some poor planning on my part, and is nowhere near doing anything but causing me some mild inconvenience for the next few weeks. My reaction, on the other hand, has been nothing short of breathtakingly over the top about this.

For those of you who are new to this LJ (two years or less), the thing you have to understand is that this whole "financial stability" thing is still pretty new to me. I used to live paycheque to paycheque, and for a very long time there was always a lot of month left at the end of the money. I wrecked my credit during that time, partly because I had no money and partly because I was incapable of managing what little money I did have. This created constant, gut-ripping anxiety on my part (spiced up with the occasional panic attack).

So this latest snag? Objectively, I know I'll be fine. I need to be a bit careful for the next thirty days, but it's not going to prevent me from paying my bills or eating. It means that it's a damned good thing I decided not to buy Christmas presents for anyone except my parents and BorderCrossing this year, and it also means that I'm likely not going to buy any more Christmas decorations than the ones I already have.

Emotionally, it's doing a number on my headspace. The irrational part of me is suddenly convinced that I'm back on the slippery slope to being constantly in the red, to having to watch my bank balance like a hawk and sending up a prayer every time I buy groceries so that my transaction doesn't get refused.

So, anyway, no happy-fluffy entry from me right now. I'm okay, but I've been better. Knowing that probably 95% of everyone else out there has it worse than me is somehow not a comfort.