I am sleeping better, but still not fabulously, so I'm still very tired, and have only so much energy to give before I start sucking it from other places. Yesterday was a prime example, so let me describe it to you. At 2 pm I did my employee's performance review. Usually I leave work at 3, which means that in terms of hard mental work, I'm done by then and can just go home and do not so hard mental work like talk to the dog, cook dinner, and knit. The review went two and a half hours. I left work at 4:30, drove home in much higher traffic volumes than I'm used to, got in the door to let Priest out, and then stood in the kitchen. I was confused.
I called Mike's cell, because I didn't remember his work number. I told him I just got home, and I let Priest out, and now I had to cook dinner. "I was going to make satay," I told him. "I was going to, but I don't know..."
"Put a pizza in the oven," he said (we had bought organic feta spinach pizza at Costco on the weekend, for just these kinds of days, actually).
"But I was going to make satay," I said. "Or I could steam you some perogies and make myself a shake for dinner."
"A what?"
"A shake. A smoothie. I wanted a shake today, but I didn't get home, so I can have that for dinner and I can steam you perogies."
"Yeah," he said, "that's a good dinner. Put a pizza in the oven; I'll be home soon."
I follow instructions very well in this state. I put a pizza in the oven. By this point, I was slurring words so I had to speak slowly and carefully. I was also a bit punchy, which does odd things to my sense of humour. I could only focus on one thing at a time. I let Priest in. I brushed Priest. I did the dishes. Mike came home and we ate pizza. And then I did nothing mentally heavy for the rest of the night (not for lack of trying).
What had happened was that I had overstretched my limits. I have enough to get through seven hours of work, the drive home, and cooking, but not 8.5 hours of work, the drive home, and cooking. Yet I had to be present and with it during the review, so I sucked at my minor reserves, and by the time I got home, my brain was exhausted.
So this is my warning to all of you: if you call me at night, don't expect stellar conversation. Don't expect much of anything, actually, even if I'm still awake. Until I'm sleeping better and have better every-day energy, not just reserves, anything after 6 pm is questionable. :)
In terms of miscellanea, I have the following:
-Somehow or another, I volunteered to teach knitting this week at the local public library. This is kind of silly because 1) even though the lead on this session said all I needed to know how to do was cast on, knit, purl, increase, decrease, and cast off, that's pretty much all I know how to do, and 2) I knit continental, and most people were taught and do British, so if their hands have any memory whatsoever, I just confuse them. But it was a ton of fun on Monday, and I'm going again tonight, and maybe we'll start a knitting evening at the library, which would be much fun.
-Priest's vocabulary is growing. He understands the word "Breakfast," so I have to be careful about sentences like, "It's not breakfast time yet," because he only understands the one word, and he associates it to food. He is also starting to get "Let's go" when we're walking, though he pretends not to understand when it suits his purposes. I'm also starting to get a handle on Priest vocabulary. When he slows down on the walks with his head down but not sniffing, that's "Mum, I know you're not going to like this, but I'm going to stop walking now." When he leans up against my legs and looks up at me, that's "I need some petting now, please." I'm still trying to figure out what he wants me to do when he play-stances at me, but we did chase each other around the coffee table yesterday a bit, which was fun. Ahh... Good times.
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