#2348 a wild and crazy week

Today I have been resting and reflecting on the crazy week.  Let's recap:

On Monday at work, it was decided that everyone should work from home. I didn't have much to do with helping people prepare to work at home except to walk through with them what they might need and make sure they were okay.

Also on Monday I became a great-aunt for the second time. My nephew and his wife-to-be had a baby girl :)

Tuesday was the first work-at-home day. I'm in kind of a slow period with my work, so I didn't have a giant pile of stuff to try to work through, which was nice. I am a person who likes routine. Change is tough for me to handle. I was glad to be able to work from home and still keep in touch with all the people through Microsoft Teams.

Wednesday, of course, there was a 5.7 magnitude earthquake here in SLC. Apparently the epicenter was about five miles from my house. I must have been through earthquakes before, I think, but maybe not. I was in my bedroom. It was just after 7 AM. There was a tremendously loud rumbling noise - I thought a truck had crashed or something - then the earth started doing a shimmy. I remember yelling and running over to my nightstand and holding on to the little lamp which was wobbling madly. Stuff on my dresser was falling over and onto the floor. Books were sliding off shelves. MT was yelling, "What's happening?" and I was yelling, "It's an earthquake!" and then it was over. It felt so long and I know it wasn't any time at all. I went into T's room to make sure he was okay. He said, "What the hell!?!" Aftershocks started pretty quickly - a few of them were pretty strong.

My main goal for the day was to get some toilet paper. For nearly a week, shelves were empty of pretty much all paper products. I really think that not being able to get toilet paper - of which I still had six or seven rolls - was freaking me out even more than the coronavirus. My main thought on Wednesday was to get to the store by 8:00 when it opened. It didn't even occur to me that the store had been jiggled around during the earthquake, which of course it was. I was politely informed by the nice lady at Smith's that there was glass and stuff all over the floors and they would not be opening for at least two hours.

My next thought was that I would get coffee and go to the office. Clearly, I was not in a good mental place and I wasn't thinking clearly. Starbucks was closed too, of course, so I just kept going on to work. Traffic lights were out in some parts of my commute. There is road construction in my area and the on-ramp to the highway had changed and I didn't know it, so I ended up taking a longer way to work. Several times I thought, "What the f am I doing?" but there was no place to turn around. The road was full of cars. It took me an hour to get to the office.

Why was I there? Well, I had a doctor appointment scheduled for noon and her office is much closer to my office than my home. Plus I needed some help with my laptop from the IT guy. There's a program I use a lot that I couldn't see and I didn't know how to fix it. I ended up postponing the appointment with the doctor because the Governor said people should avoid going downtown because bricks were falling off some buildings and there may be a gas leak and Moroni's trumpet had fallen for goodness sake and everybody should be home anyway because coronavirus.

So I went back home and stress-ate whatever I could get my hands on. It took everything in my power not to make a big ol' pan of brownies.

The day was full of aftershocks. There was a pretty big one, 4.6 magnitude, around 1:00. The lamp above my dining room table/desk was swaying merrily. I didn't like it. I was edgy the rest of the day and went to bed with a tremendous headache.

Thursday was T's birthday. I did manage to get to the store and get some TP and it was the best I've felt for about a week. I worked from home all day. We had Panda Express take-out for T's birthday dinner (his choice) and four of his friends came over for ice cream cake later in the evening. (Derik is the person sitting next to T in the photo I posted that day.) I'm sure it wasn't exactly the birthday celebration T wanted, but he took it all in stride.

Friday I had to go back to the office for a few hours. There are some things that I have to sign that can't be done electronically and I had a bunch of papers in my in-box to go through. It worked out fine. I got home just in time for another aftershock. I worked through the rest of the day and took a nap at 5:05. Gotta love the commute from my dining table/desk to my bedroom!

Today I have been not doing a lot. Of course WW workshops are closed, so we did a virtual meeting using the Zoom app. There were some helpful tips for navigating the stress-eating a lot of us are doing and reminders to be gentle with ourselves in this time of stress. We had another good aftershock late this morning. I hope those are about done. The highlight of my day was going out for a walk. It felt so good to get some fresh air and stretch my legs. I want to go out tomorrow too because a storm front is coming through next week that will bring rain and snow Monday through Thursday. Isn't that great?

It's been a hard week. I've had a headache every day - it's just always there, no matter how much ibuprofen and Tylenol  I take. Yesterday my face hurt, like maybe I was getting a sinus infection. I just wanted to floss my teeth vigorously to relieve the pressure on my gums. The face pain is gone today, and the headache isn't quite so debilitating. That twitch in my right eye, though, that's annoying.

I understand times are hard for everyone. It's great to be able to stay at home, but it's better when it's your own idea and not the government and health professionals mandating it. I'm about ready to sit down with my planner and schedule some time to do a bit of exercise with YouTube or whatever. I think that will make me feel better. I've got plenty of food in the house, so I'll plan some meals and get creative. I've finished a couple of books and am enjoying the three I am reading now. My biggest thing is to not put too much pressure on myself. I feel like I could cry or scream at any given moment, so I want to take care of myself so I don't totally lose my shit.

Take care of yourselves friends. Wash your hands.