rhapsodic.org is a weblog by Valette Keller

Backlit Alaskan Rainforest

Mental Health Weekend

This last week was a really rough one for me. Work was the kind of stressful that manifests itself in no time to breathe or pee or read all of my emails or listen to any (heh) of my voicemails or anything really except throw milk-sugar-chocolate-coffee down my throat repeatedly.

Combatting work stress with soul mochas results in some caffeine anxiety on top of work stress anxiety which all leads to headaches and neck aches and not sleeping well. Or at all.

While my Sleep Cycle app is awesome for pointing the finger at my husband or dogs for waking me up at night (at 3:30am my sleep graph says! no denying it!), its also pretty awesome at reinforcing when I feel I had hardly slept.

Like Tuesday night this week. And Wednesday. Oh and Thursday, too.

It's one thing to feel like I didn't sleep, and it's quite another to have scientific proof that I didn't sleep. It's actually not all that helpful beyond being able to say to myself, "No wonder I feel like crap."

I am declaring this weekend to be one of mental health. I will do things to increase my sanity quotient and my ability to sleep.

• go to the gym
• take the dogs to the park
• paint my toenails
• watch last week's Game of Thrones episode
• make and eat pancakes
• make pictures
• turn off work email on all of my devices
• shave my legs
• drink water
• be in bed with a book and no internet by 10:30 each night

It will be magical.

Traditional Spring Hair Cut

There is little as heart wrenching as watching Olive being dragged into the back room at the groomer's: legs splayed, nails attempting to dig into the concrete floor, eyes wide and panicked despite the sleepy pills taking effect.

But oh man, Spring Olive is a different dog. A dog with feet! And long legs! And pigtails! And eyeballs! And... a little more chub than I remember from last fall.

Thursday

Saturday

Mitzi did not get a haircut but was very interested in all of the hullablaoo and also why is Olive getting treats? Mitzi wants treats! Mitzi is a good girl!

Mitzi also isn't allowed onto the furniture and it was extremely difficult to get her up onto the bench. Once she was there it took a lot of treats and praise to get her out of the ears-back-eyes-wide-OMG-I'm-going-to-be-in-so-much-trouble look.

Thursday

Saturday

And then I made Donovan sit for me for TWO MINUTES OH MY GOD even though he's not doing anything with his hair this week. It was a traumatizing experience as one might as expect. Because teenagers.