Pinnacles National Park

 After living in California for over a decade, I recently went to Pinnacles National Park for the first time. Without knowing what to expect, we set out one Saturday and drove down to the area. It was a rather longish drive but when we got there, all of a sudden we were thrust into the environment of a US National Park. It truly felt different, breathtaking and important. We had to drive into the park and find a spot to park, after which we set off on a hike through rocks and canyons and caves, to land up at a reservoir.

The caves, rock formations and scenery was truly special and unlike anything I had seen before. There were a lot of climbers also ascending the rock formations and hiking past us with all their gear. Inside the caves, we had to crouch and walk through some dark areas but we made it to the other side. It was a bit nerve racking with a rather unruly toddler in tow but we made it there and back. We had packed our lunch so we made a picnic of it. And on our way back, we stopped at a Trader Joe's to pick up some of our favorite ready to eat meals for dinner. A day well spent and quite memorable!

Playing in my head:

Leave them all behind - Ride

Wheels turning around
Into alien grounds
Pass through different times
Leave them all behind

Leave them all behind
Leave them all behind
Leave them all behind
Leave them all behind

Just to see
We've got so far to go
Until we get there
Just let it flow

Just let it flow
Just let it flow
Just let it flow
Just let it flow (Just let it flow)

Colours shining clear
Fading into night
Our grasp is broken
There's nothing we can do

I don't care about the colours
I don't care about the light
I don't care about the truth
I don't care about the truth

Busy week ahead

The pace of work is really picking up fast. My daughter is also now in school - kindergarten - in person. Whoa. It's a lot of excitement, sure. But the anxiety, oh the anxiety! We have decided to send her in person while closely monitoring the Covid-19 transmission in our area. It's been nerve racking for us parents. But at the same time, we are watching her thrive, with the learning, the playing, the social interaction and the novelty of it all. Work has gotten busy. At times, I feel empowered by the work I do. There is a lot of responsibility entrusted to me and a lot of praise and acknowledgement given. For that, I am really grateful. However, on the flip side, I am designated and treated as junior and sometimes I feel like I get a stereotypical "intern" treatment. This is not fun and is quite disheartening. I'll have to figure out how to navigate this. I've been feeling down because of the wildfire smoke in our area. On top of that, I have a runny nose and itchy eyes. I think it's because of the smoke, but with these symptoms, I am anxious. There are family health worries and sadness in the background. Trying to find joy in day to day and read this quote about Worrying not taking away the troubles of tomorrow but taking away the peace of today. Apt for me. I'm a work in progress. Aren't we all? :)

The dichotomy of being positive but remaining a realist

For many, being positive is a way of life. They try not to take failure too hard, always look ahead and are quite good in the self confidence aspect. Often it works out that such people seem to breeze through life.

For others, there is often an internal struggle. There are grey lines and ebbs and flows. There is an evolving dialogue that sometimes smiles and sometimes cries. Life is not something they breeze through, but painstakingly tackle as best as they can. 

The first camp is all about how their positivity brings them success. They talk about a few instances of adversity and how they overcame it with their attitude. 

The second camp tends to have a bigger share of adversity and also take it more seriously than the first. They have a lot of wisdom and scars from their experiences.

Now coming to myself and where I stand. From my past posts, its probably apparent that I belong to the second camp, and aspire to be in the first camp - but I'm also not entirely sure if that's what I want. I guess I want parts of it but not all.

The part that I am struggling with today is over-sensitivity. The situation where an interaction remains in my mind, I replay it and get affected by it too much. This current one stems from an issue at work. I want to let it go but it's bothering me. 

A colleague took advantage of me and instead of asking for my help, tried to pass off work to me as if it was my responsibility to begin with, which it wasn't. He got aggressive and I held firm in my boundaries. He went to the manager and I had done so as well. The manager asked him to do it but gave me "advice" to "get out of my comfort zone". I didn't like that, since he was getting a free pass and I was looking like the bad guy. He told me we both had to figure out a way to work together. I had to read between the lines and extend the olive branch to do the work after all with this colleague. He did not reciprocate and told me he's "busy until the end of the month" - too busy to accept my help which I know he is going to pass off again as my work. Anyway, my manager brought this up in my annual performance review, since of course, this had to happen the same week. I hate it. Absolutely do not like such toxic work environment and I want to shake it off. I think they are going to use it against me. I need to get out of here and why does this always happen? I am upset. It absolutely sucks. And I am not sure if I will ever get out of this career slump. There that's all said and now I will try to plan my next steps. But I wonder, if others deal with similar and just shake it off? Or are they more aggressive and they do not care about the repercussions? Mostly, I think it goes back to my leveling - since I am "junior" and a woman, people think it's a license to abuse me. I often think that I would make for a very empathetic manager, but maybe I'm too much of a realist and not enough of a "drink the koolaid" person to be made one.

The other part is my health anxiety. I am worried that every time something happens at work that is negative and I speak up or even vent, that the karma or whatever I am putting out is bad. It is an awful feeling. I feel like I should have just been a doormat and accepted the work quietly. And then feel guilty, ungrateful, and wonder if I have the right perspective.

This whole thing happened just before a vacation and I have other anxieties related to family and health and it's all just blowing out of proportion in my mind. I can't really look forward to the vacation with all of this in so much flux.

Now getting to the kids and husband. They are really the most important in all of this and they are not taking enough headspace in my happiness. Kids are absorbing every little thing around them, and I want to be that positive force around them. I am trying and I hope I can focus on them and enjoying them more.

Anyway, I am going to try my best because what else can I do. Thank you for reading.

Edit: After writing this all out and sleeping on it, I am trying to convince myself of the following:

1. With kids I am probably doing a better job than I am. I told my husband that I see myself as a ball of anxiety and stress. He says he doesn't see that. That the only thing that comes out on those aspects is an over-sensitivity at times, and that the anxiety actually helps our family because it is to the extent that we try to make healthy choices for our family. 

2. All is not lost on the work front. The review was not the formal review. If I make a good impression before that then other stuff is forgotten. Sometimes people are so busy they tend to have short term memory and my issues are not on their radar at all, definitely not to the importance that I am giving them. Also opinions about how I performed were formed already, and they are not stupid, they can judge for themselves.  I have to give them credit for that. He also told me he "has great things planned for me" and I believe him on that, so I think we all agree that I have potential. I've played this corporate speak thing for years, it's part of navigating my career, I have to dust off and keep moving. 

3. Vacation - let's focus on that, try to have a change of scene and give ourselves and kiddos and family a bit of a respite. Looking forward to that.

How to work on fitness in ten steps

This is just what I try from time to time. I hope some or all of it can work for someone else who stumbles upon this! Thanks for reading.

1. Start with a monthly plan - commit to 30 days of yoga or 30 days of walking or something similar

2. Find a way, any way to do a workout in the early morning. If the problem is kids and co-sleeping then try to have your partner cover for you for just 45 minutes (30 minutes of actual exercise, and 15 minutes of getting ready, showering after).

3. Take out a couple of unhealthy items from your diet.

4. Add an unrelated interest in that month - be it music, or reading or any other hobby.

5. Try not to snack after dinner.

6. Track water intake and make it at least 10 glasses.

7. Track steps or use some metric to keep active in the day.

8. If playing with kids, try to be on the move instead of sitting down.

9. Yoga and meditation really helps.

10. Journal and celebrate accomplishments.

How to keep going through hard times

 The title of this post sounds like I have all the answers and I'm going to provide a five point plan on how to succeed through life's challenges! Well, that's far from it. I think where my head is at is "how do people do it?" and "I hope that if I just keep going, maybe there is a light at the end of this tunnel?"

The pandemic reached worrisome and anxiety-inducing levels these past months in India and for all of us sitting in the US glued to our WhatsApp messages. Our work did not miss a beat and did not fail to keep the pressure at an all time high so there was that. And we threw ourselves into the only way we know to cope which is to power through and double down on all of our efforts to keep the boat afloat. Then since we were really running out of energy, we also started back up our fitness (we never really stop but there are bouts of more and less that we go through, and this period saw the "more" happen).

Then we had another few setbacks related to family travel, and health, and work. All the big ones right? But we have to step back, keep things in perspective and keep going.

There's lots of positives and silver linings and we don't need to look very far to find them.

I'll show you how I do mine, but first I need to lay out the negatives to get it out and make space for the positives to (hopefully) occupy a more dominant space in my mind.

- Work has been extra demanding for both of us. There are others in the company with way lower pressure and high position jobs - why are we always at the "other" and more difficult side of things? Leveling is always something I have to grapple with and am deeply disappointed by. I'm not convinced if this is the right place for me or where I should go next.

- Kids. They are great and we love them. They are also so difficult. I don't have a way to get through to my son. He tests me so much, he doesn't listen to me. He pushes all the limits constantly. He loves me hard. But he pushes the limits again. Hits and kicks. Appears to be destructive, but it's really more of curiosity. He's incredibly intelligent. He's also bored - he's never been in school, never been socialized, he's never even been to a grocery store or any store for that matter. I'm sure he has no recollection of restaurants, or travel or anything else. If we took him to the city, his mind would be blown. But he's so high energy, he's always getting into stuff. Yesterday, he climbed up a stool and lunged forward to swing onto a dreamcatcher I had hanging in my closets since 2005, broke it (thankfully didn't hurt himself). I screamed at him and he cried. This was right after we discovered he'd damaged the roof of my daughter's dollhouse by fiddling with it and the wood had chipped off the side. He got a stern talking to, and I'm sure he didn't even understand why but he said he was sorry and he wouldn't do it again. I feel like such a miserable failure not to teach him right and teach him with love, to let him be who he is, and to make him happy, to build on his personality. And as for me, it's not even so much about the things he breaks, but I am so helpless that I cannot talk to him right. He also cannot stand it that I'm sad or that anyone is sad, and to get us to snap out of it, he acts out again, rinse and repeat. I know, parenting books, yeah I'm reading. He's so amazing though, and I feel incredibly small and powerless. And then he says he loves me and that I'm the best, and with those hugs and that smile - it's just to die for. 

- Other kid - oh how much I dismiss her. She's amazing, kind, super intelligent and talented. She's always nice, even if others are mean to her. She's extremely perceptive and gets right to heart of an issue. She names her feelings spot on. Even if it's unjustified, she explains things perfectly. Such as "I just got irritated when I saw her. She didn't do anything today, but she was wearing a princess dress and I got jealous. She's mean to me sometimes, but I don't want to be like that, I want to be nice. It was frustrating".  I've been dismissing her feelings a lot even when she literally spells them out for me and gives me so many heads up that she needs me. She's also the queen of meltdown central, and when that train leaves the station there's no stopping it, I end up hopping on board as well because she can get me really riled up, and then it's just drama all around. We walk away and regroup later in the day and it's all smiles and hugs. And she tells me how I'm the best mama, and that she doesn't know how she would manage if I wasn't her mama, and that I'm a champion superhero (her words, I never use that sort of language!) and she teaches me quite a bit about nature, art, science and many other things she already knows much better than me at age 5. 

- Ok so bottom line is I need to do better with my kids and hopefully, I'm not half bad because they are at least intelligent and empathetic, but the areas we need to work on are  - more social activities, rule following, them learning how to manage their feelings, us being more validating of their feelings, and learning how to de-escalate meltdowns.

- Health, family, grief, travel, extended family, family conflicts, and more. There are setbacks we have had and it's hard to move forward from them. This takes up so much headspace but I'm not comfortable sharing here.

- Our own health and well being. We never get to relax. We are always stressed. Even a trip to beach involves us being tired, stressed and drained by the time we leave our front door. So much yelling, so much nagging, so much prep, and we don't even have a baby anymore, they're 5 and almost 3.

Positives

- supportive family

- challenging work and field

- company is actually okay - there's annoyances but overall the people are down to earth and not arrogant. There's lots to learn and it's interesting.

- Work in our field is rewarding in some ways.

- Home setup - we're comfortable. Plenty of green spaces nearby, beaches and open spaces driving distance, trails and hikes to do in the neighborhood and locally, and lots of activities we can do of all kinds - right at our fingertips.

- Our county's vax status is at 80% of those above 12 yo (first dose) and 74% of 12 and over (both doses). So that's a relief and cases are okay for now, but we know that it's the calm before the storm. So we are trying to do more for the month of July since we have a small window. Hope that doesn't backfire.

- Started reading a bit and singing again.

- Started new fitness goals. Walking quite a bit more and swimming a lot which I love love love.

- Daughter's learning to swim and I couldn't be more proud.

- Son's showing interest in biking and hopefully will get a new bike for his birthday.

- We've had health issues and injuries but hoping we can get past them with home care and exercises.

- Food is yummy - our local selection is so great, husband is such a great cook and our meals are delicious plus we eat super healthy. Really glad on that front.

- The van is ready for camping! And I hope we get to do some of it soon, after we heal a bit more.

- I moved past a job loss, in a pandemic, and upgraded my career in most aspects in a single move - that's pretty badass. 

- With all the disappointment and rehashing I go through regarding my job loss (it still lingers), I have to remember the above and that I had multiple job offers to choose from afterwards. I know this means nothing by itself, but it's just a reminder to myself to keep up my self confidence and stop doubting and blaming myself. Besides, at my old job, it really was over long before it was over. I acknowledge that it was a tough time, and I don't consider it "the best thing that happened" or anything, far from it in fact. But at least I was able to place one foot in front of the next and take a step from there.

- Now everytime I try to move past the struggling phase, I have a setback, so I guess it's okay to be okay with where I am, where we are and keep doing the things and keep going. Keep learning has always been key for me, and when the learning stops the living stops, so that's going to be what I do. 

- Music. I'm kind of running on empty. Listening to the same old. Singing at times but not really feeling it. Need to find something new.

It's still Slowdive and Sleep is playing in loop as I type this:

I can see you laughing
Through dreams of perfect sleep
Sleep away from me
You know what's in my mind
When you go I'm crying
Dream dream away from me

Cheers to two years!

This blog is two years old! I'm glad to have been writing on and off all this while. It's a good way to have some chronicles of what we've been up to, even if some of them may be ramblings. It's also helped me do work and family blogs and communicate better in writing, as well as participate in online forums - all part of my self expression goals!

My second post (or first real post) was this one:

https://shoegazingdays.blogspot.com/2019/06/the-fear-of-mediocrity.html

The fear of mediocrity - it's funny how some things stay the same. I'm still observing this phenomenon and pondering about it. I'd like to think that I'm not mediocre, but who knows, maybe I am to some. The quotes from Good Omens still crack me up, and to mark the occasion of my two year blogiversary, I got myself my very own copy of the book!

My goal for the summer is just to read this one book! Oh I have plenty of other goals that are more lofty I suppose, but this one is so important to me.

Some of the others that I am doing with ease so far - swimming. Been going for almost a week. Clean eating - going strong for the past year. Dairy free - going well. Working my way forward in my career - work in progress, easier said than done (and quite demotivating at times). Trying to find joy in things - also a work in progress - but I am getting better at enjoying things in the moment and saving the worries for another time.

We're also excited today because we took the first step towards (hopefully) having many camper adventures. Oof I drove like 130 miles today on my own one way, and rode another 130 on the way up. But it was good to get out and embark on one of our crazy adventures again.

Other things I am excited about - I ordered a new pair of swimming goggles. For someone who loves swimming so much, it's surprising that this is my very first pair. My daughter's swim coach  two years back recommended to me that I swim with goggles on to protect my eyes. Last year, I borrowed my husband's old (ancient) pair and this year after going everyday for a week and swimming about 100 laps in total, I rewarded myself with a book (Good Omens), a swim shirt and a pair of goggles.

This is the one I got. So excited. https://tinyurl.com/wwubsjyt

Lots of events in the recent past - husband's birthday was quite a success (the cake I baked came out delicious and the gifts were on point), we had a great long weekend by going to the pool everyday, and kids started playing with each other (touch wood, fingers crossed). I am now fully vaccinated and starting swimming the very next day after the two weeks were up post second shot. We're also being given a choice to wfh or go in, and for now I'm hoping to stay remote. Some setbacks on the work front and childcare front but I don't want to color this post with that, I hope we can cross those bridges when we get to them. Anxiety says hello anyway.

Oh - I'm also a bit further along in my natural skin care journey. Skin care routine consists of washing with soap and water and using jojoba oil to moisturize. Hair care consists of Trader Joes Tea Tree Tingle Shampoo and As I Am Coconut Cowash. I also went zero waste on another product so that helps. Neither my hair or skin are in great shape but I don't want to keep thinking of myself as missing the boat on all these wonderful makeup and skin care routines (that I don't even know how to do), and want to be content in keeping it simple. A vaccination celebration was a trip that we made to Trader Joes. We bought all the things! And are now back to hermititude.

So cheers to two years! 

Yay hey, it's May

This is from one of my daughter's book series called "Jake and the Never Land Pirates". They go "Yo ho! Let's go", or "Yay hey, no way!" which I got reminded of when I realized that it is May and I haven't yet posted this month.

Things have been moving along here. I've finished about three months at my new job and accomplished a LOT in this time. I am pretty well known in the team already and have visibility across teams and management. This is all very good but the frustration is there. I was hired at a junior level, but the responsibilities and expectations are even higher than that of the "senior" (more like mediocre) level folks.

Oh well. I need to not take it too seriously and to give what's expected of me, and do a sincere job. My problem is I get too carried away, take things to heart and get passionate about what I am working on. This doesn't align because someone with a big fancy title walks all over it and I don't get much of a say, so I think "why bother" and take a step back. At this point, I'm consciously trying not to give my best because it's not worth it. Then I realize that if my position is not fueling my passion in the job and is in fact suppressing that passion, to the detriment of the company even, then the whole structure is messed up. And I need to start looking at my job differently and not let it define me. It's a place where I can give what is expected of me and get the skills I'd need for my next job, which *hopefully* can fuel that passion AND be rewarding.

Oh the elusive job satisfaction.

Anyway, part of my worries is how to be assertive. Every time I do it at work, something arises on the health anxiety front with myself or family and that puts me in an anxious loop. Then I think that I'll just let this one go and be "doormatish" and "non confrontational" again since my health and anxieties take the top spot. I also start rationalizing -- will speaking up even change anything or am I just wasting my energy? Maybe this is the same story at any job, and "pushing back" and being more assertive are part of this competitive industry. And on goes the negativity from my job which can be quite draining. It's hard to remain grounded in all of that.

And somewhere along the way I realize -- oh wait! What's that? Positive thoughts? We need those? Health, immune system, kids picking up on our vibes, etc. Hmm wait, so we have to force ourselves to be happy cheerful selves since there is so much doom and gloom around and we need to "think positive" to beat these tough times .....

Yes I know that there is truth to that. But first, let's acknowledge in big words - All of this sucks.

And next, on to what we can and cannot change -

Job stuff - just gain the experience, cash the check and move on. It's not worth investing time into what this might be, it isn't gonna be more than it is today. They showed me who they are, now I need to see it.

Health stuff for family - keep the positive energy and prayers up and sit tight, regular calls and follow all guidelines and hope it will be okay. Acknowledge that it is a worrisome time for all. The next few days are extremely worrisome and each day is nerve wracking.

Health stuff - keep doing what we're doing. Stay home, stay distanced, etc. We're almost all the way vaccinated (so inching along there) and kids are doing well with all their activities at home.

Family stuff - lots of negative energy, negligence, mean-spiritedness and more happening and we are in constant worry about extended family. Firstly we are praying for the health of everyone involved and that is biggest and most prominent. Secondly, I am trying to think about my beloved grandfather and what he would have wanted in this situation since he is no more, and try to do what I think would be his will.

Okay that was a whole lot of rambling but it felt good to get off my chest.

Off to be productive again. This is what I'm gonna do

- Do those mockups

- Write a paper

- Make some beautiful slides

- Record a kickass demo

Life in the past few weeks

 Work has become extremely busy. Empowering to an extent and demanding as hell.

Today I got my first jab of the microchip. I am now officially being controlled by Bill Gates...but I guess I was not supposed to say that. Oops!

So we haven't decided how life for us is going to look after being fully vaccinated. We are leaning towards still staying pretty isolated, but maybe venturing out into a store for groceries on occasion and not being too worried about some of our errands.

Other than that, we hope to continue working from home as long as they will let us. And we would like to keep our kids home too.

We've been able to do our hikes and beach trips and hope we can continue with those. I am waiting also for the pool to open for the summer by which time I'll be vaccinated.

It's now about 6 hours post jab and I have arm pain, headache (who was I kidding, I always get one) and dizziness and fatigue. So off to the couch I go!

Career obsession and health

 I'm sure we have all heard it all before. Work life balance is the term for it but at the root of it, all of us want to be fulfilled in our personal lives, our interests, our families and our careers. 

In my case, I have done what I can regarding self care and self reflection. My career woes go down several years, and while it's been mostly positive in terms of how interesting I find my job and the money earned, there have been some issues that have been front and center for me for years.

Enter health anxiety and worries for mine and my families' health. All of the work stuff fades in comparison. But every time I take a mental break from the health anxiety, the work anxiety says "hello!". 

I've now to find a good strategy to keep both of them at bay, or at least to manage them. So it's time to list the positives and negatives I suppose, and hope that brings me a balanced perspective. I do not want to fly off the handle about my job or remain career obsessed, even though I am pretty ambitious.

Negatives:

- I came in to this job at the wrong job title. It is usually for those early in career, and this means that I have some climbing to do. 

- Of course, the responsibilities are still being assigned based on my experience which is mid-senior level.

- This causes frustration and is something I'm not able to shake off. I hate, I repeat, absolutely hate, working for that elusive promotion. Been there, done that for the past 9ish years - moving goalposts, discrimination, reorgs, and more - I can just list a long list of reasons why that can happen again.

- The workload I'm assigned seems to be unfairly distributed (in my opinion). I'm the newbie, that gets the leftover features, the problematic features and somehow even the bulk of the features while being assigned a "junior" position, and somehow I'm supposed to be motivated to prove myself - I wanted that promotion right?

- I'm still salty about the fact that I had a bait and switch done on me - and that this promotion was actually not supposed to be in the picture. I actually was down-leveled at hire and therefore was reset a couple of years probably.

Positives

Okay so that seemed pretty bad but it was good to get it off my chest. Here are the positives:

- Got a new job, without much of a break. Got a severance package that still has a few months to go. So I get double salary for a few.

- My pay is almost a time and a half more than my last job.

- New company, leader in its field, new technology - all exciting stuff

- New role, which really opens up many many doors for me

- Down to earth colleagues - such a change from the toxic arrogant environment I was working in

- Opportunities to work on stuff I'm interested in and stepping stone for better roles

- Very well respected company and combined with my past experience, my resume is absolutely powerful.

- I still have another job lead for a company I wanted to work for that is putting my application on hold. I've already interviewed there and gotten through 3 rounds. So it's a matter of resuming the process if and when I'm ready - so I already have my next gig lined up.

- Some really nice people I get to work with.

- Manager is friendly, supportive and down to earth. Such a change from the very arrogant and sneaky past experience.

Alright, I should not think too much and go with the flow. Learn as much as possible, enjoy it while I can and enjoy my family when I can as well. We also have a new nanny so we can finally focus again and hope that this new dynamic works for our family and for her.

Back to health and family - keep doing things to keep those in good shape. 

Signing off. 

Marching on

It's been a busy time here at home. We're working, taking care of kids, mental health is shot with no rest. We realized how deep into it we were when after several difficult nights of toddler not sleeping well, we had one night that he slept until 6 and we woke up feeling like brand new people.

Anyway, it appears that our kids are going through some big feelings around life. They miss their nanny, seeing family and friends, their grandpa, and are worried about their other grandparents, as well as us. We had tinnitus flare ups that got us down and upset our kids. My husband and I are worriers by nature and over-thinkers about our life, work, etc. And I think this stress sort of rubs off on the kids.

Anyway, after years of beating ourselves up about our work style - I feel that screw it. It's unique, it's good to care, it's a positive quality to want to be as detailed as possible in our work, and to be cooperative rather than manipulative/aggressive. Unfortunately this sometimes doesn't serve us well in our competitive and cut throat careers, but that's a balance we will need to find. But maybe we can try and find it without changing who we fundamentally are? Wishful or naive thinking or realistic goal? There's still room to grow and things to learn about work personalities. 

It's a bit hard to wrap our minds around the Covid situation. Vaccinations are going on, and things are opening up. But the situation is still pretty bad the world over? Some people are just done and going on as if nothing happened. Others like us are so isolated, we feel like we live on a different planet compared to some others. And so much is up in the air still with all the variants going around and unknowns about vaccines, as well as how to get the pandemic under control.

My work is a mixed bag. I'm realizing I have been extremely fortunate to get this job and that it could be quite empowering if I am able to do it well. But I also get these frequent feelings of being undervalued, and I am not sure how much of it is valid to be frank. I've been battered and bruised, but on the other hand I can recognize the signs well? I want to trust my instincts more and second guess myself less and see how it serves me.

This month will bring a new nanny and my birthday... trying to look forward to things, but really we are just so tired. Maybe when our kid finally sleeps well, is when we can rest. Our ped suggested a sleep consultant and we can probably look into that. I am pretty sure that I can go back to journal entries as far as five years back and find "I hope our sleep issues improve" about the kids. It's been what now, five, six years? Oof! 

I've fallen off the shoegaze wagon, for some reason. After all the events of the past few months, I no longer have favorites that are stuck in my mind. Maybe that's why I also feel quite blah. But as I write this, and think about how much we've achieved and overcome, maybe that's something to feel thankful and satisfied about. With that, let's roll into the weekend.

Some sunny days

A lot has happened since my last post. 

Here in the US, there is a new administration and the relief we are feeling is only now showing in our stress levels. Yes, there's an extent to which politics is not in tune with our daily struggles, but for the most part, the things that this President is doing are very reassuring and in the right direction. The daily stress from all of that is no longer there, which lets us focus on other things...which brings us to:

The pandemic. With all the lockdowns in our area the cases are going down, however just today I read that the CDC forecasts a spike in March due to all the variants. Meanwhile many people in my family threw caution to the wind and gathered with no precautions in India - which affected me even though I'm so far away. It's very weird reconciling these feelings. Some of us are extremely isolated even though we don't really like it, and we choose to continue to isolate. And I worry that the small allowances we give ourselves for things we deem necessary (like a nanny for a few hours in a day to let us focus on work), may be the risk that gets us. It's really hard to have to worry about all of the exposure, while so many don't bother and don't seem to be affected. It's the Murphy's law and fear of what will happen to us careful ones...

On the home front, our dear nanny and friend is now safely with her family and we miss her so. We've identified someone to join us but it won't be for a few more weeks. This also works out for us since we planned to be extra prudent during February to mid-March - I always pay special caution to this time of year since flu shots are wearing off, people have winter fatigue and illnesses float around, even pre-Covid. 

I started my new job and it's actually been quite a relief. I didn't realize how much I didn't like the phase when I wasn't working. I think I'm someone that needs to be working, at least at the present time in my life. I realized from talking with many prior colleagues what a big step forward my new job is from what I was doing and that's quite empowering. Maybe the reasons I shared in my previous post were holding me back from appreciating it (and those reasons are still valid), but I think I feel a lot better about the job situation even though the position I'm in isn't ideal in a few ways (nothing major, I think most companies have a few things that take getting used to).

So things are moving along. The kids are doing okay but it's quite a bit of effort taking care of them - they act out since they realize that our focus is elsewhere. Sometimes I wonder if we should just give in and focus on them, kind of let work take a backseat. But then my ambition and drive and interest in work comes back (same with my husband) and we get sucked in - I think since both of us enjoy our work, there's always that new idea we want to explore and we can't really disconnect.

A friend commented today that I look like a big weight has been lifted from my shoulders and indeed it is, with my new job. It's actually in an area that I really like - I'm just wondering (and hoping) that I am able to step into it and take off - something I've been trying to do for a really long time and not completely succeeding at. We'll see where this one goes.

Oh, and back to the title of this post. Today was a nice pleasant warm day and I was sunning myself in the garden, when my daughter remarked "Mom, you look like you're at the beach". After many weeks of rains, the sun poked out again. I think that we have at least a week of sunny days ahead of us. There have been some high levels of humidity and strong winds that remind us we are still in winter and also continue to be in dark times. Just learning to appreciate the pockets of light in between. And of course, the fact that we are in California means that the winter is relatively mild to begin with.

My arm pain has returned (ulnar neuropathy and tendinitis) and ouch is it painful. Trying to go along and hope it eases off on its own. I finished the 30 days of yoga diligently and have stopped since I started the job...have to figure out a way to resume once we are in a regular schedule again.