chicken mittens and stress

It’s yet another Monday, and now I’m sitting here with a cup of tea, wondering where my weekend went.

And then I remember, “you worked half the weekend, fool, where do you think it went?”.

I had minor weekly chores yesterday. As planned, I brought the laundry down to the basement just before I left the house for the showing. I spent $8 at the grocery store, where I grabbed a few things for last night’s dinner. Last week, I found three bags of dried beans in the pantry, and I wanted to use them up. I ended up improvising a vegetarian chili with stuff I had in the house. The only thing I bought for it was a container of mushrooms. It didn’t turn out too badly, and I have a shitload of it left over. Half of it went into the freezer.

For the most part, however, I just relaxed. I feel terrible when I don’t do anything, like I could do more if I put my mind to it and looked for things to do. I swept the kitchen floor, but my brain insists I should have broken out the mop and washed it. The same goes for any chore-like thing I do in the house. Shawshank insists I deserve to do nothing now and then.

Unfortunately, it was also one of those weekends where I really needed to keep my brain occupied. If I didn’t do something – anything – I was in danger of going into a full spiral. The stress of everything is getting to me. Again.

Shawshank cheered me up with pictures from around TinyTown. He walked around and took pictures of houses decorated with Christmas lights. I was inspired to make myself an anti-Christmas tree out of a milk crate and a random box. I decorated with a bath towel, some lights, and Stumpy the Wonder Chicken with his mitten hat.

Time for a tea refill. I have to do my morning stuff before I head out to work. It’s a split shift, and I believe I start the day with the new guy. This is good, because Mondays suck. Hope y’all have a good Monday.