If you were to ask me what I did this week, I’d be hard pressed to give you little more than a very vague answer. I know there’s a bunch of things I was THINKING about doing, but somehow the week slipped by (and yes, I went to work…wasn’t THAT far gone) and I realized I had no clue what I’d actually done.

I slipped into the mindless, complacency zone somehow. At a time in my life when I’ve been desperate to actually make changes, try things to pay the bills a little quicker and find that thing I want most and how to achieve it… I fell back into the hole of doing nothing. And boy am I annoyed at myself for it. Pissed off is more like it.

I admit, some of it was being concerned about all my doctors appointments that started getting shuffled around and suddenly being asked to get a mammogram (a few years early) because of concerns my doc had.

For the record, nothing turned up odd, but with such a patchy family history and my lack of knowledge, I did what they asked and went. I was dreading it because I remember my mother getting it done and she was crying so damned badly. Granted, this was probably 20 years ago, so perhaps the tech improved a bit since then and mine wasn’t so bad. But to think this was a woman who could shrug off anything physical just to keep working…and that machine reduced her to tears and made her go right to bed to sleep off the pain?

Yeah, insert anxiety straight to the brain, please… and let me dwell on it for a fucking week.

My bestie tried to calm me down a bit because she’s been to a lot more procedures than I have (and my lack of sleep in the days leading up to it wasn’t going to do me any favors). She helped, along with some basic research to see what I might be able to expect (different hospitals, different machines and all)

Okay, so I DID do something this past week that was useful. Hmm.

It was weird more than it was painful, but I still cynically can’t help but imagine that the mammogram machine was invented by a really pissed off guy. And I’ll only retract that thought when a man invents a device where you have to squash a man’s nuts in a vice to get good enough imagery to find cancer.

…I’ll wait.

Ooh, another research topic I could’ve tried earlier. Dammit.

Other than that, I kept thinking about whether I oughta go see Dune again in the theater before they pull it (I am really waffling about seeing it tomorrow, my last chance thanks to my work schedule), and listening to Hans Zimmer soundtracks (including Dune). A few loads of laundry. Cleaned the fish tanks.

Oh, and the bright spot that emerged from mammogram day: I got a couple new ‘keets.

That was definitely not my intention (they’re still skittish so I can’t get a good picture yet…gotta let ’em calm down). I was going to the pet store to get more bird seed and ask some advice about getting a new friend or two for the one who lost his girl. Somehow, I totally bypassed that idea and saw two parakeets left in the store, one green-yellow, one blue. They had a glass panel dividing the display in half to keep the blue and greens separate in this particular store, so they were tapping on it and chirping to each other.

I totally forgot about looking for a female. These were too young to tell what they were, anyway. But I saw them wanting to chat and chirp to each other, and couldn’t just leave one behind (I wanted the blue most of all to even out the colors a bit). So, I took ’em both home. Now I’ve got 11 (forehead, meet desk). Took about a day and a half to get used to their new cage-mates, and the mates to get used to them. But now they’re pretty good at finding things to do and sharing.

I like watching the birds make friends… and no fights have really broken out since that testing period.

So that was a bright spot. A rather pricey bright spot, which is why I’m hesitant to go to the theater again til December (when Cyrano comes out). Bills to pay and taxes to save for and all that jazz.

I think what hit me is that false sense of complacency. Perhaps resignation is a better word to describe what it’s been like, and I don’t know how I slipped back so far. Somehow I’ve pushed things to a calendar date, that I’ll do better starting on X day.

How could I have forgotten that I just need to START? Now. Make a loose plan to start now and as things come up or get changed around, tweak the system and make it work for you so things like good eating/cooking, exercise, writing, learning, etc. all become second nature and I don’t have to be so rigid later. I know part of it is I fell back into the trap of being “always available” for my job.

The doormat tattoo is trying to claw its way onto my forehead again.

I already agreed to work a certain number of weekends because others had things they couldn’t miss and had given notice on ages ago. That doesn’t bother me too much (though yesterday’s traffic made me so exhausted that I just sat and read for hours, not wanting to do anything once I got home–I HATE leaving the house on Saturdays). But I made sure to tell the boss that I was not wanting to work Saturdays once the others got back and could do it again. Especially with the bloody holidays coming up. I don’t want to be in the middle of Saturday Christmas shopping traffic (shudder). Saturdays have become the worst over the years, and with all the new construction they have going on near my workplace? It’s cringey enough going through that mess on weekdays in between peak traffic times. I won’t do Saturdays unless absolutely necessary and I have like 48 hour notice at minimum.

And that was nerve-wracking for me to bring up in the first place. My boss and I were the only ones there at the moment I casually mentioned no more Saturdays once those guys come back (I was finishing some paperwork while she waited for her last meeting to come–the damned traffic made everything late). I’m just so used to being helpful, even when I really should be considering my own situation. I always have this sense that if I don’t bend over backwards to be helpful, I could be fired or something (which makes no sense because there are oodles of people who’ve done the bare minimum at their job and haven’t gotten so much as a reprimand, let alone fired, but that “above and beyond” programming won’t delete). But when the stress is there thanks to traffic, and the sheer amount of gas I probably burned because of it for so few hours… yeah.

Definitely lost more money than I could’ve saved by just staying at home.

And also, the fact that the shift’s in the middle of the day really kills my plans. I have to drive to work and be there during my ideal yardwork hours (especially in such wonderful temperatures we’ve been having lately). Too damned chilly and wet in the mornings to get much done, or else I’d try. That dew really sticks around til late morning these days, and that wet grass is a pain when I gotta mow or weed eat. And I need to get some tree limbs hacked up and whatnot, but nobody’s home to help me out once I get back from work… and so things get delayed… again.

I just hate the spotty days off thing. Even if it cuts into my paycheck, I like having a block of dedicated days to myself to get crap done, because crap weather’s also a major factor. But I did do myself a favor–I made myself a chores chart earlier this evening, trying to break things down into more manageable chunks. More than that, subdividing the list into things that need taking care of daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly. There was a nice Good Housekeeping chart I kind of used as a basic template to give me some ideas, and boy did it help. I’m also trying to check on maintenance timelines and add them in as well so I don’t have some damned motor overheating or vent clogged up because I didn’t realize I hadn’t done a routine check on something for a few years.

The fun of home ownership, I suppose.

So that’s taken a load off, even though my house and yard are disaster zones. But I can start properly tackling things tomorrow again while charging trimmer batteries and going outside to clear brush and weed eat when the sun is nice and warm and the tools are charged.

This week is going to be better than the last. I can’t afford to sleepwalk through another one. There’s too much at stake, and I’m eager for the changes.