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I feel so old lol. I was too tired to stay up to watch the fireworks last night. Of course, being that I wake up at 5 a.m. or earlier every morning has a lot to do with it...

I really need to start making better use of my mornings. Just past 6 and I've already showered, had my first coffee and am reasonably conscious. Usually I just end up internetting until it's time to go to work, which is a waste of the first ~4 hours of my day.

A big part of the problem is that despite waking up so early every day without the use of my alarm (it's set for 6 a.m., not 5), I still don't consider myself a morning person. Obviously I kind of am, so I need to change my mindset in order to better utilize my time.

DragonHeart said:

I feel so old lol. I was too tired to stay up to watch the fireworks last night. Of course, being that I wake up at 5 a.m. or earlier every morning has a lot to do with it...

I really need to start making better use of my mornings. Just past 6 and I've already showered, had my first coffee and am reasonably conscious. Usually I just end up internetting until it's time to go to work, which is a waste of the first ~4 hours of my day.

A big part of the problem is that despite waking up so early every day without the use of my alarm (it's set for 6 a.m., not 5), I still don't consider myself a morning person. Obviously I kind of am, so I need to change my mindset in order to better utilize my time.

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I didn't watch fireworks, either. Not because I wasn't up, but because the displays on TV are kinda the same thing anymore, down to the same danged soundtrack for the past five (at least) years... And they're probably online if I want to watch them today.

As for poor use of mornings, I hear ya. I feel I'm wasting time in the mornings, myself. But, despite waking up too early, I am not and will never be a true morning person. My usual inclination is to drift off sometime around 1 or 2 AM, wake up for a bit once or twice, then fall back asleep to wake up "for real" at about 9 AM. I've tried going to bed earlier. I've tried sleeping pills. I've tried relaxation techniques. But I just cannot make it work without lots of muttering and crawling and general dragging through mornings when I don't get my snooze-in time. When I beat the alarm, it's more a matter of deciding it's too late to drift off again without being worse off (when the alarm hits at the wrong stage of sleep, it's hell crawling out of bed.) Much as I hear all this advice to do lots of things in the morning, how we don't need as much sleep as we think, etc., I just can't do it. Which sucks, because early mornings and late nights are two (generally) relative-free times of day when I should be able to get a lot of stuff done.

Ergh.

Off I drift.

Just had window measured in my house. Now back to writing.

After work, before starting dinner, and I'm kicking back while I decompress.

Swung by the store after work. It's past time we did a fridge-clearing leftover stew, so that's on the menu for tonight. Really want to do a scrubdown of the fridge, but that requires coordination with others, which never seems to happen. (Also helps when certain people are out of the house - the ones who insist expiration dates don't matter even when the food is unidentifiable.)

Guess I'll drift about...

Dinner and coffee, as per usual.

Man today was a rough one. Heavy day as predicted; surprisingly only one cargo blowout. I expected more. A whole bunch of missorts though, which suck to deal with. And tons and tons of open deliveries to close, I dunno if there were app issues or people just straight being lazy. Or both.

On the bright side, guess who finally showed his face in dispatch this afternoon. R came in later than usual. His afternoon route was the heaviest I've ever seen it, over twice the normal volume. He was noticeably tired. Not only did he not scan his last two stops so I had to close them out for him, but he left his copies of the paperwork in the scanner again. Some drivers opt to make copies of their manifests to compare against their statement to make sure their pay is correct; R is one of them.

Naturally I am taking advantage. I don't really need to mark stuff like that anymore, but I will usually paperclip and slap a sticky note on anything that needs to go to a driver the next day. Last time I just drew a smiley face, cause who doesn't like those. Today I decided to do a little sketch instead. I'm not a great artist or anything but I can do decent enough line art by sight copying it when I feel inclined. Yes, I am easily amused.

I may or may not be legitimately considering the best paper airplane design to fly across the dispatch room and into my ops manager's office when I'm too lazy to yell at him for something.

For now, I'm going to finish my coffee and maybe tonight I'll read, since I finally picked a new book.

DH - The talk of sorts reminds me of work, though our "storm surge" from the holiday doesn't hit until tomorrow. (Libraries were closed on Tuesday, and it takes a day for the backlog to hit shipping.)

Anyway, it's later the same Wednesday, and the humidity decided to swing by and camp out in the house. Along with a snerkload of grass pollen, according to my sinuses. Allegra's struggling this year, but it's much worse when I don't take anything...

Need to try writing tonight, though I also want to push through my paperback read, in no small part because my TBR piles have started trying to attack me in my sleep. Literally. They're stacked next to my bed, and I tend to wake up with one or more books on me lately. So I suppose that's my sign to tackle some of that, or do another hard cull. Or both. (As for other reads, I'm wavering on my Kindle pick. I think I'll probably finish it, but I'd really like the lady MC to be a little more... more, I suppose. I guess the fact that she's Quirky is supposed to make up for her having little agency and needing rescuing by a handsome guy whom she refuses to believe is flirting with her - and even I, as clueless an idiot ever to have double-X chromosomes, could tell the guy was flirting, and other guys evidently find her hot. She even walked right back into a potentially dangerous situation despite numerous people warning her of the risks, just because she didn't like being told what to do. Ergh... I'll let the next 5% decide me one way or the other. There's only so much quirk I can stomach when it comes with an MC acting like an idiot.)

Speaking of books, I saw the first book in the new Osten Ard trilogy go through today. After reading the bridge novel (The Heart of What Was Lost), I feel less enthused than I ought to at the prospect of reading it... to the point where I expect I might wait for paperback or secondhand. Give myself time to chisel through the TBR pile, and maybe rebuild some excitement for it.

Yeah, the holiday timing was really bad for my department. On Monday we get all the orders built up from the weekend, and those are filled and come in on our linehaul on Tuesday. That's why it's the heaviest day volume wise. But because of the holiday both us and the drug companies we ship for were closed. So everything we were supposed to ship on Tuesday was delayed and came in on top of the normal Wednesday shipment. Most of our drivers have cargo vans, not cube/box trucks, so a sharp increase in volume like that can easily overload them.

On top of that one of our drivers was fired (unfairly, is the general consensus among the office staff including myself), forcing us to try to cover a route with literally no coverage. We have one cover driver and he's already doing 2 routes because we've had 2 drivers out for weeks and neither will be back until next week at least. So yesterday my ops manager, the other dispatcher, and one of the dock guys all had to go out and do deliveries to get that route covered. It was a mess. :|

Incidentally that was one reason I asked R if he would let me tag along on one of his deliveries, in case I ever need to do one myself. Training is severely lacking due to the high staff turnover rate; I've been relying on my drivers to fill in the gaps, as most of them have been contracted with this company longer than the entire management staff at this branch has been employed. Out of 20+ pharmacy drivers, I've got a solid half dozen I'm comfortable going to for any questions or general knowledge.

Anyway time to make coffee and attempt to wake up.

Orders were fairly light yesterday so I think we should be pretty much back to normal now. As normal as anything gets around here.

Fruitbat:

Re that entry you wrote (and seem to have deleted) about you being nervous to go out without your husband:

He is NOT really your husband.

He kidnapped you several years ago, and hypnotized you every day, and gave you memory-removing drugs in your water, and he kept doing this on a regular basis, until you finally started believing that he was your husband.

Worse...you are not who you think you are! He put fake memories into your mind, making you think you are someone else.

AND...that crazy woman at the hotel -- the one with all those noisy kids -- that woman is your real mother! She's been tracking you for years, and has finally found you. But she is keeping an eye on you, carefully planning before she makes any move!

And all those bratty kids are really your nieces and nephews. They are keeping an eye on you as well, in case your fake husband catches on and tries to run off with you again.

Now that you know all this...you will finally understand why you feel nervous going somewhere without him. He planted that fear in your mind!

You can thank me later, for this information -- after the doctors put you right again.

Making a birthday card for a nephew. With electric guitars on.

Thursday afternoon, and I'm debating calling it a nuke-your-own-dinner night, on account of there being leftover stew in the fridge and me being lazy. Will probably end up doing something with ground turkey, though.

Ergh.

Work existed. We finished, so I guess the extra hour (for a half-hour extra pay, 'cause we don't get lunch) was worth it. Trying some new shoe inserts to see if they help with foot soreness, but so far I haven't noticed much of a difference.

And I pushed through the paperback. Rather harrowing read, but well written. Need to track down the third book in the trilogy...

Away I drift.

Must be coffee time. And dinner, which is actually my lunch that I forgot to take to work earlier. I haven't been eating at work most of the time anyway. It's not that I don't want to, I just never have time for a legit break.

Long day. Had to close so many deliveries today, ugh. I swear everyone is just tired this week for some reason, even with the holiday.

One more day, one more day...

Nothing new with R today. He came in, sorted his paperwork (I love that he does this most of the time now), made his copies, gave me mine, and I gave him his copies from yesterday. Not sure if he noticed the extra little flair right away but it's all good, it kept me amused either way. Hoping I'll get a few minutes to chat with him tomorrow.

At work, on the threads between calls. The queue is temperamental today so we are either swamped or sitting with no calls at all. Joys of a call center.

Drying clothes and eating popsicles.

Yay, Friday. Pizza for lunch, quiet afternoon dispatch room, and it's always the day I plan to leave early to get my weekend started. Since lunch is early and I usually skip my break, I'll leave early to compensate. As long as all my drivers are back and my paperwork is done, it doesn't matter when I leave. I just end up staying to get my full 40 hours. V has been coming back much earlier too, so I don't have to wait for him.

I slept in a little bit too today, which is nice. I have a really long 'lead time' before I have to leave so if I sleep in it's not going to ruin my day unless I ignore my alarm and oversleep by about 4~ hours.

Now I'm just enjoying my coffee and trying to plan out my evening and the weekend.

Friday morning. Allergies aren't happy. Foot's still sore. Got an itchy mosquito bite on my arm. Don't want to shop after work, but I don't want to shop during the weekend, sure as I am I'll be drug out on a trip... and I have one of those annoying little muscle twitch things near my eye.

Not the most auspicious start to the day...

Out all day, longer than expected. Wife pipes up and says there's something to do tomorrow, so no rest then either.

I need another "me" to do stuff.

Keithy said:

Out all day, longer than expected. Wife pipes up and says there's something to do tomorrow, so no rest then either.

I need another "me" to do stuff.

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Eh, not worth the effort. Clones always rebel, and alternate-reality versions of oneself are just plain hassles to deal with; half of 'em just make more work for you as you hold them captive, the other half come from heck-holes and try to off you to steal your identity.

Don't ask how I know.

And I'm totally the same Brightdreamer who was here this morning, sure as the sun rises in the no- east. Yes, east. Sun's always risen in the east in this- in the ONLY Earth world to exist, alternate realities being a lie.

My, what a nice, totally mutant-dinosaur-zombie free day for once, huh?

Fruitbat said:

The tween girl terror tribe was at the pool last night, picking on a boy (no adult in sight, naturally, unless I count as one). I am home now but I do strangely kinda miss them.

Today is the headache from hell day. Fortunately, I found a bottle of wine. Fruitbats especially love fruit that is nice and fermented, you see.

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Made your escape back home I see. Congrats for surviving. And don't worry - though you may no longer be with the lovely children, I'm sure they'll live forever in your heart.

Unless they really were some manner of monsters who snuck into your room and laid eggs in your brain while you slept. Then they'll live forever in your brain - or, you know, until the larvae explode from your skull. Which is effectively forever from your standpoint, I suppose.

What's that about a headache...?

Well, it's after work, and I ought to do something Useful before I start dinner. If I start dinner. There's still stew and ground turkey stuff from yesterday in the fridge, more than enough to make nuke-your-own a viable option... depends how lazy I am.

Guess I'll wander away for a while. Should poke at another Lynda course, and get back to my site revamp.

Weekend, yay.

Coffee, also yay.

It's a little chilly this morning, regret leaving so many windows open.

Not feeling great today but still need to try to get stuff done.

I finished my first quilt! It's awful and lopsided and it was a constant struggle with the old sewing machine, but it's finished, and even though nothing lines up at all, I'm still proud of completing it. We'll call it a practice and go onwards from there, yeah?

Anyway, so I have more or less recovered from my bout of "giveupitis" and am now dealing with writing again. Feeling positive.

Saturday, and I didn't sleep in as much as I'd hoped. Dang it.

A nice day, which I doubt I'll get to do much with. Sick of losing nice days to trivial junk and family.

Speaking of, family's already yelling at each other in the other room. Really need to update the laptop and head out somewhere if I want to get anything done, I suppose - but if I even think about the front door, I get tagalongs.

Dang it.