Last time we caught up I was embarking on a week off work and full of hope for how it was going to reset me.
As usual, I was too ambitious and had unrealistic expectations for what I could actually do in a week while also, you know, feeling relaxed.
Very quickly my immune system decided it was not going to be on board with this, and I felt very rough and exhausted for most of my 5 days off! Not surprising, with hindsight, but suddenly feeling like I was capable of little more than laying on the sofa did not do much for my mood.
I did get the bookcase repainted, though I’ll admit it is not my best work and that’s because of feeling unwell and my frustrated mood! But now it’s all back together it looks ok as long as you don’t get too close! I do think it looks better so I’m glad I did it, even if for half the time I spent working on it was sure it was going to be a terrible waste of time.
And while I painted the bookcase – outside in the sun, a miracle – I listened to most of Gideon the Ninth in my shiny new headphones that I love.
And I did finish reading How To Be Perfect too!
I did some framing of my embroideries to hang on the wall – while I watched Begonia (weird but I liked it!) – but ran out of steam because it needed too many decisions I wasn’t capable of! Those are still in a pile, half framed, on my desk.
Also while I lay on the sofa I was primarily replacing Fable III on my Xbox360, which was fun.
I also did finally write up my thoughts on habits and motivation and exercise, which is something I’ve been wanting to do for about a year! This blog has pretty exclusively been book reviews for my reading log, and these occasional life dump posts, for a long time now so that felt nice to focus my thoughts on a topic.
I wrote two book reviews as well! And I did some bits of promotion for my (now rechristened) Stitch ‘n Bitch group. So clearly I did not “waste” my time off and I accomplished quite a bit!
But.. as is always the case with “brain stuff” what I can objectively see is true and how I feel that weighs against my expectations do not always balance!
It comes to Thursday evening and I’m thinking about what I didn’t do, wondering WHY DON’T I FEEL SUPER CHILL NOW and getting wound up and emotional about it… And more stressed because the finally 3 days before back to work all have heavy social engagements.
(I also now realise this was also the week before my period 🙄)
I knew this was all irrational! So I turned to my new/old tools – brain dumping out on pen and paper – and also I asking Claude (AI) for suggestions of reasons I may be feeling this way so I could identify what I could either discard or make a plan for. This has helped me calm down my anxieties before, and again I found that while a lot of it’s suggestions were mostly incorrect for me it was good at prompting me in the right direction.
- I set unrealistic expectations, because I can’t do everything at once (I know I always do this).
- A week off work which I spent doing DIY was never going to lead to total relaxation. Obviously.
- I did achieve plenty anyway!
- I needed to talk to Husband about setting a new night for date night so we have a set time to connect properly. We’ve been bad at doing that in the last few months, and I was starting to feel guilty about it.
- I had not gotten outside the house enough (or at all except for a quick trip to the shop).
- I needed to reframe expectations for social engagements and they would probably be good for me, given the above point!
Writing that down in my journal helped immensely to calm me down, and on Friday I did a decent job of relaxing.
Honestly going back to pen and paper has made a massive difference to my thought processes in the last few months. Anything my brain is getting stuck on I scribbled it all out so I can work on it. It’s annoying it’s taken 37 years to work this out, but it’s also exciting.
Sometimes it’s nice to be with people
Turns out, Claude/my own sneaky intuition was correct and the 3 days of social engagement were good for me and I had a nice time at all three – two of which were family things which can be 50/50 on whether they’ll boost or drain me (you know how that is).
I don’t know if it was the 5 days off work, the sunny weather or some other mystical force but I felt unusually at ease, lighter and found it easier to chat than I often do. It’s good to remind myself that I am capable of this and I do enjoy the company of others!
I even played a new board game with Husband’s friends and enjoyed it! I didn’t get too overwhelmed by rules etc though Forest Shuffle feels like it has a lot going on at first it’s not too bad. I’d play again.
I also managed to attract a new member to my stitch n bitch group through my promotion efforts, hopefully they’ll become a regular and we’ll go from 2 to 3 and and slowly up from there. This weekly commitment has also been good for me, even if it’s just the 2 of us, it’s good to get out of the house to the pub and get to know somebody new, even if it can be a bit awkward at times. I am still excited about the potential of this! (And when I reflect, v proud of myself for doing it!)
Telly
- The Other Bennet Sister is something I stuck on iPlayer while I was feeling unwell and sorry for myself, and it turned into a huge bright spot. I had low expectations and it was fucking delightful! What a breath of fresh air! Even though this is basically a Jane Austen fan fiction, this adaptation is so well done! It is a proper BBC historical drama, it’s slow and character focused, the camera lingers on emotional moments, the sets and costumes are great (the bad dresses are on purpose, it demonstrates Mary’s character!). The cast look like normal people too! It has its flaws but I can overlook them all because it felt.. dare I say it.. cosy.
- This got me in the mood for more and today I watched the 2009 BBC mini series of Emma and omg I can’t believe I never saw this before! It is fucking brilliant, so much better than the movies. Johnny Lee Miller is perfect as Mr Knightley and Romola Garai is a perfect Emma, a tricky character to pull off. This is definitely now in my comfort show rotation. I am now on the lookout for more!
- Are people still pretending Daredevil Born Again is good? 😅 I’m now banned from watching it or speaking of it to my Husband.
- New series of Taskmaster and the cast includes Kumail Nanjiani which is surreal! He’s now a big movie star so must definitely be losing money by being there so must be a huge fan! He’s bringing American but not the intense chaos of Jason Mantzoukas. Also I’m finding Armando Iannucci to be a huge thrill, he’s an absolute legend but rarely in front of the camera!
Movies
- Naked Gun (2025) I’m so sad we forgot to go and see this in the cinema, but we watched it on Paramount Plus and loved it. I thought it was hilarious and perfectly captured the spirit of the originals but also updated it! I loved the running gag with the coffee cups.
- We did go and see Project Hail Mary which I was keen to after hearing they used practical effects and a puppet for Rocky, I want to support properly crafted movies! I really enjoyed it, it had me choked up several times, but having read the book I knew what to expect of it. Husband did not like it! You do have to be willing to suspend disbelief on the plot and the science stuff, and it is 100% Ryan Gosling’s immense charisma that carries it.
- Begonia felt like a treat because I so rarely watch movies, and especially not weird ‘arty’ ones (Husband would never have watched this!). I did see the twist coming but it definitely kept me guessing over whether I was right! The tone and humour of it was right up my ally.
What else?
- I went for the Jlab Jbuds over ear headphones and I love them. I mostly wanted comfort so didn’t care about the fancy tech but I’ve got to say the audio pass through is nice to have some awareness of surroundings.
- The news about AllBirds “pivoting” (is this a pivot?!) to AI really upset me, it’s the hypocrisy. I love my pair of AllBirds and their sustainability and environmentally conscious ethos and now it’s just fuck that, fuck the environment, literally all we care about is money. I was very close to buying a second pair (60% off) while I still can because I do really like them, but because I was How To Be Perfect and I’ve been reflecting on moral philosophy I can’t because now I know what they’ll do with my money. Goddamit. Sometimes being a better person is fucking annoying. But it’s only shoes!
- The controversy over Shy Girl and AI has been interesting, also it led me to a channel called Second Story and her video on how she thinks Fanfiction has destroyed writing which I found really interesting. I think she nailed it honestly, and it helped me to understand why I’ve always had an adverse reaction to Fanfiction, and the mainstream modern extension of it that is now Romantasy. Maybe more thoughts on this later!
- We finally booked a proper holiday! This took many hours of research and negotiation, but we’re going to Majorca but not until September, for 6 nights… but it’ll be warm and they’ll be a pool, and they’ll be no chores!
- The garden has exploded with blue forget-me-knots! I love this time of year.
