Almost There

I knocked out some more school work tonight after I got home from work.

Wednesday nights I don’t see clients and I had the wherewithal after work to not only get laundry done and make a batch of soup for the weekend, but actually to also do the final prep work for my group presentation that is my final project for my Transpersonal class on Saturday.

I got the e-mail announcing the last weekend of the school semester and a note about where my classes will be over the weekend.

I’m so close to being done.

I have a dream reflection paper to write-up yet, but that’s it.

At least for what’s do for the weekend.

One more paper will have to be written.

One more.

And then I can let myself have some holiday fun.

I really do want to get my Christmas tree this Sunday.

I keep seeing trees and holiday stuff and it doesn’t really connect with me yet, I have no time to think about it.

Or I haven’t.

Even though I have gotten a few things here and there and have Christmas cards and stamps and things to wrap and things to send.

I just can’t get to it until after I get my school work finished.

Once the semester wraps I will let myself unwind.

I’m not nearly as wound up as I was last weekend, thank God.

I could not have sustained that level of anxiety for long.

And now that the lecture has been done I have one less thing to think about on my plate.

It was a really sweet thing to get to be a part of and I received a very sweet e-mail from the producers who relayed that once the video is up they will let us know as well as asking that we all get together for a dinner together.

I think that would be very sweet.

Some of the other lecturer’s ducked out quite quickly and I didn’t get to say good night to everyone.

It would be nice to reconnect, have dinner, process the experience and well, just have a nice meal with people I have come to really like and respect.

Really glad I was able to pull it together and get to be a part of it.

I had such a nice response to my piece, all those nice words still are resonating.

Although, softly, and fading quickly as I move towards the weekend.

I have clients tomorrow to contend with so very happy with myself for doing the work on my final group project and getting my household stuff wrapped and taken care of.

I’ll probably do a few more things in the morning too before I go to work, but I’m not going to stress too hard.

I have all my papers in my folder, those that I didn’t already send in via e-mail, and my worksheets that I made as part of my presentation and all my food prepped for the weekend.

I’m basically ready.

Albeit a bit tired.

It’s been a big push to get here.

I am so nearly done.

I keep telling myself that I will be done by Sunday and then I can enjoy myself.

By going right back into work.

Hahahaaha.

Ugh.

That’s the bummer about the weekend of class work, it really means no time off.

I won’t have to go to work, so there’s at least a break in the kind of work I have to do, school work rather than work, work.

But I’ll still have clients.

One tomorrow night and I need to follow-up with that client and see if he wants my earlier slot, my first client tomorrow cancelled.

Friday I also only have one client.

So I’ll at least be done a little early, it was my late client who cancelled, so I’ll be out by a decent hour Friday night for which I’m very grateful for.

There.

I just sent my client a note notifying of the earlier availability.

It would really be nice to be home by 8p.m.

Really nice.

I’ll do client advocacy work if the client doesn’t pick it up, I always have something I can do, but yeah, fingers crossed I can get the earlier time slot filled.

I’d rather get the extra hour at home, at least this week.

Oof.

I am tired.

I totally lost my train of thought.

I may just wrap this up and wind down.

A quick cup of tea and a little snack and off to bed.

I think that is exactly what I will do.

Goodnight.

And.

Sweet dreams.

Really.

The absolute sweetest.

Jam Packed

And now.

Just chilling in my bunny slippers.

It’s been a busy week and I can’t believe tomorrow is Friday.

I mean.

I’m hella happy it’s Friday, it just seems incredulous to me that the end of the week is almost here.

Of course that speaks to the amount of things that I have been juggling.

Just a few things.

Practicing my lecture for the People Who Usually Don’t Lecture series.

They posted my headshot today and the nicest write-up.

I was really quite taken with what they wrote about me.

It was really flattering.

They took the bio I sent them yesterday and extrapolated it and made it more personal somehow and also a bit more polished.

It was nice to see it and I shared it to my social media.

It’s going to be interesting whatever happens as I will be getting quite a bit of exposure from it, I’ve been dark on my blog for months now, since May, nearly seven months, for the sake of working with my therapy client, so this will be a kind of exposure I haven’t had in months.

I’m reconciled with it.

I doubt, highly doubt that any of my clients will stumble on this, despite social media and it’s far reach, but the video will be posted to YouTube and I do wonder about that.

Then again.

I’m not that fucking special.

Although my supervisor forewarned me that there will come a time that as a therapist I will have a client stalk me.

Great.

Thanks for the cheery news.

I didn’t share with him that I have been stalked before.

I’m not sure how I would take it a second time.

I’m sure, though, that I will respond to it far differently.

Anyway.

I’ll be out in the public eye for a moment and then something else shiny will be in the eye of the public and my ten minutes of fame will dissolve into the ether.

I’m excited to do it and have the experience.

I think that’s the biggest thing, it’s a cool experience to get to have and I’m excited for that.

I like experiences.

I’ve had an idea vaguely growing in the back of my mind that I may have to take a little mini road trip in my new car once I clear the hurdle of the semester.

Maybe go see some lighthouses.

Drive down the coast.

Just a little jaunt.

I think that could be a lot of fun.

I don’t however, have much room in my head for figuring that out.

I’m just trying to make it through the next seven days until I hit my last weekend of classes.

I have plenty to do in that seven days.

I’m going to knock out the rest of the online stuff and get at least one of my papers written this weekend as well as crafting the worksheet I’m going to hand out to my classmates in my Transpersonal Psychology class as part of my final group projects.

Gah.

I hate group projects.

I got a bit overwhelmed with one of the people in my group over the last couple of days and I realized this morning after reading another text that I was just being anxious and that I could respond with kindness and just let her know I was doing my best to manage my overwhelm, that I would contact her regarding the project, but she was going to have to wait until Sunday.

And it all worked out and after some more messaging later today, it feels like it’s coming together and I’m going to be ok.

What with the rehearsal I have resigned myself to not getting all the paper writing done that I was hoping to get done, but I will finish at least one of my papers and hopefully get a good start on the second.

I also, note to self, still have to write-up a dream for Jungian Dreamwork, not a hard thing, but a two pager that still has to be done.

And that needs to be done before class as well.

The final paper for that class is due the 15th of the month.

Fuck.

December.

Tomorrow.

It’s December.

How the hell did that come up so fast?

I have decided one thing though.

I will let myself get my Christmas tree when I finish and turn in my Jungian Dream Work final paper.

That will be incentive.

And it will be a fun thing to reward myself with when I am all done with the semester.

I had briefly entertained the idea of getting the tree this upcoming weekend, but no way, too fucking busy.

Then I thought.

Maybe when I wrap up classes for the semester, next Sunday.

But then.

I realized that it would be the best feeling if I did it when I had absolutely nothing hanging over my head and that won’t be until I hand in every last piece of work that the semester is demanding.

Then.

The tree.

It makes it more special.

It will be a way to mark the end of classes and a sweet way for me to celebrate.

I can almost smell the evergreen now.

Sigh.

Three final papers.

One dream reaction paper.

Finish my online portion for Psychopharmacology.

And.

Do the final project presentation work.

Just a few things standing in between me and that Christmas tree.

But no worries.

I will get it done.

I always do.

Always.

So Fresh and So

Clean.

Clean.

My house looks pretty fucking good, let me tell you.

All the laundry done, all the trash and recycling out and swept, swiffered, vacuumed, scrub the bathroom down, tidy the fuck up.

Which means one thing.

Mama had a lot of homework to do today.

My God.

There is no fucking end to it.

Yet.

Me thinks I see a glimmer of a light at the end of the tunnel.

Oh.

The light is far off, but I can sense it getting closer.

I did so, so, so much work today.

My god.

My brain hurt.

Still does, not as much, and hurt might not be the right word, but I was worn out with the material, as I was warned that I might be, but I toughed it out.

I finished all of my Elder, Spousal, and Child Abuse class.

Huzzah!

But man, it took the stuffing out of me, and I don’t eat stuffing.

Haha.

It was a lot of reading, and a lot of watching some intense videos.

I wrote out responses to five of the sections, I got three out-of-the-way previously.

And I wrote a clinical mock-up of an elder abuse situation and what I would do, from mandatory reporting to clinical interventions and everything in between.

It was a lot of work.

But.

Fuck.

It’s done.

So happy I got all of that out-of-the-way, it really was the big monster in my block of classes.

I also finished all my reading for Transpersonal, which means, drumroll please…

I have no more reading to do for the semester!!

My God.

That feels fabulous.

I am not, however, out of the woods yet.

Tomorrow I have to write two papers.

One will be fairly short, two pages, on a dream I had, it will be my last dream to tun into my Jungian Dreamwork class.

The other will be a bit longer, but not too bad, five pages.

That one will, however, be a bit more formal and honestly despite having finished all the reading for the class I’m not exactly sure where I am going to go with the paper.

I was also in contact with my group today working on our final project presentation that I will be doing the last Saturday of classes.

I’m hoping to knock out both the papers and the group work tomorrow.

And also, if I can swing it, the Psychopharmacology online portion of my Psychopharmacology and Human Sexuality class.

I have a paper in that class due at the end of the semester too and one for my Drugs and Alcohol Class.

Sigh.

That will be for next weekend.

I can get it done though, especially since the Elder, Spousal, and Child Abuse class is completed.

My God.

One more class done towards my degree.

Which reminds me, I have to register for classes in two days.

In two days I will register for my last semester!

I only have three classes.

It is going to feel miraculous after carrying six classes this semester.

I have only done four classes at once before, this semester was a stretch, and obviously, it’s not done.

OH.

And I still will have a final paper for Jungian DreamWork too, it’s just not due until after the last weekend of classes.

Which is always a conundrum.

Crush that bitch out of the park and get it done before my last weekend of classes, or finish that Sunday when I get out of classes.

Because the damn thing is due on the 15th of December and I’ll be working all that week and of course, seeing clients.

There’s no way I can do two big papers tomorrow and the small one and the online portion of my other class.

No.

I will be a wastrel of a person.

But.

Maybe I can do them next weekend.

Maybe.

If not, maybe I can get it started.

It would mean three papers next weekend.

Sigh.

I got invited out to the movies tonight.

I turned it down.

I got invited out to dinner.

I came home and made my own.

I am going to be over the moon when this semester is done, it will be nice to have a little more wiggle room for social outings and such.

Although I do have breakfast plans with my best friend in the morning.

Super excited for that, really happy to get to have some time before I get into the homework grind.

And if I’m good and grind hard and get a lot of it done, maybe I go to yoga.

Not the regular Vinyasa, nope.

My ankle is doing better, but not that much better, no, I was thinking maybe the Restorative yoga, my brain is going to need some restoring to normality by the time I crank out all the homework I have to do tomorrow.

Grateful I know how to write a paper and grateful for my ability to pull together my notes and book references and make it work.

I can do it.

I have my process and I’ve done the biggest work, which is the reading.

That’s the most important.

I’ll skim through my books, grab a stack of post-it notes and flip through my class notes, I will put together a skeleton of the paper in outline by looking through my materials and see what my common themes are.

Then.

I’ll write that bitch.

It’s five pages, so with prep time, reference time, write time, I am going to give it two and a half hours.

Actually.

That seems too long.

Two hours.

I’ll kick out the dream paper in twenty minutes, I don’t have to write it up with references, it’s just me doing what I do anyway, write what I see in my head, so two pages will be twenty minutes, thirty tops.

So maybe I’ll have all the writing done with in that time.

And that should give me enough room and time to finish the rest of the online material I need, I suspect that will take an hour to two and also writing out an outline and making a worksheet for my final project for Transpersonal.

That will take forty-five minutes.

So.

What am I looking at?

Five hours?

I think I can do that.

Breakfast shenanigans are early so I’ll be in the mix by 10 a.m. like I was today, today I finished at 6 p.m. working pretty much straight through, yes, even when I was cleaning I was doing homework.

I had to watch a few videos, but I will admit, I was listening to some of them while I was cleaning, the material at times was graphic and I found it easier to integrate when I was cleaning and sweeping and washing.

So if all goes as planned I’ll be done by five or so.

I have an hour break at 1p.m. to do some work with a lovely lady and get right with God, a break after that for lunch, and then back in it.

It will get done.

It will.

I can do it.

I can.

Go team go!

Heh.

Hobbled

I did not do much today.

I did not go very far.

I stayed at home most of the day with a brief three and a half hour outing mid day.

My ankle really was tender this morning.

It took a while to get going and I was really gentle on myself.

I have had it elevated most of the day and I’ve iced it three times already.

I’m actually thinking maybe I should ice it again while I blog.

Hang on.

This may take a minute.

Ok.

Frozen bag of peas going on.

It’s a party.

Actually the party was up on Portola from whence I have just come.

I spent the late afternoon and evening with six of the most fabulous gay men.

God.

I am so lucky to have the fellowship and community I have.

I got propped up in a big comfy lounge chair, got an ice pack and had constant refills on my sparkling water.

Plus loads of chat.

I am a little out of the loop with some of the cultural stuff the guys were talking about, I don’t get out to as much of the social stuff as they do, really my head’s been so far up my ass with school I’m surprised I even knew what day of the week it was.

I did a good bunch of homework today.

Yeah.

I know.

It’s a holiday, but it really made the best sense of my time.

Especially since I was reminded by a member of my cohort that the paper for Transpersonal is not due the last weekend of classes.

No.

It’s due next Friday.

Fuck me.

I sort of remembered that, but as I had been thinking in terms of my online classes have the components that needed to be done by the weekend, not really my in person classes.

This is also a class I have a final project presentation for.

Which frankly is a little fucked.

To have a final paper and a final group project really feels like too much work for this class.

Sigh.

Anyway.

When that came to my notice and my need to be slow and gentle today, all else sort of drifted off.

I did do a lot of writing this morning.

And I did laundry.

But then.

I did homework.

I got a webinar out-of-the-way that was an hour-long and wrote a response paper to that.

Then.

Yes.

I did.

I completely finished my take home exam for CBT.

I don’t have to do anything more for that class but attend the last webinar on December 3rd at 7p.m.

Done and done.

Super happy to have that take home exam done and turned in.

When I finished I gave my mom a call and wished her a Happy Thanksgiving and then I hobbled out to my car and drove up to the highest part, or just about of Portola.

The view was so pretty.

There were few cars on the road.

I listened to music and found good parking.

And then I spend three hours with some of the sweetest guys ever.

I was loath to go but I also needed to come home and have dinner.

There really wasn’t anything there for me to eat and I knew that going in, so I had a late lunch and wasn’t really hungry anyway.

But as it got close to seven p.m. I could feel that I would be soon and it was a good idea to go, get home, get my foot elevated again and put on the cold peas.

Meaning.

I’m chilling out.

Literally.

And it’s early and I could do more homework, but this is where I will say, hey, it’s ok to not do more homework tonight, it is a holiday, albeit an almost done holiday, and I don’t have to push myself further.

I got done a lot today and I really don’t want to watch any child or elder abuse videos right now, I’ll save that for tomorrow.

I get to go get my massage tomorrow.

Looking forward to that.

I won’t do any yoga tomorrow and probably not either on Saturday.

But.

I do think I’ll try for the restorative yoga class on Sunday, I think that will be helpful.

And I’ll keep taking it slow.

Aside from a grocery shopping run and the massage I don’t have other plans.

I may go do the deal in the Inner Sunset.

That’s probably the best idea for me.

And I’ll keep chipping away at the work and I’ll get my papers written.

And I’ll get my final group project sussed out.

I will.

Things come together, they always do.

Just taking it nice and easy and slow.

One day at a time.

And real fucking mellow.

Like.

Easy does it.

Mellow.