The Incredible Sulk

The Boys and some of their friends came to our house for Fourth of July festivities. After fireworks, we served them pizza and root beer floats. It was wonderful to see them all together. They disbursed at 1am.

It's been a long time since I'd stayed up so late, and it's been a long time since I've been this tired. Unable to think tired. Depressed tried. Everything is bad tired. Grouchy tired.

I apologized to The Husband all day long and assured him nothing was actually wrong other than lack of sleep.

Don't make me tired. You wouldn't like me when I'm tired.

3 Things 6/30/2026

Something that went well 

The yarn shop's Google Business Profile finally shows the correct address, and it no longer shows the store as Permanently Closed. That was a very good thing that went well.

Something to look forward to 

I get a new pair of glasses and a fresh set of retainers maybe as early as this week! I'm looking forward to not having glasses with these stupid, painful nose pads anymore. 

Gonna meet friends for dinner in the middle of the week. That'll be a nice change of pace.

What's the best that could happen?

I could still get a call from the place where I (quickly and sloppily) applied for a job over the weekend.

If not, I could find another similar employment opportunity and still get out of my current job before the hard work of migrating a multi-million dollar website to a new platform begins in earnest. 

My current employer's management team could start behaving in a way that makes me believe they value and respect me and are not planning to eliminatemy position the moment the site migrstion is complete, which would encourage me to stay rather than seek escape routes.

Double Tap(s)

Filling the sink to wash dishes, I wonder why the water isn't getting warm. The hot tap is on. Weird.

Then I realize the cold tap is also open. Ah. Mystery solved.

But. 

Why would I turn on both taps? I wanted hot water; I wouldn't have purposely turned on the cold.

It was an odd thing for me to do.

The Husband found the story amusing when I told him about it later.

"If I'm doing stuff like this now, how will I know when I've really lost my marbles?"

So. Whenever one of us does something that makes us wonder if our mental faculties are slipping, we will ask, "Why would I turn on both taps?"

That *is* the question, isn't it? 🤔

The staff breakroom at my therapist's office is adjacent to the client bathrooms. As I exited the facilities, I noticed one of the mental health professionals struggling with some issue in the staff refrigerator. She forcefully moved several items around in there, then sighed deeply and muttered, "What is wrong with people?"

Shouldn't she know?

🤭

The Job Application, because why not?

I applied for a job today. Had to do it online, of course. I'm no stranger to the process, 

The only info they asked for was contact info and a resume. Which is good, I guess.

However, all of my application materials are stored on a laptop that was already old 7 years ago. I never transferred anything to the cloud or to a thumb drive.

I threw together a resume from scratch on Google docs, and that's what I submitted. It was not pretty, and I'm not proud of it.

But listen...

Earlier today, I was physically in the business that was hiring. Shopping. In jeans, t-shirt, no makeup, and my hair in a wind-whipped ponytail.

Very not polished.

As I paid for my purchases, the Manager wandered up, and I took the opportunity to ask about the job. Off the cuff. Unprepared.

Very not polished.

 She seemed to like me anyway. Said I had skills and qualities she needs.

So I'm thinking, if it's meant to be, it'll be. Everything about this process was unplanned and sloppy. If it works out, it would be a miracle.

But y'know, a month ago I took a wild chance, and I got to build a website for a yarn shop. 

This feels similar in a "nothing ventured, nothing gained" kind of way.

Not that I'm actively looking to leave my full-time job, but I wouldn't hate working somewhere where the manager seems to like me. 🤷‍♀️

It'll be fun to see how this plays out 🤞

Easily Amused

My optometrist is hard to read. He's personable and professional, but he doesn't laugh, and he doesn't smile.

During my appointment today, I cracked joke after joke, because, you know... me. He gave me nothing.

After receiving none of the typical responses to my many humorous remarks, I quietly said, "I think I'm funny."

"You are very funny," he said. "It helps that I'm easily amused."

:: blink ::

Excuse me. What?

You're... you're amused?

In the silence that followed, it occurred to me that, yes, he had been responding, just not in any of the ways I was used to.

I realized every time I'd cracked a joke, he had stopped what he was doing and had made eye contact. This was how he acknowledged that something special had happened. 

No laugh. Not a smile. But a pause, and deliberate eye contact.

After I identified it, I appreciated it even more than if he had laughed aloud 🫶

Detours

Due to recent flooding, I've had to take a different route to work. According to Google Maps, it's about the same distance even thought it's a full country mile over. According to me, it's a little more pleasant as it passes through open fields and is a little less traveled than my usual route.

I've been detoured for about a month now, so the new route is pretty well set in my head. Muscle memory turns my car that direction without consciously thinking about it.

But now...

This detour is being detoured!

Road construction.

Wait a minute, guys. We already lost one way across the county. You can't just close this one without opening the other one first! Ugh!

I've been following Google Maps and have been redirected so many times, I'm not sure I'll remember the original route when it finally reopens.

3 Things 6/22/2026 (another positive work incident worth remembering)

Something that went well 

I attended a work meeting today regarding a big project coming up in Q1 next year. In this meeting, they mentioned a portion of the project that required my SEO expertise. Mentioned me by name. My name was on the slide deck and everything. 

Okay, this is cool, actually. It means they're counting on me for this future endeavor. 

Then, in this same meeting, conversation progressed to a second big project in Q2, and my name came up again!

So, it appears I have job security for at least 12 more months. 😁

Something to look forward to 

I have a lot of things to do for the yarn shop website even now that it's live. I had kinda thought that once it was published the owner would be less interested in improvements, but that is not the case. It seems she's now confident I can do most anything and is comfortable asking for bigger, stronger, faster. I am not so confident 🤪 but I'm happy to try.

I also told a yarn-loving friend about the site, and she sent me some really good ideas for additional features and content.

What's the best that could happen?

- I could get to keep my day job for another year, which would mean I will set a new record for the longest I've worked in one place.

- The yarn shop owner could not be shocked by the amount of her next invoice from me. She could think she's getting her money's worth and then some 🤞

3 Things 6/20/2026

Something that went well 

- Yarn shop owner paid me for the work I did in May. She seems very pleased, said I've already done way more than the last person she hired to work on her website 😊

- I did some magic* today and managed to get the yarn shop website to show up on the first page of Google results. Granted, it was for a rather specific search term, but it was unbranded. Rather pleased with myself since her website was nowhere to be found on Google yesterday. 

Something to look forward to 

- plenty more website things to do. The yarn shop owner is participating more now that she can see the work I'm capable of doing. I have a list of requests to implement this weekend.

- 3.5 day workweek coming up

- The Husband and I are already talking about long road trips we want to take this coming winter to escape cold northen weather and spend time with friends

What's the best that could happen?

I could sleep past 5:30 tomorrow morning. For some reason, I've been waking up very early most every day this week. Not a bad thing, really, just an odd, new development. 

*There's no magic in SEO. I simply verified her website thru Google Search Console and then submitted all her page URLs to the Google URL Inspector. It felt like magic, though, how quickly Google responded. I'd never experienced such a drastic change in such a short amount of time.

3 Things 6/19/2026 (the one with the website & the book)

Something that went well 

I PUBLISHED THE YARN STORE WEBSITE TODAY!!!

Something to look forward to 

I think I've agreed to co-write a young adult mystery series with a friend 🤔😲 (🌭🛥👨‍👩‍👧‍👦)

What's the best that could happen?

- Yarn shop owner has hinted several times that she needs another employee. If I wanted to, I could quit my day job and pick up hours working in a yarn shop(!) which would be the dream, right?

- This YA mystery series is a really cool idea with a unique backdrop. It could be fun to write, and people might actually like to read it.