Pandemic Week 105

This is the last week that the mask mandate was in place. That’s being lifted tomorrow. I’m still likely going to continue wearing mine as I don’t feel ready to go without it yet – especially on public transit. I know the cases are way down and hospitalizations are too, but I still want to wait and see what impact it has before deciding to go without.

This has been a fun week with the side biz. Everything is in preparation for the Spring catalog launch that’s coming this week. As a Stylist, I had the chance to buy some bundles early, so I did that and have a fun game up in my group to sell off some of the bundles as mystery strips and I have a few sold. I love picking mystery strips for my customers!  No new mani pic for me this time. I just took off my St. Patrick’s day one and haven’t put the new one on yet. I have been focusing on nail health while they’ve been naked this weekend with lots of cuticle oil and lotion though – which is super important too. I’ve also been grabbing things to get ready for vendor events. I can’t wait to find some to go to, now that restrictions are lifted I really hope that they’ll start up again soon. I picked up a sign to advertise the B3G1 deal, a LED strip of lights with little clothes pegs to hang some strips and a new Square device – the one that accepts debit/tap/chip cards and not just swiping magnetic strips on credit cards only. The more versatile I can be, the more sales I’ll be able to accept. 

I was practically ready to throw my laptop out the window this week. It’s been getting slower and slower as the week went on. Anything I wanted to click on when browsing took forever for the mouse to change to the ability to click on it. I rebooted a few times, didn’t help. Rebooted the modem, didn’t help. Cleared cookies and cache and turned off extensions, didn’t help. Ran some diagnostics, didn’t help. Then the internet wasn’t working at all on it and I decided to reboot the computer one more time. When it started back up, everything seemed to be working fine and it’s all faster again. So something in there somewhere worked, but I have no idea what it was. All I know is it was frustrating. 

My mental health is still in a place of feeling overwhelmed and pulled in too many directions to be able to focus and feeling stressed about feeling behind and not caught up. Both at work and home. One day it was so strong that I had trouble holding back the tears and was glad that I have the door to my office closed. I did end the week with a bunch of self care in the form of a whole lot of quiet alone time, sleeping in, relaxing showers, going out for a walk and taking myself out to lunch. 

Speaking of taking myself out – I did something Friday after work that I haven’t been able to do since the pandemic started and everything locked down. I took myself on a date! I was really wanting to see the Spider-Man movie in the theater and decided to go after work. By myself. This says a whole lot about how much I’ve grown. In my past, I would have been too shy, anxious, nervous and embarrassed to go somewhere alone. But I’ve gained so much self confidence and I’m not willing to miss out on things I enjoy just because I’m single. Don’t get me wrong – I still have lots of anxiety going new places and doing new things alone, but I’ve been to the theater before so I’m familiar with it and I show up early enough so I can go slow and pace myself. In the end, I’m SO glad I did because I very much enjoyed it and it was great to see this one on the big screen.

After my quiet alone time and walk of the weekend, I also did a whole bunch of reaching out to people. There are so many people I just haven’t been finding the time to stop and say hi to – so I sent out a bunch of messages. My plan is to continue to do that once a week, a few at a time, until I’ve gone through my whole friends list on Facebook – starting with those in my VIP group. The algorithms are terrible for people you don’t converse with, so I’m hoping it will also help there too. 

Before I sign off this week, I do also want to mention something I forgot last week. I supported a friends kickstarter. He’s written a short film on suicide awareness, and as you all know, I’m a big supporter of speaking up about mental health and sharing about it instead of hiding it or keeping it in. If you want to check it out and help support his film to help get it entered it more festivals, you can check it out here http://kck.st/3hwa2al

That’s me this week. Still thinking and debating on the title to change these to from pandemic to something else – especially if the world seems good with the restrictions all lifted. So still willing to look at suggestions too. 

Until next time, xoxo