Work Monday

I must admit that working from home these past months has blurred the lines about when work is work and what time is other than work. It feels like I am mentally in work mode all the time and so I am actually worried about burning out. I'm thinking this is why there are undercurrent thoughts about anxiety, of stuff I need to do. At work there is always stuff I need to do. And there is always something to stress about with regards to my job performance. And so I have to reinforce thoughts that I provide massive value... all the time. This morning I actually started the day in work mode from the minute I woke up. I did do some meditation and I did do some reflecting on the weekend and I'll write about those later. But Mondays are all about getting showered for one thing and then immediately starting a 9 AM meeting with my team to de-brief about Friday's power outage and downtime. By all objective metrics, we lost internet access and got it back  by 2:30 PM. Easily within 4 hours of a normal SLA. But there was some expectation that it shouldn't have even gone down at all where I had installed backup internet. My mistake was not to communicate what that entailed exactly and that automatic failover isn't something we're at just yet. But we're getting there. And that's what I communicated to my team this morning at the Business Continuity Meeting. And in between there was a conversation with Chad about an initiative to do passwordless login at the Health Centers. When all the meetings were done the morning had come and gone and it was already 11:30 AM. I guarantee you I wouldn't have been this busy on any regular Mondy at the FRB. But maybe that's a good thing that we're meeting together more often as a group. After the meeting I headed to our Westlake North location, my first venture towards downtown on a weekday in 5 months. I was supposed to drop off the monitor that I couldn't get to screw the stand properly and also the HP Stream that didn't work for me because it was way too slow. Without the usual traffic I was at Westlake North inside of 15 minutes. Gee why couldn't it be like that when pre-covid? After the pick-up/drop-off I went downtown and although I did not intend to, I found myself wandering through downtown all the way to the FRB. Even by the courthouse the place was practically deserted <see pic>. Very strange. Strange to see Bottega Louie all boarded up. Whole Foods with no one outside. Those places used to be so packed at lunchtime. I thought about all the places I could eat at right then since there was hardly anyone around. But I didn't really feel like sticking around downtown. I headed on home and for lunch I made myself a turkey spinach special flatbread tortilla. All these places i could have gone to and I went home instead. sign of the times huh?! It IS only just lunchtime and it feels like I have already put in a full day's work.

I so wanted to take a nap after eating lunch. I didn't get to take one, but I did get a very good meditation session in. And doing that helped me anchor to a more positive state and higher vibration. How do i know? I had a feeling of calm all afternoon. No anxieties. Except that by 4 PM I knew I had to get some exercise in because I was barely at 1600 steps. And so I put on the YouTube videos of Leslie Sansone PowerWalking... and wouldn't you know I actually got my heartrate up pretty efficiently. How do I know this? I wasn't tired but I felt like I got a good workout in. And by 5 PM, an hour later I was already at past 7000 steps. I had gotten the equivalent of 3 miles walking right there in my living room! And when I got done, as if by coincidence, Lisa called. She and Johnnie was right down the street hanging out with Max and Laurent and so Lisa was just going to drop Johnnie off. It was perfect actually! I thought it was funny that Lisa said goodbye with her usual " Don't have too much fun"... but then the second she drove off, Johnnie looks at me and says "Let's not listen to her... Let's have as much fun as we want". THAT is my Little Bug! And with that, I shifted into Johnnie mode. I had gotten a lot of work done today but I know my To-do list is growing. I have to regroup and organize and I don't think I'm going to get to do that tonight.  I have a pretty open calendar tomorrow though. And so Johnnie got his McNuggets and penne pasta in chicken broth dinner. I made myself shrimp fried rice and then Johnnie was back to his watching videos - drawing self. By that time I was all about just chilling for the rest of the evening. With Johnnie back in my house, I know I'm going to get some decent sleep tonight. And I think I'm going to need it. It might not have seemed like it was going to be a busy week ahead, but after today, it's not going to be a TANK week either. And that's fine with me. I had a pretty good day today after all...