Random Bits<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the things I have found I am struggling with working from home is ever feeling like I am NOT at work. I have MS Teams on my tablet, which is what I use in the evening, so my team can reach me to ask questions when they are working. So even though I leave the home office and try not to go back in there, work finds me.
One of the things I am doing to help with this is that I put on real shoes in the morning. I leave the shoes on the rest of the day. And then, at the end of the workday, I get up and take the dogs on one more walk. When we come in from that, I take my shoes off. This way, I have just walked into the house after a day of work, and I take off the real shoes. It helps me feel like I have come home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We went to the grocery store the other night. Following CDC recommendations, we wore masks. We happen to have one medical mask. I wore that because if C wears it, his glasses instantly fog up. He wore a bandana. I understand why the CDC recommends the masks. I get that it is more about protecting others from me (in case I have the virus) than it is about protecting myself. And honestly, that is the only reason I wear it. I do not suffer from claustrophobia in small spaces, but I do suffer from it when fresh air is not moving across my face. I cannot hide under the blankets in bed. I seek escape from stuffy rooms. And wearing that mask was a bit of torture. I did it, and if I go grocery shopping again, I will wear it again. But it still takes a major toll on my mental health while I am doing it. (Physical, too, as I am super tense the entire time, causing a headache.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In lighter news, I am reverting to my teenage years. I have been listening to musical soundtracks while I work. So far, JCS, Les Mis, Phantom, Hamilton (okay, this one wasn\u2019t around while I was in high school), Chess. Soon, Evita, Chorus Line, Joseph, Wicked, In the Heights, Chicago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Also, I appear to have done things backward. As a teenager and young adult, I listened to a lot of country music. Sometime in my 30s, I started listening to punk bands on a regular basis. But right now, I am going back and listening to some of those artists I loved as a teenager.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am a person who likes routines. I function best with routines. I am slowly getting my new routines established, and it is definitely helping in my productivity and mindset. At the same time, I was scheduled to take a trip this weekend (canceled, obviously) , but I have decided to still take Friday off. I will not operate on a routine (other than getting the dogs out for walks). I will lay in bed and watch documentaries. And this will be good for me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Random Bits One of the things I have found I am struggling with working from home is ever feeling like I am NOT at work. I have MS Teams on my tablet, which is what I use in the evening, so my team can reach me to ask questions when they are working. So even though I leave the home office and try not to go back in there, work finds me.One of the things I am doing to help with this is that I put on real shoes in the morning. I leave the shoes on the rest of the day. And then, at the end of the workday, I get up and take the dogs on one more walk. When we come in from that, I take my shoes off. This way, I have just walked into the house after a day of work, and I take off the real shoes. It helps me feel like I have come home. We went to the grocery store the other night. Following CDC recommendations, we wore masks. We happen to have one medical mask. I wore that because if C wears it, his glasses instantly fog up. He wore a bandana. I understand why the CDC recommends the masks. I get that it is more about protecting others from me (in case I have the virus) than it is about protecting myself. And honestly, that is the only reason I wear it. I do not suffer from claustrophobia in small spaces, but I do suffer from it when fresh air is not moving across my face. I cannot hide under the blankets in bed. I seek escape from stuffy rooms. And wearing that mask was a bit of torture. I did it, and if I go grocery shopping again, I will wear it again. But it still takes a major toll on my mental health while I am doing it. (Physical, too, as I am super tense the entire time, causing a headache.) In lighter news, I am reverting to my teenage years. I have been listening to musical soundtracks while I work. So far, JCS, Les Mis, Phantom, Hamilton (okay, this one wasn\u2019t around while I was in high school), Chess. Soon, Evita, Chorus Line, Joseph, Wicked, In the Heights, Chicago. Also, I appear to have done things backward. As a teenager and young adult, I listened to a lot of country music. Sometime in my 30s, I started listening to punk bands on a regular basis. But right now, I am going back and listening to some of those artists I loved as a teenager. I am a person who likes routines. I function best with routines. I am slowly getting my new routines established, and it is definitely helping in my productivity and mindset. At the same time, I was scheduled to take a trip this weekend (canceled, obviously) , but I have decided to still take Friday off. I will not operate on a routine (other than getting the dogs out for walks). I will lay in bed and watch documentaries. And this will be good for me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1525,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/erinshanendoah.com\/alienanthros\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/20200414_154907-scaled-e1586972803855.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p75MAh-oA","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/erinshanendoah.com\/alienanthros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/erinshanendoah.com\/alienanthros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/erinshanendoah.com\/alienanthros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/erinshanendoah.com\/alienanthros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/erinshanendoah.com\/alienanthros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1524"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/erinshanendoah.com\/alienanthros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1526,"href":"http:\/\/erinshanendoah.com\/alienanthros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1524\/revisions\/1526"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/erinshanendoah.com\/alienanthros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/erinshanendoah.com\/alienanthros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/erinshanendoah.com\/alienanthros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/erinshanendoah.com\/alienanthros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}