The First Saturday

Ohh, the weekend - finally. It seems it's not been the best first week. Fatigue and grumpiness and all that. But I got a solid six hours of sleep. And surely I will have time for a nap later.

I was up late talking to my sister. She was on her last Midnight to 8am shift at the vet clinic for school. Today she starts the 4pm to Midnight shifts for a week and then she starts studying for her boards. Vet school is hard. She's good, excellent, born into it really, but so much information. I miss school. I loved school - but my school was about concepts and ideas and history. Not the long list of medicines and their generic counterparts or the long list of latin termed ailments for every species on the planet. I admire her drive and motivation. I seem to have lost all motivation. It's been replaced by a neverending fatigue.

Yesterday, I realized that I have been focusing a lot on my husband and his behaviour again. Not really focusing on me at all. I've been forgetting things about myself a lot lately - like putting on deodorant one morning last week, or remembering to wear jewelry last night for work or forgetting my phone three days in a row the week before. Or, not remembering if I've washed my face. My job is partly to blame - lots of little details and paperwork - lots going on all at once. Easy if you are rested, less so if you are wandering around with half a brain because you are fatigued. Makes me wonder about doctors who do 24 hour shifts. How many mistakes are made - how much more suffering is there because they are fatigued and their brains just aren't functioning....

When I take the dogs out in the morning now, because it's October and the sun hasn't burned the dew off yet because the sun is so much lower in the sky, I walk barefoot through the dew. And when I return to the brick path and walk up the wooden steps, I leave perfect footprints. Sometimes my whole foot, sometimes just the ball of my foot and the toes. In the latter case it looks vaguely like an animal print. I don't know why, but seeing my footprints makes me smile.

I'm down to 2 fish now. A puffer fish and a yellow something or other. Seems that nothing else can survive. I think the yellow fish picks on the smaller ones until they die. But the puffer seems immune to bullying. In the past, when a couple of fish die, I run out and buy 3-4 more. Always trying to find the right combination of community fish so that several will last together. But I think I'll just stick with the puffer and the bully for now. I'm kind of tired of dead fish.

I think I'm going to paint the kitchen orange.