Wed check-in

 I woke up coughing last night with nose running. I don't think it's heartburn anymore. I'm worried that I'm going to develop allergies from this apartment. It makes me sad. I like the sunlight and the open windows. I am a bit skeezed out by the storage but I'm making it work.

Which makes me scared. Wasn't I just moving away from making it work. 

That's really my biggest headache (literally and figuratively) right now. But I decided to stop waiting for it to get better.

I'm still going to Cabo this weekend!

And I booked the retreat for the following weekend. So two weekends gone. I even took a day off since I had an extra day to use. 

And the travel agency sent a $480 off coupon for the trip I want to take in Dubai. I was trying to go with my cousins, but I'm not waiting for them because I don't trust they'll come through. I let them know but I'm going to go ahead and book.

It certainly helped my case that I've only spent $10k on travel this year, so I might have about 10k more to spend. Sort of. I don't actually know if I'll have that much leftover, but we shall see.

Anyway, I don't have to pay for the remainder of the trip until December so I can flex the $300 deposit. 

So I'm kind of pumped to do that.

But yeah the overall feel of the apartment is that it feels temporary. It wasn't the homey, comfy feel I was going for but I guess that's where we are. 

Life is the background. I'm putting fun in the foreground. 

Sunday a.m. check-in

 Woke up to try to get a Sunday p.m. therapy appointment. Not quite sure why I was dragging my feet. On this and similar things. I think I didn't want to need it. But it would've been nice. Oh well. She's not available until Tuesday a.m.

Looks like her Mondays aren't till evening as well. Still trying to figure out what I want. Wahhh.

I was hoping that the air purifier would give me confidence to stay and go on my vacation, but the smell magically got a lot worse yesterday. I could smell it outside the apartment when I came back from a night out. 

But as I was driving, I kind of resolved to stay. Pet smell never killed anyone right? So what if I swallow some dog hair. 

I was all geared up to just deal with it, but this morning is a different story. I keep trying to solve it. 

I guess we'll see if my mood changes tomorrow.

The big issue is planning my trip. 

Whoops! Just remembered I needed to cancel my trip. I was hoping to just rebook but apparently I'm too close to take off. So I am going to hold on to the credit for now to encourage me to actually take the trip instead of being like forget it. 

I was able to catch up on some sleep yesterday which was nice. Surprisingly, less train running on the weekends. The train rattle and horn feels like death, if death were a sound. 

I think I decided to go on the camp retreat as well. Might as well have fun. Do all the things, have all the fun. 

I requested the time off for next week for Cabo but didn't put any calendar reminders out since so close to the day. Gives me time to decide and save face. I do work in a team environment so that factor can't be ignored. 

And just like that I spaced out again.

Camels

My spirit animal for this season is a camel. I'm a camel in a sea of emotional support fish. I can do a lot with a little. I've been chasing and trying to keep up with fish, but I'm a camel. I'm lumpy and look weird; I'm hairy and I spit weird. But I'm a living thing that's just as deserving. I'm just me, I'm a camel. I'm just not a fish. I live and survive, and dare I say thrive in emotional desertland. And that doesn't make me x or y, I'm just a camel. 

That thought has been on my mind the last few days. Now it's out. 

Other things

Can we celebrate I left my toxic relationship! I'm onto new things. It's interesting how small the problem seems when you're away from it. Can you imagine how much time and thought and tears and planning and distress went into making the decision to leave and sell my house. Now it's like, why did I ever consider another option.

I think that's why I'm just so ready for this housing situation to be solved so I can take it off my plate. 

I'm hoping the new furniture will boost my spirits. And we'll plan to go to Cabo this weekend. Luckily I have until Wednesday to make up my mind. 

I might just wait until then to book the hotel. That will give me about 1-2 days to see. I'm going to try not to work on this "problem" until after furniture is delivered tomorrow. 

Ok, sorry, I'm not proofreading this. Ta Ta!

Feeling a bit better about apartment

 It's hard to know when to keep trying and when to give up. Especially after coming out of a TWELVE year toxic relationship.

Oh well. One of the things my therapist told me when I hold on to emotionally risky solutions is that it's a short term solution.

So I've been trying to be mindful that this is just a short term inconvenience. It doesn't have to be a harbinger of any thing. Even if everything aligns, it's not necessarily a harbinger of good outcomes. 

Anyway, my apartment was not the smooth transition I needed it to be because of the pet smell and the wonky furniture.

The furniture is getting replaced and I think the smell will slowly dissipate as more areas of pet dander are found.

It was a bit comforting if not disappointing that the restoration guy didn't see any hidden stains. So now I'm focusing my search on pet dander.

I bought an air filter for peace of mind. I'm all about the placebo effect. As my therapist says, does it matter?

I'm also glad I didn't run the ozone machine for 2 days. I tried it out for what was supposed to be 20 minutes but ended up being 2 hours. I was kicking myself because I thought it was too long but after it aired out the noxious smell all but dissipated. I still get tiny whiffs of it because my nose catches everything. 

Basically, I want to stay because it will make my life easier and I'm trying not to assign any future outcomes to this decision.

I hope I don't get sick, but who knows. Plus fall will be here soon and I'll rely less on the a/c and smells won't be circulating as bad. And I'll have my own smells. Plus we just had COVID so I have a variety of masks. 

I think I might just rebrand my Cabo trip as an end of summer trip for Labor Day weekend. I'm not needing as much downtime as I used to think. 

It's okay to be a bit busy. 

Plus it'll be nice to kick off end of summer/ Labor Day/ and start of work with a trip. Labor Day is when I first started my job in that Old Place. And now look where I am. So that at least has a bit more significance.

And the next weekend I'll be out of town for a retreat that I still need to book and pay for. 

It'll be a fun day to reconcile my budget at the end of September! Yikes.

So I'll sleep on it, and I typically don't like to make irreversible decisions on Sundays, but this isn't that irreversible.

I'll wait to change calendar placeholders to the workday though. 

I went to Pilates and I think I'll do the 4 classes a month x 3 months. I want to wait for the free 3 month health credit we get, but that's not for another month.

But as I type that and try it on, I like the way it feels. They doing the Pilates. I think I'd already decided on Tuesday since I have dance class on Thursdays, but we shall see. 

Ok, I start to lose interest sometimes with these posts. My mind wanders...

Ok, so yeah, I put in a couple work orders. I didn't think I'd have to say if you notice a pile of dust please clean it. Oh well.

I think I live here now. This is manageable, if not ideal. I think I'm going to like living downtown. I love the sun!

I have an event tonight but otherwise the rest of the day I have to myself. There will be many naps. 

Thursday a.m. check-in

 Oh what a day! I just took a shower and it dramatically improved my outlook.

There's nothing better than feeling clean on a sunny day. The sun is beaming into my apartment. And I don't care that I'm running up my electric bill having the air on the windows open.

That's the price of my sanity at the moment to air out this apartment. 

I finally took a shower on the 4th day because I woke up quite slick. Phew! And it's a nice powerful shower. So yay. Not all the holes work but the ones that do are powerful. So I'm not even going to dream about changing the shower head.

But because the flow is so strong, I will need to get a heavier shower curtain because the flimsy one I have was blowing all over the place. But this a problem money can easily solve! 

And I will have to use the swiffer I bought because the white tile floor shows all dirt. Which will at least be easy to wipe clean. I'm still open to getting a cleaner too though. I will have elements of the fancy life even if my apartment is off to a rocky start.

I went ahead and cancelled the hotel for Cabo just to give me more time to think. I kind of want the apartment issues to be sorted before I go on vacation so I can truly relax. But it was kind of an interesting situation when I was trying to figure out when I could go again because I have activities scheduled! Yay, me! 

I didn't go to Yoga yesterday because it was 100 degrees. Yikes.

Took a break for therapy. 

Made it!

 I live here now! Just like that.

Spent another morning running errands online.

The apartment smells like urine. I've sprayed the floors with bleach 3 times now. Today, I'm going out to get some other urine killer. Then I don't know. I guess just daily bleach spraying. I've been sitting around with a face covering.

I hope to have things moved in before my trip on Sunday. Oh well.

I miss my Landing apartments.

But happily, they already automatically refunded my prorated rent for the month. I didn't even have to follow-up. Once I do my cleaning and setting up, I think I will feel more comfortable.

Don't have much to do the rest of the afternoon. Have a 5p social event, and the cleaners are coming a third time but not for anything that makes that much difference to me. I really want this smell gone.

Then I'm going to use some scrubbing bubbles on the shower and take a shower. 

Then I'm just going to start unpacking.

I think once the cleaners come, I get a new mattress, do my own cleaning, I'll be good to go. I'll be able to unpack and put things where they belong.

I have a meal kit coming for next Thursday. And I'll just use papertowels to line anything that makes me feel icky. I miss my balcony already, I'd love to be able to breathe some clean air!!

Anyway, I'm here! I made it! And there was no crying.

My eyelid twitching stopped. Which is good.

I made my eye doctor appointment and am still deciding on when to schedule my boosters.