The last several days of weirdness have really spiked my anxiety, leaving me wanting to do nothing more than stay in my room -- not even come out to make coffee.
Today I let myself curl up and burrow in, but then decided around 4 that maybe it would be enough to go out into the kitchen and make coffee. Please feel free to laugh, because it really is that funny, but so very serious at the same time. So I asked Graeme to be my buddy on this, and to set up the warm water and yeast for bread. While that perked, I marshaled my reserves and strode forth out of my room.
I put a pan on the stove for water for the coffee - we use a french press - and ground the beans. While I waited for the water to boil, I got the salad bowl out and Graeme rinsed and tore lettuce and chopped tomatoes. I stirred flour into the warm yeasty water and kneaded it, then poured water over the grounds and kneaded some more, finally shaping it into a loaf.
As the coffee sat there, blooming beautifully but not ready to press quite yet, I decided that I needed to use the last two cornish hens, so I put them in a pot with some carrots, onion and celery, sprinkled oregano and chopped garlic, salt and pepper over them, called it all good and covered the whole bit with chicken broth. Just as I was wiping my hands, the coffee was ready for pressing.
The bread needs to rise for an hour, the same amount of time the hens need to simmer, so I'm taking my coffee and heading back to my room until then. When I come out I'll put the bread in the oven and make dumplings to put over the broth, and we will have salad, fresh bread, chicken and dumplings ready for dinner. Overall, I don't know how much the whole meal cost, but given that it takes just a few minutes to make (like, about the span of a pot of coffee, which is the same as figuring out where I would order from and getting the phone and making a call) and then a half hour once I have to come back out (to bake the bread and make the dumplings), I call this an economical win. Also, cooking helps me heal, so it's a big win on that front.
The kitchen and bathrooms are clean.
Laundry is still good.
My to-do list involves making a lot of calls, and even on the best of days I am deeply phone-averse, so I'm allowing myself a pass on this again today, but it's going to have to be dealt with before Thursday afternoon. It will all be good -- today is only Tuesday.
I looked over the Mock Trial assignment and got some thoughts down on paper, strategizing, but I don't really have the emotional bandwidth to do more than that today. It's not due until April 16, so if I follow my rules for knitting (a few rows a day, not trying to finish a project in a sitting), I'll be fine.
Some days I deeply wish that people understood that anxiety disorder (and PTSD and OCD) are real, no different from, say, a broken leg. I mean, no one would ever think of asking a friend in a cast to try picking up a heavy box anyway, or to suggest that they just get over their need for crutches. [Okay, rant over for this portion of the post. I'm not really feeling sorry for myself, just venting a bit. Thanks for listening.]
I'm in a stronger place emotionally just because of the move, and I am more glad than ever that I have made the choice to downsize. We got the wine rack put together and mounted on the wall and it's really nice. My brother is going to come over with his fancy stud finder (other than his girlfriend) and put up the television mount. I'm very much wishing I already had the loveseats in the place, but it will all come together soon. I have to keep reminding myself that 1: I have to finish getting out of the old place, even though I don't want to deal with it and 2: it's only been two weeks since I got the keys. Rome wasn't built in a day.
