volunteering

That's me in the church office, while waiting for the computer to warm up.  Yep, it still has to do that.

I volunteered to do just the weekly news while the administrator took vacation.  I said no to several other duties that might have needed to be done.  I just thought I could add one new thing a week.

It's gotten to be that way.  I can add one new thing a day as well.  The fact that I used to have the administrator's job but left when I felt it too stressful, was completely reaffirmed.  There's not any major thing that makes it stressful. Just that at a moment's notice something new and major might come up.

That's true of life, but sit in an office at a church, and it's multiplied times however many people come to the church.

No, I don't have any tales of woe to share.  I did the 2 newsletters for the 2 Fridays she was gone.  I didn't have major interruptions.  Sigh.  Things were sometimes a bit more pushed for last week.  So this week feels like a breeze, right?

Well, I've decided to accept the offer of Council on Aging of a low cost lunch served at the Senior Center Mon-Fri.  So I finally signed up on Wed.  I had to pick a day when I could go over when they were getting ready to serve, and when I didn't already have other time constraints.

The woman in charge wasn't there.  She's off helping her daughter have a baby, and the volunteer that was there thought she could do it, and I could come back and start on Fri.

So I did.  It meant leaving the studio where I work an hour and 15 minutes early, so as to arrive by 12:00 noon.  And when I got there, I had to laugh.  No they hadn't ordered me a lunch.  They didn't know why, and the woman who said she would wasn't even there today.  But several people were absent, so they had an extra lunch.

On Monday it may well be the same story.  I have really missed bureaucracy!

So today I did something new.  I don't know what tomorrow's new thing may be.  Going to that Senior Center 5 times a week is sure to be disruptive of my schedule.  I set my alarm so I could do all my morning routine in time to go to the early studio hours that are only on Fri.  Of course that gave me enough subtle anxiety I woke up hourly throughout the night to see if it was time for the alarm yet.  No kidding.  This old body would much prefer to just gently fight off the cats till I can't stand it any longer and get up and feed them.

Speaking of an old body, the right ankle is again giving me awful pains, and then little gripes...so I've been very nice to it today.  It's raining today.  So I took Tylenol thinking at least I know my joints aren't happy with rainy weather.  Ankle has behaved, but I haven't exactly been hiking.

I had cleaned up my kitchen a couple of days ago, and every day since.  That's rare for me.  I'm a once a week clean the kitchen kind of person.  So today I took advantage of all that counter space and made me a good dinner.  Silly after strangely (rarely?) having a balanced meal for lunch.  But that's what I did...cooked a pot of rice, mixed up cornbread, thawed salmon...which in itself has been difficult for me to think enough in advance to plan that tonight I will actually cook.

That's why the lunch is a good idea.  I just avoid cooking these days.  Not that I don't like to.  But I mostly don't trust myself that much.  I make mistakes, forget things, like ovens or burners being on.  That's such a big no-no, I'm really super aware, and (you may have noticed) the anxiety is too high to really enjoy working in the kitchen.

So today feels very successful.  I've even done a couple of loads of laundry.  Not all of it.  Heavens, I wouldn't be me if I completely finished something.  And there are also some dirty dishes in the kitchen.  But now I'm going to watch my Netflix streaming here on the computer (in case you didn't know, I don't have TV any more)...and fold clothes!