Urgh?

So I realize that last week was, um, pretty quiet around here. That was mainly because, despite last week being theoretically only a four-day week, I was operating with about half a brain and it was a week full of disruptions. I did manage to get some things done -- work and personal both -- but it was just kind of an uphill slog through exhaustion and allergies. Hopefully this week will go more smoothly. Still, a quick State Of Me, mainly for accountability purposes: 

Work: Meh. Lot of interruptions, lot of things waiting on other things. We've had a big disruption at the workplace, and everything is still settling back out from that. Did manage to cross one significant project off my list, and since nobody has called me in a panic I'm assuming that everything I set up worked correctly when they used it this weekend... though I really should check up on that, just to make sure.

Writing: Some actual progress, on both projects. "Both projects?" you might ask. Yes, well, um... I have the one project that I've been working on that I really haven't talked about in anything other than general terms here, which is sort of the next iteration of some of the thoughts and themes that went into the last two (incomplete) projects, but rearranged into something that I'm actually, y'know, making progress on. (Did that make any sense at all? Okay. I have one writing project that I've been working on. Call it the dark fantasy project, I guess.)

So naturally, right in the middle of that, I woke up with a thought about a guy who chases his rogue toddler into the Great Temple and all the way into the Court of Choosing and accidentally gets himself anointed as the Chosen of the Goddess -- and then has to go back home and explain this to his wife. Which, forgive me, I immediately veered off into writing that for a couple of days. However, I've since gone back and written more on the dark fantasy project, so this one -- which I'm referring to as Accidentally Anointed -- apparently hasn't thrown me off the other thing I was working on. Which means... I may be working on both of them, alternating; or I may be saving Accidentally Anointed for when I've finished the dark fantasy story. I guess we'll see. 

Duolingo: No, not this past week... probably week and a half, actually. I was starting to get back to it, but right now it's more of a when-I-have-time project; writing gets priority. 

Exercise: Some. I'd meant to start walking and a bit of light jogging -- this was several weeks ago, mind you -- and while I've gotten a lot better on the walking, I really haven't felt up to the jogging. Hopefully we're getting there, because I think that would be really good for me.

General health and family and all that: I'm having some weird allergy issues, which may be due to some stuff that I'd brought home and have now decided to throw out; I don't think there's any way to get it clean without extreme, and probably expensive, measures. It might be due to the weather changing and the plants deciding to try to kill me, too. And I've been tired, though I am working on sleeping more (and more regularly) and drinking less -- along with the aforementioned exercise. I'm starting to give up on getting the boys down before I go to bed, but Secondborn has been doing a lot better about getting up in the morning so that's less of a defeat than it might be. (Firstborn has been self-regulating for the last year or two; I don't worry about him at this point.) Beautiful Wife is well into teaching her semester and has been seriously stressed out, which isn't doing either of us any good, but I'm doing what I can to help with that. 

The two D&D groups (Firstborn's and Secondborn's) are still going pretty well, though we've had to skip a couple of weekends in both cases. The two have very different play-styles, which is fun to watch - Firstborn's group is very interested in what sorts of things their characters could do, while Secondborn's group is very focused on what their characters are doing right now. And Secondborn's group survived their first major battle, taking down a half-dozen skeletons through a combination of fighting skill, negotiating a last-minute ally, and sheer determination. 

Overall, if we can just stay on some kind of schedule I think it will help everything out. It would be better still if I could build some kind of Day Of Rest into the weekly schedule, but at this point I honestly don't see how that's feasible. Still, we're doing all right. And meanwhile, I'm going to make another cup of tea and start another load of laundry, because some things are never really finished.

Late update: Annnnd now both Beautiful Wife and Secondborn have turned up with some kind of horrible tummy bug, which means that A) we're not doing nearly well enough at masking and distancing, and B) Firstborn and I are probably next. Yeah. I'm calling this one in as a Sick Family What The Fuck day.

Take care of yourselves, my friends, and take care of each other. It's a rough world out there.