Christmas came and went….

I had Christmas Eve off, and I was scheduled to work Christmas night (I work overnights). Last week, I got sick. Started with the sore throat and progressed to aches and pains. Sunday night, I had to call in sick, and it progressed to a cough. Monday night was the Big Bryant Family Reunion in Ollala. Saw my Grandmother (this first time in two years that I’ve seen her). At the gift exchange, I wrapped my present in the carry out bag from MacDonalds (I made a pit stop on the way in), and apparently I’m now obligated to leave a packet of ranch salad dressing in any present I give.

Christmas Day saw a gathering with my siblings at my sister’s house. This year, the decision was made to only shop for nieces and nephews. I gave flashlights to my nephews and usb flash drives to my neices (I was on a strict budget this year).

An unspecified cousin gave a spatula for Christmas. It was a Seahawks one, but a spatula nonetheless. But the value in gifts like that is the good laugh everybody had when it was opened, which even exceeds the intrinsic value of the gift itself.

My last day off before Christmas….

Did most of my Christmas shopping last week. It has all arrived. But for the sake of procrastination, I’m not wrapping it yet. And I still have to get my brother, my father, and my grandmother their presents. I’m putting it off till the last minute….

Today was my last day off before Christmas. I decided yesterday to wipe my laptop. It was taking close to an hour for it to boot up to a desktop, and I decided to nuke it form orbit. It took quite a bit longer to reinstall the OS than it does my tower. And I have to do it twice (first time with the system restore drive, then with the current version of Windows 10). But my tower still is in order, so I still have my main computer….

Day off trip postponed….

Weekend started at 7 am this morning. I was going to visit Dad in Olalla. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to pack my laptop (I was going up there for a ‘service call’ on his computer in addition to visiting Grandma). So, I called Dad and said I’d come next week.

This is all because I called out Friday. The Big Christmas Eve Family reunion is on a Monday night this year, when I normally work. Normally I would ask for the night off, but I’m treading on thin ice as it is, so I’d thought I’d pay them a special visit on my normal day off.

But this is all postponed till next week…

What happened last night….

I ended calling out last night. Here’s what happened:

When one’s blood sugar gets low, often times your brain just shuts down and you get easily confused (like if you’re drunk). Your coordination takes a hit. Your mind goes off to somewhere. Then there are the times when you just get dizzy and light headed, and you immediately know that it’s time to take a break, or else. Then there are the times when you just start shaking, and fortunately then there was a source of sugar right next to me. Or if it happens in the middle of the night, I’ll have a very strange dream, that’s extremely vivid and detailed, and then when I wake up, I’ll be confused like I’m still in the dream, and when I come out of it, I can’t go back to sleep. And there’s also that one time at Grandma’s when I completely passed out.

What happened is that my blood sugar went low right when my alarm went off. I could (in hindsight) tell that the confusion had set in because I had turned my alarm off rather than snoozing it, and I was trying to fix it without knowing what day of the week it was. Somehow in my confused state, I managed to pull up my employer’s app on my phone, enter my password (with great difficulty) and call in sick. It wasn’t until I had eaten something that the confusion had abated, and even then I didn’t realize that it was 6 pm, not 6 am (that is significant since I work nights).

Just as important as it is to pay attention to my work duties, I need to start paying better attention to myself….