Oh, Vacation, How I Love Thee: A Thoughtful Thursday Post from the Beginning of Break

I have signed up for two different webinars - both for free. The first is a series of discussions about how to use different resources for telehealth type education. It is offered by the Kansas Department of Education and covers three different topics. I am looking forward to trying some new technology. It will not be relevant to my life at the moment - we are not doing any sort of telehealth sessions or programming - but I can't pass up a chance to learn something new. The next webinar will be next Tuesday and will cover working with trauma-impacted youth. I am interested in getting as much information as possible about all of these topics and may then share it with you all in a bit. We will see.

There are so many things to do and so little motivation to do much of anything. Frankly, I had forgotten this particular webinar, but an email refreshed my enthusiasm to learn. I will listen and watch as I take notes and do things around my home. I think I can fold laundry while learning about how to use Google Classroom.

My focus for this break is to work on various different projects (of course). I want to move my desk from where it is to another place in the dining room. To do that, I have to clear the place where I want it to go - there are lots of totes full of things that I haven't even looked at for several years so there are lots of things that I just need to toss out. Once that happens, I can move the desk from where it is now to another place in the room. I am going to be looking at my backdrop for webinars and all that - trying to make things visually appealing for me as I'm staring at my face while talking to music therapy interns. I'm thinking that my vast collection of strange and unusual instruments would add some eye appeal...hmmm.

At the moment, I am enjoying the opportunity to be alone. There are no live interaction appointments or opportunities other than going to get my prescriptions later today. Every other thing is virtual or something a bit solitary. At the moment, the cat is DEMANDING attention, so I guess I am not completely alone, but that is fine. She's as solitary as I am and leaves me when she is tired of my presence. At the end of this break, I hope that I am ready to be around people again. It takes a bit of time to get me to the point where I am craving interaction over solitude.

So, I have about two and a half hours until my webinar starts. I am going to do some cooking today - it's time to make my favorite foods and then freeze them so I have easy foods to reheat when I do go back to work. Today's recipe is Grandma's chili - a concoction of beef, kidney beans, tomatoes, and potatoes that is much tastier than it seems when written out. I'm not sure if there is a more accurate name for this than Grandma's chili - we call it that because this is how Grandma made chili for us all. I have been craving it lately, but I did not remember to get potatoes until yesterday. In fact, most of the recipes that I want to make are my favorites, and I didn't have all of anything to make. I went to the grocery store to get the pieces that I was missing. I ended up with all the missing pieces and very few of the staples that I also needed. I did get the cupcake liners and powdered sugar that have been on my list for about a month now. I have a trip to the pharmacy for later today, so I can grab the staples as well.

There will be little to no other formal plans during the next 10 days - just webinars. I will spend lots of time moving things from one place to another with the end goal being moving things to the dumpster and recycling bins outside.

Time to get started and not talk about this any more.