Make Your Granola

I'm having a rather stressful day today. I caught something big and wrong for a client, I thought I understood what they wanted, I asked, they said "yeah yeah that's right" and then they set up something wrong thinking it was right. 

I should have heard them, I should have .... parsed out what they were saying to say "Do you really mean this thing? or THIS thing?" But I slipped. And I caught it, and brought it to our team and we all decided "oh no." 

It's too late today to spring this on them but they have to undo a thing they did, and do something different. I have WONDERFUL examples of doing it right. I just feel like I created so much work for them, and, they already did so much work. They may be mad. 

I'll deliver the news in an email I'm going to draft up tonight, and send tomorrow. I'm going to make myself get up extra early, and be ready for possible blow back. 

But to be honest, I feel like we have a 2pm meeting, I'll help them to the best of my ability, I'll do work for them. I did work for them last night. I'll do more work tomorrow. 

Damn I should have caught this last week. 

Anyway. At my office we do a monthly couple of meeting sessions to talk about Race, Identity, Culture, etc. It's super big where I work, and I'm thankful for it. I learn by listening, but I also learn that there are so many "other" groups not just defined by race, and I am in a couple of them. My gender puts me in one group. My age puts me in another.  

Today we were talking about taking mental health days. Which is also a really big thing at my office. People take mental health days. They are stressed, they are sick because they are stressed. Take the day. Go do it. 

I'm not a manager on my team, a manager of people, but I always feel like my younger colleagues are good at this, and I'm very bad at it. I do not give myself the grace to say "you know what, no one is going to die if I have a horrible headache and I need to go lay down and be alone." 

When my dad died, I felt intensely guilty that other people had to do my job for one week. But I completely detached. I only opened the laptop to look up the menu and phone number for the pizza joint because their mobile site is unreadable. 

I talked about how I try and encourage everyone to take time. Take your vacation! Take your sick time! Take a couple hours. Take a break. Do it. But I rarely do. I also feel like while I encourage this, it also is a burden because someone has to do the work. Someone has to finish the thing. I'm truly terribly sorry you can't focus, function, do, think, feel today but .... we're in the middle of a project. Okay, I'll pick up the slack. 

And then when I do it, I realize I'm being a burden to others, to my manager, to my other team mates. And I do not like that. 

So with as horrifyingly stressful as today is, and tomorrow will be, I did some laundry. I cleaned the bathroom, I sent flurries of slack messages and emails. I felt like hyperventilating. And I realized this discussion session was happening. 

I unplugged. I attended. I listened, and while listening, I made granola. I got the oats mixed with honey, butter, and cinnamon (forgot the vanilla! Doh!) and put it in the oven to bake 30 min. Tossed pecans & walnuts in a little honey, and then mixed them in with the oats. If you put the nuts in with the oats, they burn a little. 10 -12 minutes more. You're done. Take it out and let it cool, toss in craisins, raisins, shaved coconut, tiny chocolate chips, anything that makes you happy. Do it. 

And you've got granola (then load the dishwasher and clean the kitchen because you made a mess). 

During the session, when we were talking about taking mental health time, I decided to open up about how I was feeling, how I felt taking time off was a burden to others, how I always encourage people to do it but then I feel like welllllll who's gonna finish your thing? Was I being a burden to people by taking a 90 minute break from work, or is this putting in the work to make myself better. 

And I told them that I made granola. 

"I think my point is, give yourself permission. Make your granola." Everyone laughed and the person who leads these sessions said "okay I am writing this one down." 

I feel a lot better about things talking to this wonderful group of my co-workers. And I have a container of granola. My problems didn't go away but I feel like I have a plan for tomorrow. That's the most important part. 

The granola raises my blood sugar, obviously, but it is full of fiber which is helpful. I'll mix some into my yogurt in the morning and enjoy it. Though tempted to have a bowl like breakfast cereal right this minute! Digits below.

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours of 250 steps. 

blood glucose:

8:30am: 186
4:30pm: 153
10:30pm: 131

food:

coffee, water
11am: small ramekin of mac&cheese w/leftover cheese steak meat
noon: metformin; chicken salad made from leftover from fajitas, with onions & peppers, cream cheese & mayo, and a container of left over salad from dinner the other night. Made too much to eat, so put the rest in the fridge
7pm: cheeseburger on bed of salad mix (kale cabbage chipotle i dunno, something from Aldi)
white wine