a new day.

This has been one hell of a week. This Saturday morning marks the seventh full day of my vacation from work and it has been amazing. One fantastic and beneficial element of this break is the one lone fact that it has separated me from work for a sustained period of time...which is essential for my sanity. I have accomplished a lot of personal things as well on my week off. I purchased a new battery for my MacBook which was a task I had put off for quite some time.  I had grown accustomed with toting my computer with the charger being a fixture.  What good is a immobile mobile device??!?!  I also cleaned out both my car and Sabrina's car which was a relatively painless task and given the unseasonably warm weather, seemed like a sensible thing to accomplish.  We also accomplished multiple games of Scrabble which was something else that had been on our list of "to do's".

There were multiple other things that I accomplished that had a school slant.  I ordered my books from Chegg.com (which I swear by and would recommend to everyone in need of cheap rented books.)  They were delivered within two days!  On December 23 we adopted pet rats into our household.  This week has also been quite beneficial to their involvement in our daily lives and incorporation into our living situation.  We had all of the bare necessities prior to their adoption, but there were a number of unseen tweaks to the case and our own living quarters that were necessary for daily living on our own and their end to be seamless, organized, and clean.

But the most beneficial element of this break was the rest and relaxation that we achieved.  We undoubtedly had a few arguments during our extended period together...but we are two intelligent humans living in direct proximity of one another.  Buying a new bed helped with that a lot.  Sabrina needs a firm bed to receive the highest quality sleep.  I was under the impression that a firm bed wasn't essential in my sleep experience, but every night since its introduction has been some of the best sleep in recent memory.  My dreams have been easier to recollect and more vivid in nature.  And I have felt great every morning.  Sleep and our new bed has been one improvement to the "rest and relaxation" area of our lives, but in addition we both succeeded in taking life as it came and as we saw necessary in the moment.  We accomplished things that we needed to accomplish, but the sense of urgency was absent.  I look to live this way on a regular basis.  Once work and school are reintroduced, it will be easy and habitual to fall back into these lazy and rushed ways of living.  I hope to be vigilant in the face of these potentially antagonizing aspects of our lives.  They are and will continue to be present and around every corner.  It's only how we deal with these that makes our lives seem and feel more stressful.  It sounds easy.  Just do it.  Right?  Nike!  But many times it isn't that easy.  But it really is.  I just have to be strong and see the positive.

I has been a great week.  I am relaxed.  We did dinner with friends at Sushi Kame and caught up with some friends that, were at one point very strong, but have faded into the background.  This tends to happen with people.  In my experience, people move on to living more self important lives.  Marriage normally brings this about.  Two people decide to spend tens of thousands of dollars to celebrate their decision to become married.  They labor for months prior to organize and then....