Burnout

I always used to conflate burnout with having a breakdown, and thought that once you recovered from the breakdown you were no longer burnt out. Not so!

I read this article recently after someone shared the link on facebook. I re-shared it. One person liked it, and nobody commented.

After reading that article, I realised that not only am I burnt out, but by my estimation, I have been for about 7 to 10 years. For now, I'm assuming that it is primarily because of my work but there have been some other issues over the years that I need to look at to work out whether they are causal or symptomatic.

Now I have to work out how I am going to change my circumstances to try to fix it. Changing jobs is not an option, so I have to work out how to change the one that I have. I also have to try to work through other problems that have been causing me stress and work out how to resolve them.

It's scary to realise that I have almost every one of the symptoms listed, and have blogged about my struggles with many of them.

I know that I have a long struggle ahead of me, and yet so far it doesn't even seem real...

Posture

Have you ever looked at yourself on a video from a security camera, and been really dismayed by your posture?

I have. Recently. :-(

No, I didn't do something wrong. The position of my office means that, without a closed circuit TV, I had no way of seeing people and vehicles come and go. For years, I had cameras feeding into TV tuner cards on computers, which I could feed across the network to watch on any computer. I had 4 cameras and 3 tuner cards, but didn't have any recording ability. There was only one camera that really gave useful results so I got into the habit of only using it.

After a while, I found that people would park near my office in a spot not covered by the cameras and unless I saw them drive in, I'd be surprised when they walked into the office.

Recently, ALDI (supermarket chain) had a special on a package of a small DVR and 4 cameras, so I bought one so that I could get better coverage of the yard from my office computer. I was thinking that it would work best to have a couple of cameras on the house and a couple on the garage, but they are too far apart to do that using one DVR, so when the price went down by $50 a few weeks later to clear remaining stock, I made the decision to buy a second one.

Over the past couple of weeks, I've installed both DVRs and 6 new cameras. I re-used two of the old cameras just to save time but will have to replace one or possibly both of them soon. I also had an interesting exercise in getting the software for the DVRs to work on my office computer, but that's a (very geeky) blog post in its own right!

The DVRs can be set up to only record when they sense image changes that they interpret as movement, and you can choose which parts of the image to ignore for this. This led me to start watching short sequences of video that the camera recorded.

I haven't walked around the yard en femme since I installed the cameras, but I have watched myself in my usual work clothes which, given that it's mid winter, cold and windy, includes a fairly bulky jacket.

Since I realised just how badly hunched over my posture is, I've been almost constantly making an effort to sit and stand up straight!

I'll have to keep checking the recordings to see if I can see an improvement in my posture. I'll also have to check it when I do manage to get out en femme. I'd hate to think that my posture en femme could be anywhere nearly as bad as I've seen in boy mode. :-(

Spiked

Have you ever stepped on a thorn from a citrus tree?

I have. Recently. :-(

The one that I stepped on was over 25mm (an inch) long, and it went straight through the sole of my well worn jogger, into the ball of my foot.

On the upside, I didn't have to worry too much about infection, as it bled profusely enough to clean out the wound. It also led me to dispose of a pair of old shoes that were overdue for retirement.

On the downside, I wasn't able to wear heels for about a fortnight, which led me to abandon plans of attending an event that I would have liked to have gone to.

In anticipation of Wednesday's nail appointment, I got my red siren stilettos out on Monday night and wore them for a few minutes to see if I could. As usual, they were tight but wearable.

It still aches a bit occasionally, but I'm guessing that by the time I next have an opportunity to wear heels (I'm guessing that will be when work slows down again in the next school holidays in about 3 months), it probably will have pretty much healed.

Admonished

I was planning on posting today, but this post will be entirely unlike the planned content... And just in case you're wondering, I have a few other things that I'll have to catch up on on my blog soon. I've been busy on predominantly non-crossdressing things but some do have implications for outings in the future.

I haven't been out en femme since the last nail appointment that I blogged about back in April. With work slowing down very slightly due to school holidays, I planned to take the opportunity to get to today's nail appointment en femme. In anticipation, I put in some extra effort to work on my paperwork backlog over the last week, and epilated my face on Monday night, expecting to do the remaining preparations on Tuesday night.

As with my plans for my nail appointment between Christmas and new year, on Tuesday afternoon someone else made plans that involve me without asking me, putting me in the same situation of having to choose between going out en femme and changing before going out in the evening at the risk of damaging my nails, turning up to the inlaws' place en femme, or abandoning my plans and doing the whole day in boy mode. Inevitably, changing too soon after the nails were done or turning up at the inlaws' place en femme weren't really viable, leaving boy mode as the only feasible option.

The reality is that my mood is a little down because of this, but having something upset my plans has happened so many times that it wasn't a surprise, and it wasn't as much of a blow as it would have been if I had got to Wednesday morning, then had something stop me.

At about the same time as finding out that my plans had been dashed, I was also admonished by an insomniac for neglecting my blog, and consequently failing to provide her with reading material!

At today's appointment, I went for a nail colour that I haven't worn in quite some time. It's a lot more subtle than the colours I generally wear now.

At the end of next week, I will be going to a daytime formal wedding. As was observed yesterday by a couple of women who will be going but are not particularly keen on dresses, makeup, etc., the irony is that the person who would most enjoy wearing such things (me) won't be allowed to, but they, who don't really feel like it, will be expected to do so.

Yes, I'm expected to go to a wedding dressed in a normal male suit...

At least I can match my nails to my tie. ;-)