Dandelyon's Worlds

It's cold and grey outside. The peas, spinach, turnips, and beets we planted last week have not sprouted yet, which is doubtless a blessing, since it's supposed to drop below freezing tonight. But those are all cold-weather crops, so they'll be ok.

The warm weather crops that I've planted so far are all safe inside, though some of the tomatoes are very badly in need of thinning, and I don't really have things set up for that. My old flats are also getting really fragile, so I'll have to obtain some newer ones.

I'm feeling really frazzled right now. I know that's because of doing taxes. I have senseless anxiety about that, and it isn't as simple as it ought to be. Tax laws are truly unnecessarily complex and written in confusing jargon, and since that person appointed a new head of the post office, I never get all the forms I need in the mail and always have to spend time chasing them down on the internet or by phone. And the increasing trend of identity theft means that not only do I have to cudgel my dyscalculic brain to focus enough to copy a zillion numbers accurately from forms and my records into the depths of the online program I use, I also have to cudgel my brain to remember the last five digits of my social (which is stupidly hard), and copy numbers from third party authentication notices.

On top of that, when I had questions, I had to sit and wait and twiddle my thumbs, waiting for calls back from the experts on call, and some of the experts were just as frustrating as the numbers. The women ranged from OK to good; the men from bad to horrible this year. (Yes, I know you are trying to help me, but you are telling me to enter a lie in order to get rid of this error message the program is giving me, and I know better to lie about whether I stopped using a particular car last year...) (And then there was the guy who hung up on me when he didn't want to bother to answer my question.) Ugh.

And now it's done, and I feel like I should be able to just sigh in relief and move on, but my brain feels like a wet noodle and my back and neck are still all stress-knotted. Some of this is just stupid anxiety stuff, some is being tired from the forced focus needed to enter so many numbers accurately, but a lot is just an unwanted reminder that the stupid long covid isn't gone. And that feeds my anxiety--did I do something in the on-again off-again, tired, long-covid brain-fog that wasn't correct, and might I have failed to catch it when I reviewed everything?--which won't help me to recover and get on to recording some music or writing new songs or even maybe new fiction.

It's a lot more fun to consider my gardening plans. And gardening, while it requires simple actions on my part, really doesn't require much ability to think.

I don't mind tasks that don't require thinking, but many things that require thinking are a lot more fun, and I really mind not feeling up to doing those fun things!

And I am brain-dead.

My Angel made me a barbequed chicken breast and a baked potato, which was very tasty.

I probably have enough energy to set up some pots and plant tomatoes. Finally.

EDIT: I did have enough energy, barely, to plant one flat of tomatoes. I want to do some herbs too, but not tonight!

Weekends should be fun
Two pleasant, restful days off
Too bad taxes aren't!

Oh, well, into every life some drudgery must fall.

My plan: Next weekend will be better!