A New Decoration For My Home Office

This week has been going pretty well so far. My partner is killing it as a full-time mom and she even used her free day yesterday (our daughter is still going to be cared for by her grandparents on Wednesday mornings) to do some room painting, cleaning, organizing, and other productive stuff. I try to check in with how she's doing mentally pretty frequently and it sounds like she's enjoying the extra time with our daughter and the opportunity to get some things done around the house.

Our daughter herself seems to be growing so much and living her best life every single day. It's a real treat to be able to leave my home office for a minute to see her whenever I want to, because her joy is infectious and she makes me so proud.

As for me, I've definitely had some rough moments mentally this week. In particular, I had a tough morning on Monday just worrying about everything, and yesterday's blog post was tough to write because the gravity of the situation–even this late in the pandemic and with so many deaths–seems to still be treated flippantly by so many normal citizens and government leaders alike that I just want to scream and rant about it—but I don't want to succumb to anger and rants on this blog.

There's been a lot to smile about as well, of course. There's my aforementioned family and their health, the 5K I ran with a personal record time, I got to grill some burgers on a 76F afternoon, and I even got to join my buddies in playing Team Fortress 2 for a few hours last night. My office job is still going well in that I'm as busy as ever, and I'm excited to be getting back on track with my other job as a video game writer recently and just in time for a long-awaited update to the game.

Also, as of today there's a new decoration that has graced the wall of my home office to help bring a bit more light into my life while I'm otherwise stuck working:

My daughter drew it and I smile every time I look at it.

I hope you're all doing alright out there, and if not, I hope things get better for you soon. Feel free to reach out if you want someone to talk to or at. We're all in this together.

Stay healthy and sane.
-Ryan

Comments

I've Been Unemployed for a Month

Sorry I haven't written here in a while. So much was happening in those first few months of the pandemic, and then it seemed like everything just kind of slowed to a crawl before it all went stale. Every day has been the same thing. People don't believe facts. People are getting sick. The pandemic isn't over yet. We need to stay home. We need a sense of normalcy. The numbers are down. The numbers are up. On and on and on in a never-ending loop. Like many people, I fell into a sort of numb depression without even realizing it. The pandemic and quarantine weren't great for my mental health, and I stagnated. I kept on going through the motions, but it was all in a sort of half-conscious way. Fortunately, a few months ago I became aware of this and made some changes to improve my mental health and overall lifestyle. It seemed like everything was going to be alright again. Then, after an incredibly stressful two months at work during which I worked and pushed myself harder t

News Updates for Posterity

As I said in my previous blog post, I'm not sure there's really anything significantly new to say about this pandemic since it's been going on far longer than it should have. That said, I still want to keep this blog updated on a somewhat regular basis for future historical reference. In the absence of any new insights to share, I'm going to share and comment on some recent news. July 14: CDC says U.S. could get coronavirus under control in one to two months if everyone wears a mask This is pretty much the thing I've been preaching from the beginning because I respect the advice of educated experts. Still, it's nice to have the CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION (spelled out, capitalized, and bold in case you forgot that this pandemic is literally what the CDC was designed to help us with) slap the nation across the face with how badly we're messing up and how quickly we could be done with quarantining if everyone just wore their damn masks. July 15

The Escalation of Events

So yesterday I stumbled upon this article in which a respiratory therapist describes in detail what the worst of COVID-19 looks like in the hospital. These disturbing descriptions were all new to me, which is worrisome given how far into this pandemic the world already is. The details of the disease shouldn't still be unknown or downplayed at this point. I began to reflect on my experience learning about this disease and how long it took for me to take it seriously versus how quickly everything seemed to go wrong. I was away on business in Boston for PAX East (a big video game convention) from February 25th through March 2nd. There was talk of the "novel coronavirus" at the time but I didn't know much about it. While I worked my booth and walked the convention floor I couldn't help but notice the (relatively small but nonetheless) increased number of attendees wearing face masks at the event. I just kind of shrugged it off, thinking it was good that peo

Ryan's COVID-19 Chronicles

Search This Blog