On fire

By the time I sat down at my desk this morning, I had already accomplished the following:

• Emptied the dishwasher
• Set up a slow cooker of beef burrito filling for tonight
• Washed the dirty dishes from dinner prep
• Took Ted to the park
• Made a cup of tea and a bowl of oatmeal

Look at what working from home hath wrought! I can hardly believe it. Let us glaze over the fact that “took a shower” does not appear on this list.

My main motive for visiting the park was to get some pictures of the “Ted frolicking amid fall foliage” variety, but almost all of the leaves were on the ground already. I settled for walking on gravel pathways and trails through the woods for about an hour, during which I spotted four chubby squirrels and encountered the same hardcore runner three times. When we set off for home, I was glad I had thought to put an old towel on my passenger seat to protect it from Ted’s wet paws, although it didn’t prevent muddy prints from showing up on the passenger arm rest and the center console. Oh, well.

Back at the ranch, I checked my work voicemail and set my outgoing message to my “working remotely” spiel while I put on the kettle for tea. Out of the blue, I decided to make myself oatmeal for breakfast, partly owing to a major surplus of old-fashioned oats. (I rushed out to buy ingredients for raspberry bars to thank neighbors who agreed to watch Ted at the last minute only to get home and see that I already had a canister of oats sitting in the baking drawer. Oof.) I read the instructions on the package, and six minutes later, I had a cute, single-serving bowl of oatmeal. I’m still not sure what possessed me to make this particular breakfast, because I have never really liked hot cereal, and I can’t remember the last time I ate it. Even as I spooned the finished product into a bowl, I had a swift flashback to my parents’ kitchen, where I sat and whined about having to eat oatmeal or cream of wheat before the school bus came. My adult self defied my childhood restrictions and added brown sugar and dried cranberries to the bowl. Well, I’ll be! Oatmeal is kind of delicious!

Thus, I entered my work-at-home day on fire and ready to go. During our normal online morning check-in, JG commented, “I can tell how much energy you have through Gchat even.” Who knew that exercise and a real breakfast could have this effect? Let’s just add this feeling to the long list of Why I Need to Figure Out How to Freelance Already.