{"id":34619,"date":"2018-01-10T08:15:27","date_gmt":"2018-01-10T16:15:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/?p=34619"},"modified":"2018-01-10T08:18:20","modified_gmt":"2018-01-10T16:18:20","slug":"wintertime-with-the-wandering-monk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/2018\/01\/10\/wintertime-with-the-wandering-monk\/","title":{"rendered":"Wintertime with the Wandering Monk"},"content":{"rendered":"

I felt churlish yesterday<\/a> after venting at The Wandering Monk.<\/p>\n

I was in one of those “it’s my blog and I’ll rant if I want to” moods. Not great moments for wisdom or discretion.<\/p>\n

It turned out the Monk’s issue was seasonal depression compounded by a tragedy he associates with this time of year. The tragedy was years ago, but of the kind that alters life forever. Then — you know how it goes if you’re a depressive — the funk of idleness he fell into fed on itself. Every day he was unmotivated led to more inertia. Which led to poor sleep. Which led to …<\/p>\n

None of which excuses blowing off communication or being a no-show for the job. We had a useful talk about that. I hope our working relationship is long and as good as it’s always been. But for now we’ll play it by ear to see if he wants to help with other winter projects or be left alone until spring. <\/p>\n

I suggested he try a SAD light<\/a>, which I doubt he will. He’d never heard of those (he’s not from these parts, where they’re well-known) and scoffed at the idea.<\/p>\n

The really sad thing is that he craved to take time off over the winter, which could have been a welcome, needed, creative break. But doing so probably gave his depression a chance to grab control.<\/p>\n

It did him good to get out of his house and engage in cuss-worthy work. He was his cheerful, efficient self. He ripped out several courses of badly damaged flooring, replaced a small section of subfloor, and did a few related tasks. <\/p>\n

We left it that I’ll do the re-flooring myself and only call on him again for the bedroom project if I run into difficulties. (There are several finishing steps ahead, mostly small, that might require skills or tools I lack.) The flooring is nothing fancy: just softwood I’ll sand and paint as a temporary fix. Someday the room will be carpeted — the only carpeted area of the house. But someday will be years from now. Just need to make the floor look good in the meantime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I felt churlish yesterday after venting at The Wandering Monk. I was in one of those “it’s my blog and I’ll rant if I want to” moods. Not great moments for wisdom or discretion. It turned out the Monk’s issue was seasonal depression compounded by a tragedy he associates with this time of year. The tragedy was years ago, but of the kind that alters life forever. Then — you know how it goes if you’re a depressive — the funk of idleness he fell into fed on itself. Every day he was unmotivated led to more inertia. Which led…<\/p>\n

Continue readingWintertime with the Wandering Monk<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-home-improvement","category-mind-and-spirit","ratio-natural","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34619"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34627,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34619\/revisions\/34627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}