Evidence of tiredness and stress

I've had accidents with heat this week. Like when you injure yourself time and again, in places where you normally get along just fine - this week I've had a number of little accidents in my kitchen (thankfully no big ones).

Firstly I left this large, magnificent plastic cookie jar on the top of the oven while it cooked dinner. Now the jar has a curious lopsided look.

Then today I did my usual Saturday afternoon baking effort, even though I didn't feel like it, there is a lot of need for baking goods this week (not just my family). I managed to burn my finger by touching a hot tray and worst of all put a hole in my favourite plastic cooking bowl (a wedding present). I use this bowl almost every day. Very sad.

But to put it in perspective, I don't have to look far to see people who've lost more than a plastic bowl. This article talks about the 20km no-go zone around the stricken Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant. It seems it will be a long time before people are allowed to live and work in that area again. It is a farming area. Many of the farmers are leaving everything they've ever known and everything they own too. Difficult to imagine.

Back to tiredness, I'm dragging myself around a bit. Lacking in motivation. I know, because I've just edited an article for the magazine on "Burnout", that that is a warning sign I need to take note of. I'm planning to take it a bit easy the next few days. Especially because CAJ's Thrift Shop is coming up next week - a four day volunteering marathon! So, I give myself permission to kick back a little until Wednesday.

So tonight: I'm off to enjoy a left-over dinner, chuck the kids in bed and sit back with some cross-stitch (though I've been too mentally fragmented to even do that this week, so we'll see how it goes).