You ever feel like you're drowning, but you aren't near water?

Right at the moment I feel like that.

Work, school, trying to unpack the house, trying to get things from storage, trying to keep the house semi-clean with all the other considerations going on... There just aren't enough hours in the day. Not even close.

I don't remember if I mentioned, but I took in a pair of Cockatiels back in June, I think? Brother and sister, their owner had to give them up for health reasons. I brought them home and found that there was just no end to the number of issues that they had going on. They haven't been handled much, or socialized, or fed food other than seed. They have been kept in a small cage (that I think is only barely big enough for a budgie or a couple of finches) with only 1 perch to share. No toys, no treats other than millet, no nothing.

I got them home, I gave them other perches, and I started introducing them to other foods and treats, and stuff. But it wasn't working out very well. They desperately needed more time than I had. They needed a bigger cage (I did have that) and they needed more handling and socialization. I ended up separating them for a variety of reasons, the latest of them being that Elliot was overgrooming Ivy to the point where she had a completely bald top of her head and a large number of her facial feathers were gone.

After that, I thought about it hard for another week or so and came to the sad decision that there is no way I can do these birds justice if I kept them. So I took them back to the place I had gotten them from. I felt sad that it hadn't worked out, but that was my only real regret. And that right there told me in great detail that this was NOT a good fit for me.

They left on Friday and I looked at the cage today as I started the process of emptying it and cleaning it out (which will probably take the next week or two to do) and my only thought was "Should I leave this in here or move it somewhere else?" No sorrow or anything else for its lack of occupants.

I do still want a bird again. Desperately. But the last month has been filled with me wanting Torrii back. Not these two. And I didn't want to get to the point where I hated these two because of what they weren't.

Today was spent mostly studying for school, and partly doing housework. Because that desperately needs doing. But in amongst 4 chapters of Geography, I have cleaned most of the kitchen, vacuumed, gathered up a large bag of trash from many rooms in the house, and done 3 loads of laundry. I'm just waiting on the dryer to finish so that I can move the last load of laundry into the dryer and then i will feel rather accomplished for the day.

I did have to make a pot of tea to help keep me awake. I don't know how they do it, but whoever writes text books has the market cornered on insomnia treatments.

The dryer just finished, so now I'm going to go deal with laundry and I think I'm going to watch an hour of Netflix and either knit or spin on a borrowed spindle for a bit. Just to wind down for the evening.

Tomorrow is another day of work (normally I would have worked today as well, but I traded today for Friday instead.) There is still more housework, still more schoolwork, and all kinds of other work that needs doing. And I do still feel rather like I am close to drowning. But for at least the next hour, I think I can tread water.