"I must not Fear. Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration." - Frank Herbert, Dune.

I've struggled with anxiety since at least middle school. These wise words from Frank Herbert and introduced to me by my father get me through the day. Armed with these words I'm able to be eventually confident in my actions. I think the only thing that saves me sometimes is that I focus and act well when under pressure.  

This means that I naturally procrastinate. My fear grips me until I consciously arm myself against it or I run into crunch time. I mention this because I caught myself being anxious about our upcoming trip to Branson, MO. I know of course that there is nothing to be anxious about. This trip is meant to be purely about relaxation. We have no set agenda, we have no expectations to meet, but anxiety knocks anyway.  

So today I slept in. Like really slept in. As in, 1:00 PM wake up time slept in. It was glorious. 

But luckily I caught myself halfway through the day and had a good day measuring the attic for lumber dimensions needed to add some storage to our house and starting planning on materials. Also as my role of chief child spoiler, I took the kids to get a third xbox controller so that I could join them in their Minecraft world. They are so creative! It makes me proud and rest a bit easier that their imaginations have taken off. Next we went to the store and got all the supplies needed for our trip and of course spoiled the children a bit more with their own special snacks for the ride there and back. I also researched how to air condition a tent for my trip back to my hometown with the boys. I wanted to spend some time with Dad and the boys on the lease, and a tent should make it cheap, but the heat will be oppressive and the boys have historically not done well with tent life in general.

Today I learned all kinds of things. Like that there is a product that you can add to your tent to make a standard window unit fit. That designing a AC system for a space is a balance, If you have too big of a unit, you don't remove the humidity and you get a damp cold feeling. But if you get too small of a unit, you won't be able to fully cool the room. That a R-Value of no less than 38 is recommended for attics in the KC area, and that you need at least 12 inches of cellulose blown in insulation to provide that. I also learned that the ton rating on AC units is how many tons of ice per day equivalent in cooling power, if the unit ran 100% of the time. And that 1 ton of  Ice is a block 6'x6'x1'