I took a day off this week. I spent all day Sunday convincing myself to spend one single day’s worth of PTO so that I could have an extra day added to my weekend. It was actually incredibly difficult and I only fully committed to my choice when it was one in the morning and I still wasn’t asleep. I just couldn’t imagine trying to do a day of work, much less one of my ten or eleven hour days of work, on so little sleep, so I submitted a PTO request, notified my boss, and changed my alarm time so that I’d wake up with just enough time to work out before my late-morning therapy appointment. I also had another appointment, to get some blood work done as part of monitoring a medication I’m taking, so it made sense to just take the day off, get some rest, and then, as a result of taking the PTO, force myself to work a week of normal, eight-hour days. Part of forcing myself to stick to those normal work days is the fact that I wouldn’t get paid for any overtime I worked until I passed the forty hour mark with non-PTO hours and doing so would also pretty much make taking a PTO day pointless since working those extra hours would negate whatever rest I got. So I’ve done my best to work eight hours days since then and mostly failed because this week wound up being so much busier than I expected, but at least I can just leave early on Friday come hell or high water.