Whoa!
We’ve lived here two weeks and five days.
The kitchen was a shit-show.
Oh, who am I kidding, the whole damn house was a shit-show!
How it started.
and
How it’s going.
Sunset bubbly on the roof!
I’ve been working so hard and feeling super overwhelmed. But I’m creating a home and that takes hard work and a great deal of patience.
I’ve got loads of hard work in me. I seem to be a bit short on patience…
I’m eager to feel settled here in our beautiful ’empty nest’!
Saturday was a pretty chill day around here.
YBW and I fitted a bottom for Baby K’s dollie bed. Seriously, that was the only work I did.
Actually that’s not true. I cleaned the kitchen.
We each spent time on our computers.
I went through my natal chart.
We watched a movie. I think we watched two movies.
I realized something as we lie on the couch in front of the TV.
It was the first time I spent the entire day in pajamas since March.
I’ve been relentless in keeping a routine. Getting dressed every single day. Week days. Weekends. I’m up and dressed and going about my day.
That was how I kept myself sane.
Here’s what’s interesting about having a jammie day.
I think it means I’m beginning to feel ‘normal’. (we can debate actual definitions at a later point)
About once a month, I’ll have a weekend day in which I choose to be still. I remain in my pajamas all day and do or do not do whatever pleases me. Oftentimes those days are days spent in front of the TV with YBW. We’ll watch things off the DVR or watch movies or binge a show. It’s normally a good day. And even if I feel like a slug at the end of it, I know the next day I’ll be up and doing the things.
Sometimes I just need to disconnect from routine. Sometimes I just need to be still.
I haven’t given myself that kind of day since March. I clung desperately to a routine that helped me feel ‘normal’. In doing so did I not provide that much needed chill day?
I don’t know.
It wasn’t premeditated. It just happened.
Clearly I needed a jammie day and didn’t even know it.
These thoughts don’t feel fully hatched, but I’m learning that doesn’t always matter.
I needed to get them out.
I needed to say (out loud to y’all) that I had a pajama day for the first time since March.
Makes me wonder if you find yourselves realizing you’re doing or not doing things you normally do or do not in effort to feel normal.
Please let me know.
Yesterday YBW was standing at the kitchen sink washing out the coffee pot and he said, “I thought this would last two weeks and it would be over. I need to get into a routine like you.”
I think he’s realizing how unprepared we all were for the situation in which we find ourselves. In the beginning he likened it to being snowed in, we hunker down, stay put for a few days, then life resumes its normal pace.
Let me be clear. I am not saying he doesn’t take it seriously, he is acutely aware of the seriousness of this time of extended self quarantine.
It’s more like I’m in ECE mode and documenting his development. I am watching what he’s actively learning through his immediate and authentic experience. I see how he adapts based upon what he’s learning.
He saw me up, showered and dressed and going about the things. It seemed to me he realized the importance of these behaviors. I see he’s realizing how simple it is to stay in one’s jammies and be at the computer or in front of the TV all day long. How doing that helps create that snow day mentality.
Y’all, I made a concrete decision to get dressed every day. And I’m wearing jeans at least three times a week instead of comfy, around the house clothes like yoga pants or leggings. I’m doing the work-y things at the beginning of my day before I do the lounge-y things. This is how I’m choosing to cope.
I talked with him about why I made this decision. I did it because I want didn’t want my life to feel like one extended snow day. It’s easy to sit around in my jammies day drinking and eating all the live long day. I knew that would be bad for me. I chose to live differently in this time.
I know my limits. I know within which parameters I function best. So, I created this routine to keep myself safe and sane.
With nothing to break up the monotony of being stuck in this house, this routine makes every difference.
YBW is currently in his jammies drinking coffee in front of his computer. So, maybe the routine isn’t actually necessary for him. I mean, he does have his normal routine every other week. His regular life, in which he gets up, bathes, dresses and goes to work. So maybe for him the home weeks feeling more like snow days are what’s keeping him safe and sane?
He spent all last Friday pressure washing the deck. Yesterday, he patched a hole in the ceiling where Thing G’s shower leaked. So, he’s doing the things even if he’s doing them in his jammies.
Each of us had to adapt to the best of our ability to do what it takes to get through this while remaining safe and sane.
For some of us, that is day drinking.
Crowley is my spirit animal
For some of us it’s as much exercise as we can cram into a twenty-four hour period.
For some of us it’s cooking or baking.
For some of us it’s sleep.
For some of us it’s Netflix, Prime, Hulu, and Disney +.
Whatever you’re doing to keep yourself safe and sane in this time is none of anybody’s damn business. I mean, unless it negatively impacts another.
So if what keeps you safe and sane is locking someone in the closet, maybe you want to reevaluate. Unless they’re up your ass about some store brand cookies. Then I say, you do you.
I’m choosing to do what’s best for me. I’m aware my choice has no or low impact on others. I’d like to keep it that way.
But you know, I get antsy. I want to throw a temper tantrum now and again. Maybe that restraint is what’s keeping me safe and sane. I can only do me.
What routines are keeping y’all safe and sane in these unprecedented times?
In the last month I’ve had a house full of daughters, a son-in-law, and one sweet baby.
Organized and hosted the most wonderful party to celebrate Baby K.
welcome to the Bubbly & Baby to celebrate Baby K
Who’s that baby?
a guessing game
yummies and goodies
a monogrammed cake was one of my ‘must haves’
*all photos credited to Thing 2 and used with permission*
I spent precious time with my girls.
We shopped. Visited with friends. Attended a party to celebrate a friend’s daughter going away to college.
Yesterday, I made the long journey home from GA where I left Thing 1 and Baby K at home. (Husband N was here for two weeks and returned home empty handed, while Thing 1 and Baby K stayed here with us for another two weeks.)
Now here I am, daughter-less and baby-less, which I don’t love in the least.
But, the truth of the matter is I’m content to be me.
I didn’t write in my journal or for this blog in all that time.
I was so busy living in the moment, I didn’t take the time for reflections.
My reflections are shooting out all over the place and I’m racing to collect them.
I need a bit of time with my journal for sure.
I’ve finished the first half of my thesis paper. I’m meeting with the course adviser this afternoon to create a plan to proceed with the second half. My plan is to submit the finished paper by the end of the month. I’ll be OK if it comes back for revision because my term doesn’t end until September 30th. That gives me another whole month to make sure all I’ve dotted all the i(s) and crossed all the t(s). And then I’m finished.
I’m a bit overwhelmed even thinking about all the time that will free up.
How will I spend it?
I don’t want to waste any more time.
I mean, I’ll waste some time, cause I like to watch the TV occasionally, you know?
I want to use my time successfully.
For the betterment of me.
For my own personal pleasure.
I’ll get about that soon enough, right now I’m going to take a moment to miss little nugget of deliciousness.
OK, baby fix, check.
Time to move on to collecting my reflections and planning how to spend my time.
I’ve got this!
When I look back at the last six weeks I’m honestly amazed that we came out the other side as well off as we did.
Two deaths in two weeks.
Three birthdays in the same two weeks.
A mother’s day when there are no mothers.
Projects, exams, last month of senior year with senioritis in full swing.
Graduation.
Party.
Girls here.
(P.S. there’s still a hole in our house)
Now when read in a list, it may seem as though I’m exaggerating the impact each and every one of these things had on us. I’m here to assure you I am not. And while some of these things are in the biggest ‘Yay’ column, it was a stressful time.
Last week when YBW and I had our therapy appointment, we each talked about what we needed as we moved forward.
I wanted to take a break. Go away for a few days. Breathe new air. Get out of this house. Be near water. I was looking at it as kind of a reset, have a break to rest before we returned to normal life.
YBW wanted to get back to normal straight away. He expressed his weariness at the starting and stopping and starting he’s been doing for the last six weeks. He also expressed his desire to sleep.
Our therapist was on point, and while we didn’t settle on one or the other, we each began to consider the other’s point of view differently than we had before.
Later in the day I scribbled a note to myself.
The more I considered it, the more I began to feel that just saying what I need might be enough.
Which actually may turn out better as YBW is on call the last week of June which means we can’t go anywhere anyway.
We haven’t talked about it again. I did tell him my thoughts on expressing the need vs having the need met. I asked him how he was feeling about getting back to normal life. He remarked it didn’t feel like normal life.
Does he need to discover what his new normal is? I don’t know the answer to that. I do know he still isn’t sleeping all through the night.
What I do know is that from a very early age I learned not to express my needs because they wouldn’t be met. So to avoid that disappointment, I get vague af when it comes to expressing my needs. I actually think the phrase, ‘it doesn’t matter what I want or how I say it, I’m not going to get it anyway’. (Sounds pretty pathetic, right?)
I guess it’s the way I learned to defend myself.
Anyway, that’s where I am.
Desire to rest and recharge after the last six weeks before returning to ‘normal life’.
Only, here I am today, knee deep in normal life.
Blogging, GOOB with Lula, prob and stats, and instructional planning homework, hole in the house repair, teaching Thing G to drive, and just regular household maintenance stuff.
I don’t feel short-changed or whatever. I feel like being specific regarding my needs is a big deal and even if I don’t actually get what I said I need, I suspect I got some little bit of what I needed just by saying it out loud.
Go me!
I’m growing as a person and all that.
I mean, sure being near water would be perfection. But so far, on this first day of ‘normal life’ since the second day of May, I’m feeling fairly content.
Now that International Week of the Birthday has passed, I find myself a bit ‘Barbossa-esque’ about returning to normal life.
Yet normal life is here, and I’m kind of in the middle of it.
Between finishing up waxing the upper cabinet doors, painting the base cabinets, and planting herbs for my back porch…my dance card is rather full.
That said, YBW and I drank wine on the back porch Monday, then again last night in front of the television, catching up on shows in the DVR. Clearly, I’m not jumping back into the deep end of normal life…
YBW and I are going to NYC to see a play and hang out a few days over Memorial day weekend. The goal is the have the kitchen put completely back together by then. So, I should probably do a little bit of waxing this afternoon. (As soon as I pot those plants.)
I’m certainly not going to have the base cabinets painted by then…but twenty-one days left in the school year. (I know I’m not the only educator that knows that number.) Soon, I’ll have all the time in the world to finish the kitchen. Then begin other projects!
Two rooms are in desperate need of a fresh coat of paint and I’ve already chosen colors!
Right now, I’m going to get back to regular stuff by eating some breakfast and switching the laundry, projects will sort themselves out as we go along. And I’m acutely aware that the world truly does not revolve around me.
Is it weird to be sad about not getting something I didn’t really want in the first place?
I received a voicemail from the woman I interviewed with Monday before the wedding. She regretfully informed me that though I was more than qualified, they went with someone who could start sooner than I could.
It turns out that they wanted someone to start before I even left the country for my honeymoon.
WFT?
I was completely upfront about my availability when she called to schedule the meeting. If they knew they needed someone to start when I couldn’t, why did they waste their time? Why did they waste my time? Why did my kid sit in a cold car for an hour instead of being warm and shopping with her mom?
I had actually gotten to the place where I didn’t think I was going to take the job, but that’s not the point. I wouldn’t even have had to consider it if they had been upfront with their needs.
I’m not sure why I’m irritated. I’m not sure why I’m a bit hurt. But I do know that my gut was right. This was not the position for me.
And a complete waste of my time!
So I continue to be a hausfrau for a while. I’ve cleaned like a mad woman today and it feels so good! Every bit of the laundry is clean and mostly put away. I’m finally getting the house back to normal after the chaos of all the kids here and leaving it a hot hot mess to go to Barbados. I’m getting back to normal in my sleep patterns and my writing. I (mostly) know who I am and what I want.
I’m going to the neurologist Thursday to have my brain checked.
I’m listening to Edith Piaf and drinking gatorade while I take a break to write this.
It’s a good day to be me.
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