June 28, 2019
1. Friday: I dragged my reluctant brain to work, and pummeled it into cooperating but I also took a couple of cleaning my office breaks when the trudge was too difficult. While I didn’t get enough work done, it WAS really satisfying to have gotten that much cleaning done! It did open up new places for the dogs to lose the Kong, though, whoops.
2. Saturday: I had been trying to reach an equilibrium with my feelings towards Dad, looking for a neutral ground for my own peace, for the past few months. The process is both acknowledging the harm he’s caused AND that there were good things in my past as well. It felt like a healthy way to move forward no matter what kind of relationship we end up having (or not).
Then he popped up again on my radar. We’re estranged because of his pathological lying. So what does he do? He used someone I care about and trust to manipulate me into lying for his benefit. He knows it could carry legal consequences for me, but he doesn’t care. Ok. Yeah. So, no personal growth then? I am looking at this as confirmation that he still doesn’t belong in our lives.
3. Sunday: We had to meet some new people for brunch (friends of family) and the male half of the couple was a bombastic sexist. What a waste of a Sunday brunch! But PiC and I agreed – at least we don’t have to hang out with them again. It seems like all the new LOCAL people we meet aren’t people we want to meet again, but all the people we enjoy are far away. It’s a shame.
4. Monday: My pain spiked to about an 11 today. That roughly means: my bones are on fire and if I breathe shallowly, I won’t throw up from the pain nausea. JB was oddly solicitous when ze came home, suggesting that I choose the chair with the blanket because it’d be more comfortable and offering to entertain me. We were solo this evening and I’m grateful that ze mostly cooperated throughout playing, dinner, and bath and bed routine.
8. Tuesday: Really grasping for the good today. Pain is sky-high and I am grateful for our recliner we spent the big bucks on before JB was born. The cushion supports my broken body adequately so I can make it through a work day without passing out from pain.
9. Wednesday: With LOTS of sitting down breaks, I was able to attend an event at JB’s daycare. It was rough but I didn’t pass out at the end of the day, I slept naturally, so we’re calling this a win.
10. Thursday: You know what’s fun? Spraining your ankle IN YOUR SLEEP. This is really not my week. But I’m grateful it was a minor sprain, the kind that wears off if I can hobble around all day, exhausting though THAT is.
:: Tell me some of your good things!
June 21, 2019
1. Friday: Angela reminded me that I’d been leaving money on the table ignoring the Bing search engine and related Microsoft rewards. I’ve earned 9700 points so far! Of course I’m hoarding them so that when I redeem for my first $5 reward (6500) the ticker doesn’t go down to 0 immediately. I don’t like feeling like I’m starting all over again even if I am.
2. Saturday: I had the weirdest dream where I was at a library / grocery store (combined) with the family and JB pulled me away from my spot to do something. When I got back, my things were all gone: my bag, wallet, everything. Someone had gone through and taken everything out of my bag and distributed the contents throughout the shelves. That someone was a librarian. It was Very Weird. I woke up very glad that I make it a rule never to leave my things unattended if they’re out of line of sight and also that that didn’t happen at all.
3. Saturday: We mainly shop online to preserve time and energy but there are two things that I find most risky to order online reliably: shampoo/conditioner and stationery. I need to know how the former smells and how the latter feels. The last time I bought notecards, they were disappointingly thin paper and floppy. I took a risk on some Peter Pauper branded notecards a couple weeks ago, having never seen them in person, and they were really quite a perfect weight and thickness. Yay!
4. Sunday: We half celebrated Father’s Day on Saturday giving him half the day to himself and half on Sunday.
7. Monday: After dinner, JB went straight to the bathroom and did zir entire pre-shower routine without having to be told even once to do it. It was like a tiny miracle.
8. Tuesday: I won a random Amazon giveaway! That never happens! It was just a tiny thing but it was fun.
9. Wednesday: I had a long-awaited massage and my muscles were in shock. Those five minutes of existing entirely without pain post-massage are pure heaven. Invariably my aches all set in again but I savor every second of it.
10. Thursday: I’m ready for my 1x, 2x, or every 2 yearly-depending on how I feel- hair cut. It may be time to go Super Duper Short.
:: Tell me some of your good things!
June 14, 2019
1. Friday: Some days you say “eat your veggies” until your words sound like a foreign language, some days your kid asks for a double helping of green beans. Take the win.
2. Saturday: HEAT WAVE. The weirdness of our home and the location though is that there are rooms in the house that stay cool through most of the day and our area is usually 5-10 degrees cooler than elsewhere. I hate this during the cold season because it’s always frigid but I revel in the just too warmness we’re experiencing right now.
3. Sunday: I got to line dry two load of clothes! Ours usually gets gross and moldy before it dries. I don’t like crunchy underwear (or towels) but I am happy we saved the cost of a load of drying clothes.
4. Monday: We have a first step to fixing some of the weight that’s been bearing me down at work and I cannot even describe the relief that it’s brought just having the start of a solution. It isn’t everything and not an overnight fix but it’s definitely a start and I’m really glad of it. I’m a much less angry person because of it which means depression hasn’t been creeping up on me, it was stress.
5. Tuesday: Had myself a fabulous mini panic when the IRS told us that we still owed them money – I paid y’all in full! It was less than $100 but that’s real money. After some frantic texting and emailing, our tax preparer discovered that they made a mistake and so they paid the missing tax and fees. Whew. Brow wiped.
6. Tuesday: I have to be mindful of the dogs’ paws and ability to tolerate the heat and we can’t leave food or anything out in the cards because they’ll melt or otherwise be in danger but I can’t deny that it’s really nice, because it’s a short period, to be (even too) warm in my own home. Ice in everyone’s water! A nice fan! No shivering! It’s not nearly so nice for most everyone else though.
7. Wednesday: A friend of wow, over 20 years now!, came to stay with us on their way to the city and it was so so lovely catching up with them. We haven’t seen them in a few years, I’m grateful they remembered we were on their way. (JB was a complete and utter bitter pill all day… which leads me to … )
8. Thursday: HUGE sigh of relief. We got a late start, I could not shake this headache, and my brain is moving at a crawl, but JB was pleasant to be around again and that makes such a big difference in the color of our day.
:: Tell me some of your good things!
June 6, 2019
The sole focus on just good things in this post isn’t working for me anymore. It was helpful in the first several posts to get myself oriented to seeing the good, but now just focusing entirely on that feels like forced cheerfulness and that doesn’t help. Pollyanna isn’t my normal mode of operation.
Having a bit of perspective here in seeing both good and bad is a better fit for my personality.
1. Friday: Trader Joe’s smoked salmon dip ($4) is a great way to get that bagel and lox taste without springing for the actual full spread of smoked salmon and capers. Since I shouldn’t be having bagels anyway, the dip on other vehicles like cucumbers is a nice way to go.
2. Saturday: I was up way too early for a Saturday but that’s good because it gave me time to prep the crockpot for dinner. We were serving pulled pork, coleslaw, and Hawaiian rolls. I think it should have cooked a little longer but overall the dinner was delicious. Sigh of relief. I’m still not great at hosting and now need to sit down and make a list of menus we should try, ahead of inviting people over.
3. Sunday: First swim lesson! I was a bundle of nerves because JB hasn’t been friends with the water lately, and though there were touch and go moments when zir reluctance looked like the lesson would be a bust, ultimately the lesson was good. Ze came out happy to have done and that’s all that matters here right now.
4. Monday: Woke up to disappointing news – a standing friend date was cancelled and that make me sadder than it should have. In my disappointment, partly because I’ve always been bad at making friends but partly because I’d looked forward to this event with those friends, I remarked to PiC: we need more friends! He later texted that he’d invited another set of parents to join us at the event instead. Proactive spouses FTW!
7. Monday: Not my finest moment but I stole a Twix from JB’s candy bucket. It was good. Terrible for me but my mood was worse and sometimes the cure has to be something that’s not good for you.
8. Tuesday: Complaining to my life Board of Directors almost always produces good results. In this case, clearly stating what has been bothering me for months lead to them making three comments that turned me right around. It’s not fixed but they helped me get my feet back on the right path and it made a world of difference. The long-simmering anger and resentment that I’ve been unable to pin down and pluck out was almost non-existent for a full 24 hours. I am hoping for long-term calm too.
9. Wednesday: I did ALL THE THINGS on this day. All of them. And I didn’t keel over. Calling that a win.
10. Thursday: JB received a lovely gift of books and ze is at least as excited as I am to read them. 😆
Lots of ups and downs this week – cross your fingers I can find the resources I need to make my life run a little more smoothly!
:: Tell me some of your good things!
May 31, 2019
1. Friday: On the cusp of a three day weekend and I’m not having a panic over how much work is still left to be done. It’s still a TON but I’m unnaturally calm about it. I do plan to work on the weekend but that’s not usually a calm plan.
2. Saturday: We cuddled a newborn and enjoyed a half deli lunch with friends.
3. Sunday: JB was pleasant 95% of the day. That is unprecedented! I like to think it’s because we did a good mix of play / chores / play / chores throughout the day so that ze also felt like ze was getting an adequate amount of free time. We did a combination of JB+Mom time (while Dad did his thing), family time, JB+Dad time (while I did my work) and then leftovers for dinner.
4. Monday: PiC proposed we take JB to one of those entertainment centers that have an enormous padded jungle gym / maze / tubes / everything you can imagine places. It’s the pricey one down the road where we couldn’t possibly afford a birthday party (starts at $600) but the open play is $12. Having just the one kid makes this seem reasonable, ze can play til ze drops. At least that was the hope. I worked while ze played, then took a break and played too. Ze even took an hour long nap after.
5. Tuesday: JB was allowed to pick all the free bagels from our Monopoly winnings and ze was Very Pleased.
It was such a busy week I had no time to finish this post! May next week be much better. (Last week’s non panic over work was misplaced. I’m drowning in work. ARGH.)
:: Tell me some of your good things!
May 24, 2019
1. Friday: The water bill came today and it was $10 less than it’s been the last three bills! Woot!
2. Saturday: May has mostly brought us rain, not much of a spring here right now with the grey and gloom and fog, but it also brought us berries in season. 2 lbs of strawberries for $4!
3. Sunday: New discovery – blister roasted peanuts. These are yummy. They do not at all replace cake in my life so I still have a desserts-shaped hole in my life but I do like the peanuts.
4. Monday: My GP confirmed by email that I have positive MMR titers so I don’t need to worry about updating that vaccine. I hate that we have to even think about this but there are outbreaks all along the coast.
7. Monday: No idea where it came from but JB came home and didn’t have attitude or whine all through dinner. We had a pleasant and short dinner where all the food was eaten and no one was irritated. I can’t remember the last time THAT happened!
8. Tuesday: I could look at laundry as an endless cycle that’s never finished. OR I could look at it as something I’m endlessly good at because I do it well every week. Even if the machine betrays me and forces me to do extra work to soak out stains from the machine.
9. Wednesday: Our local Costco, on a good day, usually takes about 22 minutes from drive up to drive out. They had about ten pumps. Today, I discovered they had built an entirely new station on the other side of the lot in the past six weeks with thirty-two pumps. There was zero wait. It was astonishing. (On the other hand it cost $50 to fill up and PiC and I have noticed that our MPG has been dropping dramatically in the past few months and we don’t know why. :sob:)
10. Thursday: FINALLY. It’s taken me all year to get my act together and find a possible swim class for JB. FINALLY. (In fairness, PiC put in a fair amount of time and research too but he found all the super expensive and rigid academy type places that I didn’t want to use either.)
Then we followed up on a decent suggestion from a friend and seem to maybe have found the right place there? We have registered and I hope they have great instructors because this option is the most affordable one we could find within 20 miles.
:: Tell me some of your good things!
May 17, 2019
1. Friday: I dropped small Mother’s Day notes in the mail to a few people who mean a whole lot to me. I haven’t ever been able to write them before.
2. Saturday/Sunday: As usual, JB was up bright and early and I let that early wake-up drag me out of bed earlier than usual too so that I could start the laundry and catch up on work. Made good headway (Monday will thank me) and PiC spoiled me all weekend with taking JB so I could work, rest, and generally deal. I have extremely conflicted feelings about Mother’s Day (my loss, many dear friends have lost mothers too early) and like to keep it very quiet.
3. Monday: I was stumped for dinner ideas. Thankfully, PiC steps up when my ideas run dry and took care of it.
4. Tuesday: One Day at a Time was on in the background and I really enjoy that show.
5. Wednesday: Spinach and kale greek yogurt dip + cucumbers make a good healthy snack.
6. Thursday: We traded morning routines today and it worked really well. I got the dogs walked and fed, we saw a rainbow and got drenched. He got JB ready and ze didn’t whine or complain about getting ready! (I think. I don’t know, I was busy elsewhere.)
:: Tell me some of your good things!Â