Diary of a Homemaker: Finishing Strong

 

Saturday:  Woke to a chilly day.  I wasn't expecting that, but Sam assured me it was the same last year.  I went out to sit on the porch with coffee, and Rufus came frisking up to join us.  I'd loved to have stayed but I came back indoors.  Even sitting in the sun, it was a bit too cool to sit outdoors even so.  I've looked forward all year long to sitting on the porch with first coffee, but today wasn't meant to be, lol.  I'm perhaps a little early in that dream.

I walked around a bit later and planted onions in every nook and cranny about roses, tomatoes, in with the herbs.  I don't know if any will get good sized, but I'll take the green onions over none and these were all free to me, a mix of red, white and yellow.

We had a lovely family celebration for Taylor's birthday.  I boiled and then roasted the hot dogs, just to give them a nice crisp skin.  They pleased everyone and took no time to do but it did cut the saltiness to boil them first.  I'll do hot dogs that way again in the future if I can't grill them.

The kids loved the cooler weather and came in looking red faced and sweaty despite the cool air.  Taylor loved her gifts, the children laughed and talked and tickled and ran and climbed and did all the things children in the country typically do when they are all together and full of life.  They even ate fairly well.  Very little was thrown away today and what was tossed were suitable for Rufus to munch on.

All in all, it's been a lovely day.  

For the first time in years, I almost forgot that tomorrow is the anniversary of the pulmonary embolisms and my hospitalization.  I look back and marvel at what the last 8 years have brought me.  A lovely long-legged granddaughter who'd only just been born, a tiny little girl with soft brown eyes and a lovely smile, two more little boys to snuggle and love, two great grandchildren, family who moved in and out and in and out and in, retirement, the passing of some dreams, the forming of new ones, a family across the field and another family member planning a home nearby.  So much I'd have missed.  So much, I'm grateful that I've been here to see.  

Sunday:   I wish I could say it's been a long lazy weekend, but it hasn't been.  It has been busy and fun and I'm tired.    Tomorrow we're supposed to get a day 'off'.  That is relative of course, as we're paying a visit and running errands, too.  

I took an unexpected but much needed short nap this afternoon.  I've almost finished reading my book, Home to Holly Springs by Jan Karon.  I've laughed a wee bit but mostly I've cried a lot through this book.  It's very emotional and gut wrenching for me to read this book in so many ways.  I think after this novel, I'll wait a bit before picking up the next in the Father Tim series.  I'll switch gears and read something non-fiction and then perhaps a couple of lighter hearted books before I get back into this series.

Monday:  The day did not start out as I planned it would.  I was up early, far earlier than I'd meant to be up.  The first cup of coffee was finally drunk when it was lukewarm.  I made myself a second consolation cup of coffee.

The morning went by rather quickly.  We got ready to go to Mama's.  Caleb and Katie stayed home.  Caleb sobbed like the brokenhearted when he discovered he wasn't going to go with me.  

Mama has been having some issues with a bank change that has necessitated a lot of phone calls, paperwork and more. It's made all the more difficult because she doesn't have computer or internet skills and for whatever reason refuses to go to the bank clerks to ask for help.  

She's recently been diagnosed with a serious cataract issue.  Surgery is something she doesn't even want to consider although John and I reassured her the surgery has changed by leaps and bounds since Granny had hers done some 45 years ago.  I felt like we spent a lot of time trying to convince her to do things that she just doesn't want to do.

We took her out to lunch to celebrate her birthday today.  She is 86 and still living on her own, and still taking care of herself.  The house is clean, not spotless but clean.  Longevity runs on her side of the family, and I'd really like to see her take care of the few physical issues she has but she seems equally determined to NOT do anything.

Yes, I found this visit depressing.

John and I went to Lowe's where we spent a hefty sum but we're picking up parts for the kitchen reno.  And I confess, I am determined that this year I shall have pretty pots of flowers and plants and just enjoy them.  I bought both seeds and plants today, as well as mulch.

Tomorrow it's back to work.  Honestly, I feel today as though I've never gotten any time off at all, but we have had leftovers for several meals, and I've used paper plates.  My brain is spinning with ideas at the moment but sometimes they spin right away.  I'm still trying to remember what I thought just yesterday was a brilliant idea, but I got distracted before I could jot it down.  Oh well.

Tuesday:  I've just cleaned off the front porch and put down a new Coir mat at the front door.  The one the dog insists on sleeping upon is now off to one side. I may move it round to the back door since Rufus likes to sleep there.

I've cleaned the shed enough to get in the door, and towards the back.  I have a bag full of trash but no donations at this moment in time.  I pulled out the bins I wanted to use to plant in and discovered loads of pots of all sorts of sizes are there as well.  I definitely do not need more plant pots.  I quickly tired of the job after I watched something slither away from my hand.  Pretty sure it was a skink, but you know, Ewww!

I have worked in the flowers this morning.  I got the plants I purchased yesterday potted up, went around deadheading things and just generally puttering about.   The petunia I bought is getting very leggy looking and honestly appears to be low on soil. I think I will prune and repot that and try to root the ends I cut off the long stems.  

I've been busy indoors as well and frankly at this moment I am quite tired.  I don't believe I want to do much more today!   Yet, I've not even looked at my lists to see which jobs I've completely missed doing in May.  I haven't pulled recipes for the week ahead. I have so many things I'd like to see done before I call this day at an end.

Sam just ran in and brought four grocery bags filled to the brim with a variety of things that the school sent to him.  He said he'd simply run out of room and had nowhere to put more.  This is part of the county school system breakfast and lunch program, to insure that their students all get fed at least two meals a day.  

I've just crammed stuff in everywhere I could and I feel so mightily blessed to have it all.

Wednesday:  The day was hard yesterday.  In fact, when we returned from Mama's yesterday (yes a second necessary visit) I crawled right into bed and stayed there.  I'd had enough.  And Mama was not the issue.  The visit to her was necessitated by a form she needed to fill out and needed right away.  I have the printer.  I have the only printer in the family right now.

No, the hard stuff dealt with many things.  I'd worked long and hard trying to do all I could outdoors yesterday.  Taking care of a 3-year-old is hard at the best of times and I have now had Caleb most of the time for the past 10 days.   Family disappointments, the bringing up of what we'd hoped was a past incident that obviously still rankles, endlessly being told that this whole household will crumble without me and knowing that it's perfectly true...I felt like I could just cry, but there wasn't a clear moment to cry.  Then we had an argument over something perfectly stupid on the way home and I was just DONE with the day as a whole and life as well for that matter.  

John very, very nicely allotted me enough time to have a solo cup of coffee this morning and I can't tell you what an absolute luxury that was.  And then the day began with the usual whirlwind.  Housework done at top speeds so I could go outdoors, the endless and necessary wrangling with Caleb to get him to go potty and then outdoors.  

He flat out refused.  And so I went outdoors alone which was both a luxury and a curse all rolled into one because I worked hard and quick in order to make the most of my time outdoors alone.  I pruned roses, cut back last year's lantana stems, cut back the massive Rosemary bush, spread mulch, loaded and hauled branches across the yard, pruned the petunia back, cleaned off the back porch some more.  It's nowhere near as nice as the front porch and both of them need a good washing off, but I've done what I could do.  I put bricks down around the edges of the fresh mulching in the hopes I could keep that contained and not wash away with the first deep rain we have.  All before lunch. Which I made, of course.  Not complaining, just saying.  

But I didn't make lunch before getting a cool shower.  

Officially this is the last day of May.  I haven't done everything I had on my lists for May, and I know at best I've only a very short time in which I might work on any other tasks this week.  But I'm satisfied that I got a chance and made the most of it to do a big push of work.  I can easily list a half dozen or more jobs that I won't get to, but I'll just have to push them off into June.  And so it goes on.

Must share this little thing that Caleb said earlier at lunch.  We were eating our meal and he had potato chips, specifically Cheddar and Sour Cream chips.  He looked at the bag and told me, "That's Cheese..."  "Yes, it is."  "And that's Sorry Cream..."  John snorted when he said that, and I laughed.   

 And please let us mark this day down as the day Caleb formed his first question correctly.  "Grampa...What is that?" I suppose that my marking that as a milestone sounds silly to some, but for a child who was barely verbal, limiting himself to one word at a time for the longest time, I thought this was as big as his first complete sentence and the use of "Me, my, I" instead of referring to himself in the third person.

Thursday:  I slept very poorly last night and I think I know why.  I did two things wrong.  I made Stroganoff for supper and ate a larger than usual portion of noodles.  They were not whole wheat.  I also had a caffeinated drink with my lunch, something I'm finding more and more is disruptive to my sleep pattern.  Katie was out as well and I generally lie awake until I hear her come in but last night sleep did not come after Katie came home.  Nor anytime soon.  I'll just have to be more careful with my intake of food and drink.  And remind myself as well that I often have a spell of sleeplessness and it's not the end of the world.  It's difficult to carry on, but it usually will end within a few days.

I woke at my summer hour this morning (about 6am) and though I stayed abed, there was no return to the brief sleeping pattern, so I got up and readied myself for the day.  John had a mid-morning appointment at the chiropractor and we'd planned to go along and then head to Burger King and let Caleb expend some energy.

We went to Byron to the BK there.  It's not quite so close to the busy highway, and is a little more quiet, though it's still near a major roadway.  In Ft. Valley, there is a very busy intersection at the Burger King and it's awfully loud with lanes and lanes of traffic coming in from five different points. In Byron, it's just a straight roadway, still multiple lane, but no intersections.

There were several children groups there and Caleb was excited that there were kids to play with.  He went potty before we went out on the playground.  In fact, he ended up staying dry all morning and into the afternoon!  I swear every time I start feeling like I am getting nowhere at all with him, he surprises me and has a successful morning or willingly goes.

Once on the playground, he immediately joined a nursery school of children and helped the younger ones up and down stairs, took his turn right along with them, etc.  I spoke with one of the teachers later and she complimented us on how nicely he behaved.  I thanked her and said I felt he did well.  And then I mentioned that he'd been asked to leave nursery because of behavior issues.  She looked at me long and hard and said, "I think he needs this sort of play and the social gathering.  He's very friendly and he's thoughtful about others' needs."  It made me wonder if we might possibly try to get him into nursery once more, not full time but a couple of days a week.  However, we keep bumping against the reminder that none takes a child his age without them being fully potty trained.  And he's not there at all.

John reminded me it was the first of the month on our way out of town. A new month...and I hadn't even prepared my check register for a new month at all!  

I've decided I'm not working today at anything other than the usual picking up and clearing up behind.  Tomorrow is another day to work on the odds and ends.  I've gotten enough of the jobs done that I feel okay about having a day off today.

Friday:  It has been a busy housekeeping sort of day.  Not even time to take Caleb outdoors this morning but I'll do that this afternoon.  There were lots of jobs I still wanted to get to, but I know I've done plenty.  I'm good and tired and have pushed entirely hard enough this week but it is a satisfied sort of tiredness that comes from getting things accomplished.

The house is clean.  The floors are freshly mopped and we can't decide if what we are smelling is the floor cleaner or the lilies or a combination of both.  Laundry was done, the beds changed, the bathrooms scrubbed.  The last two things to be done today are to make supper (Sloppy Joes, Corn on the Cob, French Fries) and clear up behind making that meal.  

And now we call the week well done.

How was your week?  Any weekend plans?