I did the laundry, poundcake, dinner, food.
i am going to do the lesson plans this morning because I have more energy in the morning. I thought about them, but didn’t write them out.
Only I am having a hard time getting started this morning. It was hard to wake up and my dreams are strange.
I don't know, your descriptions of what you are doing during the day do not sound happy. Too much like mine lately--a lot of dull events and not much pleasure.Originally Posted by Chicken lady
I am trying to factor in more fun into my life. This is a hard time of year for me due to SAD. Maybe you should take off one of those chores and substitute something fun.
That's what I am trying to do. . .
My daughter and sil came out for dinner Sunday. Dh cooked.
i worked in my garden a little yesterday evening.
Our jobs are different.
a few weeks ago, my class got interrupted several times by maintenance issues and i lost my train of thought more than once, and I looked at my students and said “I am getting frustrated.” And one of them said “go to your happy place.” Without even thinking about it I tossed back “this IS my happy place!”
today I made it through a rough lesson (something one of my kids was really looking forward to - but he got expelled)
and I got to laugh with the kids and teach them new things. I got to return finished projects and point out what they did well. One of my starfish helped me unload the kiln and she seems to be doing ok today. I got confirmation that I have a job next year, but not the details.
i swam 1600 yards. I had to make myself stop.
i fed myself a healthy dinner and now I just need to do chores, set up the coffee, spend some time with my journal, and unload the dishwasher.
by then hopefully dh will be home and it will be (at least close to) bedtime.
i am healing.
Last night Dh noticed that I have been wearing my starfish a lot and asked about it. I told him it’s a religious symbol, and he got this really concerned look on his face like “did you join a cult while I wasn’t paying attention? Does this have something to do with you being a hot mess lately?” And asked “what religion?” So I explained. He came over and gave me a hug and said “but you never throw any of them back.”
Sounds like you have a supportive husband and a great relationship! That's wonderful.
The book I have been reading has talked a lot about choices lately. Coincidentally I have been running across a lot of “choice” references in other places. I feel like the concept of choice ties in with my goal to remove “should” from my life.
dh has been handling dinner a lot lately. Dinner has always been “my job” so any time dh provides dinner, I feel like it is either a gift (taking me out, bringing home a favorite take out) or a failure on my part. I fail a lot. But rationally, making dinner “my job” is questionable. Yes, I usually get home first and I have more “free” time in my day. But, I hate to cook (I love to bake and make cheeses and jams and other preserved foods), and I am ambivalent about food (I will thoroughly enjoy a nice meal, but I will be perfectly content with scrambled eggs on toast and a raw carrot). Dh otoh loves to cook and is very picky about food. (If you ribboned the carrot and cut the toast into small pieces and topped each one with a bit of carrot and some egg and a dab of some kind of sauce - he would see a completely different meal. I would see the same meal with a lot of extra work and calories) so I think we need to talk about dinner.
and then, I am back to choices. I remember talking to my kids when they were in high school about the fact that one of the reasons their high school experience was different from mine was that they chose to be there. That literally every morning they were choosing to get up and go to school, that every class they attended was a choice, because they were literally free to leave at any time. I felt like their education belonged to them and I supported their right to decide how to manage it (even when I didn’t always agree) and I would show up for them any time and would take care of any paperwork they needed. This was both easier - in the sense of not feeling like a prisoner and having more options and confidence in any situation (well, if this goes really badly I can always leave), and harder, in the sense of having to make decisions about values, experiences, costs and trade offs every day.
so basically, it was adulthood. I begin to understand why my oldest told me it sucked.
i have a tremendous amount of freedom. I not only have choices, Most of my choices do not have dire consequences (for example, if I quit my job today, the financial consequences would be noticeable, but manageable. So when I say “the day my school arms teachers is the day I quit” I mean that literally and without hesitation.)
on the the flip side, my choices can feel very heavy - I have no one to blame but myself.
so, today, I choose to slow down. To meet the basic needs of my animals and spend a little time trying to make progress in the barn, but not to worry about measuring it. To take a few minutes to start dishes and laundry and not worry about the rest of the house. To show up to the iep meeting fully focused and prepared and for 45 minutes listen and contribute where I can and focus only on how I can help T be more successful in class. (Not the place to worry about other aspects of his life, other students, the philosophies of my administrators, the instructional styles of other teachers...) to fully invest my planning period in planning. To stop at the grocery store and buy the things on my list, but also look around and come up with one quick, easy, healthy dinner (idea, walk down the frozen food row - every time dh resorts to a frozen dinner, I think “I could have made a healthier version of that almost as quickly.”)
mostly, today I want to focus on SEEING the choices presented to me and making each one thoughtfully. I want to look at the reasons behind the things I am doing. Because if they are bad reasons, I need to either stop doing those things, or find other reasons. And if they are good reasons for bad choices, I need to find other ways to address those needs (Ie. I spent my planning period shopping for socks because I am tired and feeling worn down, but shopping for socks was merely an avoidance strategy and did not actually address those feelings. Nor do I need socks...)
CL, your journal here is always interesting and insightful.
I love my stage of life now in retirement, having all of the freedoms of a summer without school, but also having complete autonomy to do what I want to do with no parents dictating my path. Yet there I am, the one who gets full consequences of my actions, so yes these choices we make are a dilemma.
I do enjoy it all. We have very few limitations. The limitations of old age will be creeping in but as of now, they are not a hinderence.
Tangential to your post, in retirement I started making DH lunch. Prior to retirement I made only dinner while he was on his own for breakfast and lunch. I like making his lunch now because it is a good way to manage leftovers from dinner, sometimes purposeful leftovers.
I still dont bake, though. Any baking to be done, he does it.
*** Applause ***
I will note, however, that that kind of analysis -- for me -- can be surprisingly time-consuming. Many times "good" reasons are not entirely good and "bad" choices are not entirely bad. Perhaps this fits better with my "everything is some shade of gray" temperament. But I find many decisions cause some conflict in my value system and I need to prioritize which value I'm honoring in my choice and to be okay with the ones I'm not honoring.
Example: I have two aluminum snow shovels with a steel blade riveted on to bust through ice. With use, the rivets give way one by one and, eventually, the blade (and most of the structural integrity of the shovel) goes away. Fortunately, the company that makes the shovel sells replacement blades (with rivets!). So I toted the shovel to the nearby Ace Hardware store and asked if their services department (the one that makes keys and repairs screens and such) could rivet on another blade. In 40 years I have never needed a rivet gun for anything; it's one more tool I don't need to buy and keep track of. Well, that's not one of their many services.
The green thing to do (still important to me) is to not trash or recycle an otherwise perfectly good shovel. On the other hand, spending money on a rivet gun for the one time I'll need it? Or spending a little more and buying another similar shovel and just be done with all of it for another couple of years? Yeah, that trip took way too long. (I bought a rivet gun. Maybe I'll need it again someday -- I do have two shovels. It doesn't eat bread, as my mother says. But I still haven't riveted on the blade; I've been using the snowblower and another shovel instead.) Ugh.
Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome. - Booker T. Washington
CL: it sounds to me like you are really starting to notice that you can't do it all and need to set reasonable priorities for what is important to you or absolutely needs to be done. If you were fully retired you would have time for your small farm but I bet you would miss your kids a lot. I also think because you live in a rural area things are magnified because you need to schedule driving time to everything you do. I think you are gaining good insight and if your DH chooses to make dinner more often I would accept it as a gift because he is choosing it and even though he works more you have many, many things on your plate.
Oh Steve, that is so me!
today’s bad choice for good reasons - chocolate donut holes.
i was in the grocery store and I wanted a snack. The free cookies were gone. The discount bakery rack had no good options. The spicy dried green beans were expensive and in a non recyclable plastic container. The donut holes were cheap, in a fully recyclable cardboard box, and chocolate. But I was tired. I had already overcome a lot of challenges, and my stomach was empty. I ate half the box.
i must plan for snacks after school.
the meeting went well. The planning got done. I have food. Cooking it is the next challenge.
i would like to be in bed in three hours, so chores and dinner are really the most I can expect of myself. And I need to get started on those.
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