Yesterday, my son went to spend the night at his grandparents’ house. I had planned to binge watch TV and eat all the things. Great plan, right?
It totally was a great plan. I have barely worked or thought about working since Wednesday. I have thought a lot about the way my life has been going and what I can do to fix that. I think the most important part though was getting some time to sit mindlessly without serving anyone, doing anything that needed to be done, or passing out the second my ass hit the couch. I also slept until 7:30 this morning. Seven. Thirty.
Things look much better today than they did last week.
Rest. Who knew?
This is yeah write’s nomo day 28. It’s also my submission to the weekend moonshine grid at yeah write.
I do not have the strength for a real post. Again.
All I wanted to do today was get home from work, put on my pajamas, and do more work. Well, I didn’t exactly want to do more work, but I had work to do and I wanted it to be done, so I that’s what I meant.
I was almost home when I got a call from the woman at after care.
Her: Is this Nathan’s mom?
Me: Yes.
Her: How far away are you?
Me: Five minutes? Ten maybe?
Her: Can you get here faster?
Me: Um, no. Why?
Her: Well, Nathan and another kid banged heads and his nose is bleeding and there is so much blood.
Me: Ugh. Okay.
Her: He’s really freaked out.
Me: Okay. I’m coming.
Her: I’m really freaked out, too.
Me: Uh, okay. I’m… coming.
I called my husband who was actually closer than I was. By the time I got to the school, he was already there. Nathan had blood remnants all over his face and a gash on the bridge of his nose. He was so upset, naturally.
To make a very long story short, we took him to the emergency room. They took x-rays and his nose, thankfully, isn’t broken. No stitches, just glue and steri-strips. No concern for head injury. We skipped the tetanus shot since he had one a few years ago.
He’s fine. He’ll be better tomorrow. I’m fine. I’ll probably be better tomorrow, too.
I don’t like when my kid gets hurt. My poor little baby.
But I really don’t have the energy to tell that story tonight.
I have a very long list of rules for myself that help to guide me through life. Here are some highlights:
1. Don’t buy stuff unless it is absolutely 100% necessary. Even then, reconsider.
2. Décor is never necessary.
Today I bought a piece of décor. But it’s so great I could not pass it up. This beautiful thing is from modHero. I love it because it’s true. I really do enjoy coffee.
Maybe I should be vegan I thought to myself as I gnawed on some pork shoulder.
I have been feeling like a pile of melted crap for the better part of two weeks. I’m not sleeping, I’m not eating well, I’m popping antacids like they’re going out of style. I’m sure this isn’t all due to pork shoulders, but my terrible diet has to be exacerbating my other problems.
Every day I feel sluggish, like I’m walking around with an anchor tied around my neck. Drinking 8 cups of coffee each day isn’t enough to wake me up. The pounds of sugar I’ve been eating isn’t helping. In fact, I think it might be making things worse. Go figure.
I know that being vegan won’t help with the coffee or sugar thing. But the half and half is dairy, so there’s that. I don’t just sit down with a pile of sugar either, it comes carefully packaged in other non-vegan treats. Being vegan could create an unintentional cutting back of other things.
I’m aware that one needn’t be vegan to be healthy. But I also know that when I eat more fresh produce and home-cooked healthy food I feel better. So what if I just cooked more of the healthy stuff? The year I was vegetarian I felt better than I did at any other time.
I just don’t know if I can do it again though. I don’t know if I can handle another restriction on my life.
I don’t know if I can keep walking around with a gut full of pork either.
Something’s gotta give. But what?
This is yeah write’s nomo writing challenge Day 7.
When I lost my job in November, I decided I’d make good use of the time by doing lots of stuff.
Every day I sat down in this very place and made my lists and did stuff. It seemed like the time was endless and yet it flew by because I was doing-but-not-doing all at the same time. Looking for ways to make money, searching for full time jobs and freelance gigs is exhausting work that doesn’t do much for the bank account until something actually pans out which, sadly, most of the time it didn’t. It was depressing.
I’ve had moments in the past where I used to think the best thing that could happen to me would be to lose a job I hated so I could stay home and watch the unemployment payouts roll on in. They rolled in, but they rolled right back out as money tends to do. The difference between unemployment and being on someone’s payroll though is that every week I watched the claim dwindle until I had frighteningly few weeks left to collect and no new job prospects. I hadn’t taken that part into consideration when I thought unemployment sounded great.
Don’t get me wrong, I met a few goals that I had. I picked up some freelance work and got a few more items in my portfolio. I finished a draft of the book I’ve been working on for a few years. Still as the time passed, things were looking pretty bleak.
I’m not really an optimist on the best of days and winter is certainly not the best of days. Winter, quite frankly, can suck it. So in my quest to worry about my joblessness tomorrow, I watched more TV than I think I have in years. I ate everything in sight. I got to Level 88 in Coin Dozer. I was, basically, as unproductive as a human could be.
Well, maybe not. It’s quite a time commitment to get to Level 88 in Coin Dozer.
I had big plans for this time off. I was going to take time for me for the first time in my life and pursue the things I’d always dreamed of doing if I didn’t have to spend all of my time working for some company that might not be appreciating it.
Now, with only a few days left before I start a new and exciting job that I think I might actually love, I’m making lists of all the things I need to do. It’s a pretty long list. I wish I had started this stuff sooner.
It seems my life is always about realizing too late that I should have been doing something else. The funny thing about time is that it just keeps moving even when watching it go by is painful. Sitting around playing Coin Dozer simply reinforced the fact that my services were not required anywhere. I never really had free time before and it turns out I don’t think I want to have it again.
I don’t know how many levels there are in Coin Dozer or if I can ever really finish it, but I’m mighty thankful to not have the time to find out. I’m hopeful that I won’t be wishing I could be doing other things even as the thoughts inevitably creep in that I don’t actually have time to do everything that I want to. Wishing away time is the worst thing I can do and I’ve done that far too often. Wishing isn’t the same as doing.
Now that things are looking up again, I’m gonna go do actual stuff again.
