I pretty much wear the same outfit everyday lately. It’s been extremely cold and they’re being sick for the last week and a half, I’ve been cold inside too.
Years ago Sam bought me for Hanes long sleeve shirts. They’re all the same color dark blue. Normally I put a short sleeve shirt over top this, feeling like I’m a high school student again.
But as I was sick and that didn’t feel warm enough. And a sweater felt too warm. But a long sleeve shirt and a button down shirt over top of it, that was perfect.
Not a look I normally go for but it was the right warmth. So I wore it daily since last Tuesday.
Years ago I did a daily drawing for a couple years in a row. Just a simple pen drawing to go with a song or the day or a book.
I have many sketchbooks in a box downstairs and I’m kind of proud of them. It started as a wait to fill my time in Cleveland, something new for a time when I was new in Cleveland and didn’t have much to do.
I made a set of negatives a while ago. Flipped the colors to make mostly dark or black drawings to use as computer backgrounds.
One of my favorites… Don’t Worry I’ll Catch You. I think it’s from a Get Up Kids song.
Yesterday felt busier than it had any right to be.
Tuesdays are busy in that Edith has speech in the morning before preschool. And even though speech isn’t until 11, it is 20 minutes away so I try to leave by 10:30.
So after Marceline gets on the bus and I walk back home I have 2 hours roughly till I have to leave the house with Edith.
Still tired from a great Bills weekend meant I was moving slower too – did I mention I slept on a couch in a very bright living room of the Airbnb we got. Not that it was uncomfortable but I didn’t sleep great either night.
Anyways, get Edith breakfast, dressed, read some books, make her lunch. Snack, pack all her rain gear for preschool and we get out the door on time.
So normal, if not tired Tuesday morning.
The catch is I also have to bring two cats to get their bi-annual lion cuts at 2 because they are old and don’t do well keeping themselves clean. And that place is also 20 minutes away.
So drop Edith at preschool after speech (12:30), head home after chatting with another parent for a second. Get 45 minutes to make lunch and then wrangle two cats into cat carriers, load them up into the car and out the door.
After dropping I hit up Aldi’s for our weekly groceries (2 days overdue now), and have just enough time to make it back to Edith’s preschool for pick up (3:30). Actually I was fifteen minutes early and took a ten minute nap in the car.
Come back. Get Edith unpacked, check in with Marceline and Sam, bunker down to make dinner while Sam heads out for some of her own errands. Just as I finish unpacking groceries so I can make dinner, the cat place calls and says they are ready for pick up.
Sam is half out the door and the groomers are in the opposite direction of where she is going so I load the girls up and we head out to go get the cats and maybe a pizza for dinner.
Getting the cats was no problem, but it’s now 5 and even an order from Little Caesars takes much longer than it should for a fresh and ready pizza. Despite ordering ahead the girls and I… And two cats sit in the car in the parking lot for fifteen minutes before our pizza is ready because they were behind on orders.
We get home around 6, eat, pajamas and start bedtime routine around seven while I slowly do some cleaning around the house. Around 8:45 Marceline says she can’t sleep so I grab a pillow and blanket and lay down on her floor where I quickly fall asleep for an hour or so. I wake up at 10:15 very sore from sleeping on the floor on my back and drag my pillow and blanket back bed, shove a cat out of my spot and crash into sleep for the night.
Like I said. Busier day than a normal Tuesday and it left me exhausted. Today… Hopefully moderately better.
A few weeks ago Sam and Marceline reAd Harry Potter together and we watched the first movie.
Last week Marceline started the first Harry Potter novel on her own as a reread. She finished it two nights and immediately jumped into the second.
I forget how fun reading can be sometimes, or how much fun it is when you are young. I get up early most mornings and try to spend 30 minutes or so reading with my first coffee to start my day.
It’s not a chore… But almost routine now. I enjoy it… A lot .. but it’s definitely not the same joy that Marceline is displaying.
I haven’t been motivated much to work this week. Last week’s board meeting was draining.
I have enjoyed the courses on non-profit work, board etiquette and fundraising. But this week I’ve been reading and listening to music instead. Plus it’s damned cold out.
Marceline was having a rough morning. Just sleepy and didn’t have a lot of energy to get going this morning.
It was hard just getting her out the door, and despite being awake an hour before we had to get the out the door she was still eating breakfast while walking to the bus stop.
So I made a game of our walk to the bus stop where we would try to set one step onto every driveway on the way, and try to be secret about it.
We snickered and laughed while we zigzagged sneaking back and forth across the street to step on everyone’s driveways on the way to the bus.
I’m sure it looked ridiculous, but totally worked to cheer her up and get her emotionally ready for the bus and school.
Small things like that make me really glad I’m a parent. Just things I’d never experience if we didn’t have kids.
