The Holiday is Over

The holiday is over. It is time to wake up and have a regular, ordinary day-in-my-life. And I am ready. I am ready for (pretty much) anything. But please, Life, do not get too ambitious about what you throw my way. I am truly not that ready!"

My holiday is not quite what I had anticipated. I do not want to say that it was better. It was just unexpectedly different.

I had a leisurely day to bring Daycare back into our world here yesterday. I considered not making any moves in anticipation of this morning but my Youngest Son (wisely) suggested that it may simply make today more stressful than it has to be if I didn't prepare myself (and the house).

My room-with-a-door has been emptied of all of my family research materials and notes. I carefully rearranged all of my work in the spare bedroom that is off limits to my daycare family. I strategically placed the desk in the kitchen so that I can putter with Our Book at my leisure. I can't believe that I am saying this, but it felt good to rearrange my writing area within the hub of our home. I think that will make all the difference in the world, now that I am in the home stretch of this writing project.

The day prior, we 'took back' the downstairs bathroom and one of the drawers in the bathroom upstairs. Now that it has been a month since my Middle Son and his entourage seem to have officially moved out, I thought we could move a few of our things into the space they have vacated. Reclaiming some of our space has given me a whole new lease on life. One day (when I feel very ambitious) I will have to take on the garage...

This holiday has been tinged with 'loss'. Not only my mom's sister, but I found out yesterday that my brother-in-law (from my ex-husband's side) died. He was my husband's youngest brother. My memories of him are when he was young and full of life (and mischief). He was a ring bearer at our wedding. I remembered a photo of him dancing with my niece (they were both about ten years old at the time) so I went to look through our wedding pictures today and I spotted a picture of him dancing beside my aunt that died just six days before him. Brushing shoulders in life, brushing shoulders in death. It gave me the shivers as I stood and gazed at them dancing side by side over thirty six years ago.

I am not loving this part of the stage of life that I am at. A phase where I simply cannot have enough sympathy cards on hand. I do believe that I have handed out nearly as many sympathy cards as birthday cards this year...

On a lighter note (I am all about keeping things light these days - life is getting far too serious!), our Junior Cat has decided to take up his own version of 'office work'. He has been systematically working on pulling the encyclopedias out of the book shelf. I can push them all back into the shelf so they are all nice and even. The next time I look, they look like this (yes, those are claw marks that you see on the book covers!):

And I thought teaching my Daycare Crowd to obey my rules of the land was hard. This guy paroles the house while I sleep and does whatever he darn well pleases!

"Who? Me?? What are you talking about?!!"

I should wrap up this post-that-is-all-over-the-map and going nowhere fast and perhaps I could dust off those encyclopedias (yes, I just noticed the dust after I posted the picture) and get ready for my big day back. I just got a text from one of my moms and her little dynamo is staying home today. So I will ease gently back into my reality.

I'm dipping my toes in, nice and easy. I'm rested and ready and grateful for life-as-I-know-it to be ready and waiting for me this morning. Dust and all. I'm ready!