A Step in the Right Direction

 I am seriously contemplating taking a step outside my safe little COVID induced isolated little world. I am planning a day trip.

The incentive? An afternoon with my siblings. Oh, how I have missed my sibling time.

I have had a brief deck-visit with my sisters but I was uneasy. I didn't breathe in the moments the way I normally do.

Socializing is depleting me more than it is invigorating me these days. This trend was beginning before these months of isolation. The ongoing "state of emergency" recommendations have simply given me permission to be more of who I already was.

If anything or anyone can push me out of my comfort zone and take one step into the land of being social, it is my siblings. I think I'm ready.

This upcoming visit has one condition: "Weather permitting" These two words bring me great comfort. I am hopeful but not fully committed.

Story of my life. Hope without commitment. I don't want this state of mind to become my norm. I am in good hands taking this first tentative state with my siblings. It's up to me to make the most of this time of great hope.

No Words

Just a little thing that makes me smile. 

Finding my furry friend at the foot of my bed, using the foot board as a pillow. 

Oh, my purr kitty.

Charlotte

Meet our new neighbor. She moved in three days ago and is settling in nicely.

                                                        I have named her "Charlotte"

I am grateful for the pane of glass that separates us from "Charlotte's Web"

Cooking and Housework

I have stumbled upon a very valid justification as to why "cooking and housework" fall to the bottom of my to-do-list more often than ever before. My excuse? Working from home.

Having my job move in with me is a perfect diversion from cleaning the fridge, culling and shredding obsolete paperwork and a bazillion other little tasks I could and should be doing. I do what has to be done. Our home is quite presentable and the untrained eye would say it is just fine. Only I know what deep dark chores lurk within the nooks and crannies of our humble abode. 

Then there is this household task called "cooking". Any cooking must be done before I step into my home office for the day. Once my head is work-mode, cooking is the furthest thing from my mind. Lunch consists of food of the grab 'n go variety. The closest thing I come to cooking during a work day, is toasting a bagel. I must know in advance what I'm going to pack for my supper meal otherwise I'm in trouble as I race out the door to my second job. 

One would think I would make up for lost cooking time on the weekends. One would be wrong. I tend to go to one of two extremes - a complete and total catatonic state OR I do some extra bookkeeping work. 

Yes, working from home has become a perfect alibi for me to get away with murder (or in my case, it absolves me of cooking and housekeeping duties).

Yesterday morning, I woke up to the onerous task of making spaghetti and meat sauce from the hamburger I had thawing in the fridge. I was supposed to cook this the day prior. But I worked instead. Working and cooking cannot co-exist within the same 24 hour period UNLESS I only work a half day (my rules - don't question them).

Plus, a can of tuna was sitting on the counter beside the tomato paste for the meat sauce, begging to be made into tuna salad for my favorite lunch of all time - toasted tuna sandwiches.

You can only imagine my angst as I looked at all this work taunting me before I stepped into my work day. I did not back down from the challenge. I took on the job before me. An hour (maybe an hour and a half?) later, the kitchen was back in its pre-cooking state. My lunch and supper meals were ready to eat and grab on the fly. And spaghetti & meat sauce was sitting in a ready-to-eat state within the fridge. 

All evidence of the work I had just accomplished was swept clean and I went on to live another work day.

Mom once reminded me of a comment I made when I was a child. I wished there was a pill I could take instead of having to eat. I was not a big fan of eating in those days. 

Then I grew up to be a mom myself and wished I could just go to the store and buy a huge bag of Kid Chow, the way I could buy Purina Cat and Dog Chow for our pets. 

Now? I could exist on a rinse and repeat menu of the same meals day in and day out. No thinking required. Smoothie and coffee for breakfast; toasted tuna sandwich for lunch; chili & rice for supper; Pringles, something sweet and Diet Coke for snacks. Oh! And my newest delectable find of all? Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip cookies from Walmart's bakery section. 

Just think how easy it would be to buy groceries if the need for variety within one's menu didn't exist? I may have more energy for housework if I didn't have to cook. 

Same Old, Same Old (The Sequel)

I woke up this morning, bemoaning the fact that I will eventually have to leave the house today and wondered what I would wear. Oh, how I would love to be a cartoon character with a closet full of identical clothing. No choices to make, no worries about how something may feel/look or go together. Just a grab and go wardrobe with no need to spend time thinking.

Wilma Flintstone comes to mind when I think of cartoon wardrobes. She wore the same dress day in and day out throughout her stint on the Flintstones. She did have a dressy version of the very same dress and her maternity wardrobe was adapted to fit her figure. But all in all? One dress fit all occasions. Just accessorize and change the material and/or length as required.

Speaking of Wilma, what about that hair? Same style. Day in, day out. In all my recollections of the Flintstones, I cannot recall a time when a hair was out of place. Same color. No bad hair cuts. No bad hair days. Same. Same. Same. I have often said I'd like hair like a short-haired cat. Who has ever taken a cat for a haircut? The graying process is gradual and natural. Short and simple? I would just like hair that always looked the same. Day in, day out. No maintenance required. 

I believe I may have been a cartoon character in another life. My longing for sameness and predictability is ongoing. Sure, cartoon shows have their climactic peaks and valleys. But everything is solved by the end of the half hour show. No cliff hangers. No season finales full of mystery and intrigue. Same. Same. Same.

At the end of the above paragraph, I titled this post "Same Old, Same Old". I had a déjà vu moment and immediately searched my blog for a post of a similar title. Sure enough, on November 27th, 2019 I have a post with the identical title with not only an identical theme, but I wrote about my desire to have hair like a cat.

Maybe I already am a cartoon character. Living life on repeat is calming and predictable. But does anyone else get the feeling I am writing about the same thing over and over again? Yep. Me too.

It's a Jungle Out There

My son has taken over lawn mowing duties this summer and I have stopped looking at our yard in its entirety. My line of vision has come to see only the front yard as I drive into the garage, and the back yard as I walk from the garage to the back door. Everything else is a blur.

In order to lessen the distractions while taking a personal phone call, I have started taking the phone outside. I will carry a chair wherever the shade may be and it feels like I'm transported to another world when I am sitting in the comfort of our own back yard.

Except ... while looking at the back yard from a different angle, I was astounded at the weeds that sprouted since I last looked around the corner of our house.

Thistles had taken over and had deeply rooted themselves in the rocks. Other weeds had grown just as tall but were easier to pull. Little weeds were multiplying and this formerly weedless space had gone to seed and flourished while my back was turned.

The next time I sat outside, I noticed the weeds growing along the chain link fence area. Again, it was the thistles that ruled the area with the odd tree seed settling in as well. I took this time to pick all the weeds I could spot in the yard. Considering I had just weeded the back yard a few weeks ago, I was a little disillusioned how fast the weeds went forth and multiplied.

The next day, I thought I'd better peek at the back alley to see what had transpired back there since its last weed-free-inspection several months ago. Oh. My. Gosh. It was overgrown with every type of weed in the neighborhood.

I pulled weeds for well over an hour. I thought of my daycaring days when I simply puttered in the yard while the kids played. Pulling weeds as I spotted them on a regular basis resulted in a yard that looked like someone who cared lived here. 

Working in my office inside the house, I rarely step outside during my regularly scheduled work week. I don't putter with a thing because I cannot work and putter at the same time. Everything that must be done still gets done. But the little things are piling up.

As it is with the weeds in the back yard, so it is within the cozy little "storage places" within our home. My little piles are growing and multiplying while my back is turned. 

I need to figure out how to work from home more effectively. Work spills into my weekends. When I'm not working, I'm not fully immersed in anything productive in or around our home. I play mindless games on the computer or stare at the TV set until my brain is numb enough to sleep.

Something's gotta change. Nature is telling me to wake up and pull the weeds before we run out of summer weather. It's a jungle out there. 

The Vacation Not Taken

In a preemptive move after last year's excessive holiday spending, I started saving the vacation pay off of every pay cheque. I started my savings on August 31st. I have just been paid to July 31st. One year's savings have accumulated. 

One year of slow but steady saving has resulted in a grand total of $1,475.92 sitting in a little nest egg with the words "vacation pay" noted on each and every deposit.

In the grand scheme of things it is a pretty small amount. But if I hadn't put it aside, this very same amount of money would have been eaten up by day to day living. I am quite certain my chequing account would not have ended up with an excess equal to this amount. In my brain, chequing accounts = spending accounts. Money simply passes through and the goal is to keep it in the black (which normally results in a balance quite close to zero). 

Yes! I have a little vacation fund!! Yay, me!!!

Here I sit in my quiet little COVID world, spending little, going out less and quite enjoying the long harvest this year. I have spent many months squirreling away my acorns for a "winter" (aka: vacation) that is not on the horizon.

Do I long for time off? Yes. Do I wish I had vacation plans? No.

My thoughts continue to swirl around and focus on our home and the bathrooms that never got updated in the Year of Renovations. I think how fast $10,000 would go if we tackled a bathroom and I am quite happy to sit home and continue doing what I am doing.

I ponder the day when my 18 year old car will need to be replaced. Never in a million years would I replace it with a brand new vehicle but again, $10,000 would disappear very quickly when looking for a newer, reliable car.

I know the world is becoming restless with social distancing advisories, ever-increasing cases of COVID-19 and coming to terms with the realization that our "new normal" is unlike anything we have experienced in our lifetime.

I also realize our economy would be in real trouble if everyone in the world was content to stay home and squirrel away any excess they may find in their already sparse budget fearing the long, cold winter which may or may not be the result of this strange new world we are navigating. 

But I'm not adding to our country's deficit and I am paying my own way. So I am playing a small part in not worsening the state of our economy.

Another year of saving may result in doubling today's figure. One year in our future, a vacation may be something I would consider. The truth of the matter is we have absolutely no idea where we may be one year from now. Who would have ever predicted today's reality?

To save or not to save. That is the question.

I love the idea of my vacation fund. This small little savings account allows me a place to dream. Just a little. The vacation not taken this year will provide an opportunity for something else to step in, in its place.