Last weekend I had a four-day weekend. Monday was a holiday and both the kids were off, but then my entire team was given a bonus day off on Friday due to a job well done on year-end work. Jacob was also off that day, so any visions I would have had of a blissful solo day were off the table before they started, but I was grateful for the extra long weekend regardless. I had considered taking down Christmas decorations the prior weekend but when I realized I had a long weekend coming up (only three days at the time), I decided to wait. De-Christmasing is a lot of work and I figured the bonus day of rest on Monday would be much needed.
The good news was that because Carter had to go to school Friday, it meant I had to get up and out of bed early, which meant I was able to get a good start on the Christmas decor. In fact, I got everything taken down and nearly everything put away by lunch time. I had a couple straggler things to figure out, like the window clings and some of the winter decor that was staying up, but having that huge step done by midday was huge. Well, then my parents called and said that they were coming for Jacob's game that night. We had talked about it, but there was a heavy, wet snow that morning and a winter weather advisory in place for most of the day so we figured it would be too crappy to come. As a result, I didn't really go too nuts with cleaning earlier in the week. But then the snow was done sooner than expected and the roads were generally clear so they decided to come. I took a break from redecorating at that point and started cleaning! I dusted most of the now-empty surfaces, vacuumed the entire main floor and the upstairs hallway, did some touch-ups in the bathroom, and tried to neaten up the kitchen and any surfaces piled with stuff. I had a very productive but rather tiring four hours, but I was happy with where the house was by the time they arrived. It was nice to see things looking a bit more neat and uncluttered--both from the lack of Christmas decor and from cleaning--and I've been trying very hard to keep it neat since. Losing battle, but I'm trying.
The fun thing was that my trees were still up when my parents came so my mom got to look at my ornaments, which was a nice bit of nostalgia for her, I think. She loved my theme tree with all the handmade ornaments, and also enjoyed looking at the angels she's given me, as well as the ones from my grandma, her mother. And it was fun showing my parents our ridiculous LED light options, too! Carter and I had dinner with them before heading to the game, which was jam packed! It wasn't the best game--the team's leading scorer was hurt and half of the team has decided to play "hero ball" lately so scoring has been hard to come by for some players, but especially Jacob and one of the seniors. They're just not getting passes right now. This was their big rival who they beat pretty comfortably last time, and yet this time they struggled. Jacob did finally get a clutch three to bring them within one late in the game, but they just couldn't finish it. It was really disappointing. When we talked to the senior (who also happens to be a cousin to the leading scorer), he told us he felt bad for Jacob because he got there a year too late--last year the entire game plan was centered around three-point shooting. He is discouraged quite like Jacob that they're just not getting passed to. He was averaging in the teens earlier in the season, and now he and Jacob are lucky to each get four points in a game. There's more to it than that (questionable coaching included), but it's been a bummer and pretty tough to watch knowing there's a lot of potential not being used right now when they need scoring. Still, I think my parents enjoyed watching him play.
The rest of the weekend feels a bit like a blur. All I know is I did an awful lot of stuff over those four days, and every time I thought I was going to get to hang out or do some sort of relaxing thing, I somehow ended up with another list of things to do. Craig left around noon on Saturday for a Sunday road game, so it was me and the boys until very early Monday. I did three loads of laundry at some point and I got my small tree down on Saturday. I worked out twice, which was nice and quite rare as of late, although I am still battling what appears to be a case of tennis elbow in both elbows. Both are sort of sore and stiff at times, though one is way worse than the other because my forearm feels like the muscle is going to tear every time I reach for something or lift something heavy, particularly above shoulder height. I think the workouts help in the long run by strengthening muscles around it, but in the short term it's hard and tiring. And doing stuff all over the house for a few days, including a lot of lifting, made it hard to rest it. I did ask the chiropractor about it this week when Jacob went in for treatment, and he did a quick, effective, but very painful treatment on it that made a difference and at least confirmed it's probably just tennis elbow and not something more concerning. Anyway...I had a trip to Wegmans Saturday evening and spent over an hour that night making churros with our Christmas gift of a churro maker (very good!). I wanted to be more productive that day but it just didn't happen. I think I was tired and my workout made it worse so I probably did veg on my phone and try to rest more than I would have liked for how productive I needed to be.
Sunday we did church and suffered through the Bills game while I took down the big tree. The beginning of the Bills playoff game was great, a 17-0 lead, and then the wheels fell off. The game got tied, the Bills took a mere three-point lead into the half, but the second half was more of the mess and they ended up behind a team they were supposed to beat handily as the Dolphins were playing without their top two quarterbacks. It was around that time that Jacob had to go to basketball training, which was a relief because I could avoid watching the game and just selectively listen on the radio in between switching to the game Craig was broadcasting at the same time! On the way home, I decided to stop at Aldi because Jacob had been asking for an exercise bike because he feels his legs are getting too fatigued during games. Knowing he can be fickle and picky, and knowing we had limited space, I wasn't really on board...but then I remembered that Aldi had their "Poorleton", as people call it--a $99 folding exercise bike that people really seem to like. I figured it was probably my best bet to satisfy him with the least financial risk, and I recalled that the location near his school had a lot of them the previous week. I needed to get their special buy gluten-free Texas Toast anyway, so it was worth a shot. I walked around the store and finally found the bike. Once again, I battled my arm to get it in the cart (or on it, rather) and probably looked like a freak finishing my shopping pushing that around. It took a minute to wedge it in the car but it was fine...until I realized I needed to take it home first because Jacob wouldn't fit in the front seat, which was pushed up to allow the back seat to be folded down. So I flew home, brought it in, and left right away again to pick Jacob up. The Bills pulled out a three-point win as I drove (there's that Damar Hamlin "three" again!), and the Knighthawks wrapped up their win on the way back. We enjoyed our Texas Toast with a new dinner attempt (Tuscan Chicken Pasta), and I finished up the tree that night. I pushed hard to get the house back in order despite being extra tired by that point. Once the tree was hauled and bagged, I moved two chairs back into place, vacuumed up, and got everything except the toy corners back to normal so I didn't have to worry about it Monday.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that in the middle of all of this, our toilet started malfunctioning. Last week we noticed that the toilet wasn't flushing as easily--like, you really had to hold down the handle to make it go. Eventually I realized the flush bar was slowly breaking off, so I stopped at Lowe's when I went to Wegmans Saturday night and got a new one. When I replaced it, the toilet still wasn't flushing right. It was filling super slowly and just trickling out of the fill valve. I had a spare fill valve, but when I went to turn off the shut-off valve to empty the tank, it wouldn't work! At this point I figured I probably needed to call our plumber, but if I was going to do that, maybe it was time to replace the entire toilet. It came with the house 13 years ago (and it looks like the toilet itself may have been around since 2003) and the finish under the rim had worn off, which left it permanently stained by minerals and whatever else. It wasn't super obvious unless you were at the right angle but it annoyed me to no end. Plus our snake to unclog it scratched the porcelain a bit around the drain hole, so it was just feeling like time if the plumber was coming anyway. It turned out that what we needed was a little harder to find. The old toilet and the sink we replaced a couple years ago are both "bone" in color, rather than standard white. Turns out bone is getting pretty rare! I did find one in stock a half hour away, so I bought it online and Craig and I took a little trip out there on Monday. Last thing he wanted to do, I'm sure, after getting home from his roadtrip at 2:30am. But it was actually only about five minutes away from Jacob's weightlifting trainer, and therefore pretty quick and painless (other than getting it in the house--again, my poor arm). Once that was set, I got lucky and confirmed the plumber for Tuesday! So, in the middle of all of that weekend stuff, we navigated avoiding the upstairs toilet, getting a new one, and coordinating the install. Oddly, once the plumber got here, things were working right--the fill valve worked and the shut-off was OK, but it was good we did it because the shut-off was corroded, the wax ring was pretty beat, and something about how the toilet attaches to the floor wasn't secured quite right (like, from the time the house was built!), so all of that was good to get fixed even if I'm not sure why everything seemed to be malfunctioning on Saturday. Whew.
The rest of Monday involved my second workout, assembling the exercise bike, taking Carter to basketball practice...and I have no idea what else. It just seemed like whenever I wanted to sit down and play Super Mario with Carter or watch TV or whatever else, something else always came up. I feel like I did dishes a bunch, made a lot of meals, cleaned up random spots in the house, and probably took one too many "quick" phone breaks, but there were so many things I never got back around to. Bringing up the toy shelf and reorganizing the toys, fixing a hole in Carter's sneaker, refreshing my car CDs, documenting donations, washing bedding, cleaning the shower, and probably half a dozen other things I'm forgetting were all left undone. Sigh.
Jacob and I recently had an argument about taking care of things around the house. He gets mad because he can't find his stuff, and in some cases it's because it was taken from its spot for laundry or he left something where it clearly couldn't stay. My response is always that if he is unsatisfied with things like that, then he needs to take care of his stuff--do his own laundry, put things away, don't leave things where they don't belong. He says he's too busy to do it properly--and yes, I understand that school, homework, basketball, and a minimal amount of down time doesn't leave him a lot of spare time, but he doesn't seem to realize that it takes 30 seconds to put things in the laundry basket or garbage, or a minute to grab something on your way through a room and put it where it belongs. If someone else does your laundry, make a commitment to running downstairs and grabbing the dry stuff the next day, or plan your wardrobe and pack your bag the night before so we can fix those issues when we're not pressed for time. I explained that I don't have a lot of time in my day either to constantly take care of his stuff, and he said I would if I didn't spend time scrolling Facebook on my phone. I, of course, said that I need downtime because I work all day, cook dinner, clean up, and know that the next time I stand up it might be an hour or two before I sit down and relax again. He does the same when he plays video games or watches videos. We're both busy and we both deserve downtime...fair enough. But I still don't think that excuses him from taking care of his stuff or his garbage or getting mad when something isn't where he expects. We're usually doing him a favor to help him out with things like laundry or helping to pack his bag when he's running late, and if he doesn't want that, he needs to take steps to make it unnecessary because we refuse to live among garbage, dirty clothes, and clutter.
I tell this story only because (as I admitted) sometimes my phone time probably gives the illusion I have all of this downtime. But I realized that most of the time I only do the phone thing because I know I don't have a lot of time and usually I don't want to get into a more complicated project that I won't be able to finish. My phone feels like something to fill time in between, something that I can stop when needed, an activity that uses minimal brain power and gives me a little mental break. If I don't get interrupted, then yes, I do spend more time on it than I should. As a result, I'm not as efficient and I don't get back around to the projects I should be doing instead. That is an issue, for sure. It's my version of why Carter rarely plays with toys--the phone is simple, it's there, it doesn't take setup time, and it's fun. But when your brain immediately goes there for instant gratification instead of digging deeper to the things you should be doing that take more time and effort, it's a problem. It is for him, and it is for me. But then I feel like I do an endless stream of things for other people and the household, and I feel justified in taking a half hour to just veg out with my phone. But then I wonder where my time went and why I can't get things done. It's a horrible cycle. If I don't take those chunks of time for me, then I might not have any self-care time...because usually I feel guilty if I do anything much more involved for myself. It's why I rarely just sit and watch TV anymore, because I know I should be doing something more productive and committing an hour seems too long, so a "quick" phone break is better...right? It's a mess.
But all this to say that I had four days off and still felt like I was as busy as I would have been had I been working. Yes, I had some extra phone breaks and even a little time to rest and sleep in, so that's not really the case, but it is so hard as a mom to do the self-care thing, to take the time to do the stuff that's not productive, and to do it without guilt or letting other tasks pile up. It's why an away vacation is always preferable to a staycation, because when you're home, there will always be things you should be doing--always something to be cleaned or cooked or organized. It's why in college I always felt like I should be catching up on my reading for all of my classes and felt guilty if I added another TV break or nap--there was always something else that I should be doing. That's why I loved summer and winter break when classes were over; it was the one time that wasn't the case. And to this day, I will generally not "reward" myself with anything more than a phone break until I get all the pressing things done...and then as now, that list never ends. So the phone break remains and other things remain undone. UGH.
I don't mean to complain--this is the life I chose, though I don't think I realized just how relentless the to-do list might be. You know you'll be at your kids' beckon call, you know you'll be sleep deprived, you know you will be busy, your life won't be your own, and your heart will walk outside your body. But the depth of it all isn't clear until you're in the thick of it. Some days it's almost too much. The mental load is more than the physical load, and I don't know that I realized that either. There's just not much of a break, mentally or physically. And even though I appreciated four straight days with no work, it amazed me how much I had to fill my time at home--and even then there was a long list left undone. It's a wonder how any of us make it through.
The four-day week was a nice consolation prize for getting back in the groove, even if it felt like a typically long week. I never did get any of those other things done, and today was equally unproductive between being abnormally tired (again) and going to Carter's first basketball game. But now we're stuck in a long stretch before the next round of school breaks, so I need to push through on some of those tasks at some point. Once again...maybe tomorrow?
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