So I was just checking whether the spacing of my text worked out okay on today's post since it sometimes gets wonky after pictures.
(Note: It did. Also? World's most nitpicky blogger, at your service.)
And I realized that I pretty much posted the same post twice in a month. It even has the same title.
Sorry 'bout that. I'll try to be more original in the future.
(Scene: Our kitchen table. Yesterday)
Husband (wearily): All you think about is food, isn't it.
Me (with guilty belligerence): Yes. So?
Okay, I admit it. I am obsessed with food.
I am constantly thinking about what next week's meals are going to be (since this week's are already covered on my weekly menu plan, with all required ingredients happily stocked in my fridge). I watch the clock at work every day in anticipation of when I'll get to tuck into my daily apple with peanut butter. I think one of the nicest Saturday afternoon activities out there is to sit down on the couch with a cup of tea and a pile of cookbooks.
On vacation, I can only sit back and enjoy the scenery if I know exactly where and when the next meal will be (and a PDF of the menu on The Husband's phone is a definite plus). Grocery shopping is an hour-long affair, with full minutes spent agonizing over which brand of pasta sauce to buy and strolling slooooooowly through the aisles so I don't miss some tasty delight hidden on the top shelf.
(Like Bright Morning Chocolate Spread. Straight from Israel to the ethnic food aisle and then into my cupboard. It's like Nutella with no hazelnuts - dreamy chocolatey goodness for crepes nut-allergy style.)
This whole eating seasonally thing has pretty much put me over the edge. Today I started to panic a bit when I saw how so much of the farmer's market has turned to root veggies and storage crops. I frantically grabbed broccoli and peppers, which have since been cut, blanched, and now lie in their own early winter in my freezer.
Of course, the insanity leads to significant joy. Know anyone else who bursts out "SPINACH?!" on the street, scaring the poor farmer minding her own business behind her produce stand?
So you're probably all worried...checking every day and seeing that I haven't posted since the beginning of October...thinking, "Oh man, PM must be simply drowning in to-do lists these days."
Actually, not so much.
I'm really not that busy.
In fact, I'm so not that busy that I've been busy not being busy.
These days I'm busy harvesting the fruits of a labourious few months of saying "no":
"No, I will not be volunteering again at the MCC sale this year."
"No, I will not direct the Christmas pageant again this year."
"No, I will not teach ESL this year."
"No, we do not need to enroll the kids in swimming this semester if they are already involved in an extra-curricular activity each."
It's not easy, saying "no." You hear about it all the time - the guilt that we women feel (is it only women? I feel that it might be...) when we say it, as though by saying it we're admitting we can't do it all.
Know what?
I can.
In fact, I have. (See: single parenting two toddlers while working two jobs. See also: moving to a new country and finding a job/church/friends. Feel free to throw in 8 houses in as many years if you like.)
But I don't want to anymore. And I've decided that that is enough of a reason to hand out a few "no's" this year.
Oh, I'm still doing some great stuff. I'm still doing church small group and praise band. I'm still running (Monster Dash 10 mile race is in 11 days with costumes, whoop!).
But what I'm not doing is overscheduling myself or my family. Until I stopped doing it, I didn't realize how anxious and frustrated I got when the inevitable scheduling conflicts occurred or how depleting it was to go out for a third (or fourth) evening in a row. (Holy nerd alert, Batman!)
Turns out, I'm a total homebody. I kinda knew that already, since my favourite date night = Netflix and some cold Canadian beer. And it's not like I want to do this full-time. But I'm loving coming home, snuggling with my babies, helping with homework, puttering in the kitchen for an hour...even having the option to do a bit of reading before bed.
Best part is that I get to do this four nights a week!
Oh, better get going...it's 8:45 and I have just enough time to go tuck some littlekins in and shower before heading off to bed with tea and a book.
(Yup, I am officially O-L-D. Next stop - drinking plain hot water and sweaters with kleenexes tucked in the sleeves. [Oh wait...I already do that, too.])
Mom...
Yes?
How do you spell "favourite"?
F...A...V...O...
[hesitant pause]
And then?
[defeated sigh]
R...I...T...E....
(Can I claim the When in Rome defense? Or mollify you with protestations that he is already having to learn how to spell in both English and French and to throw in a dialect form of English is possibly a bit much for the second grade?
Yeah...it doesn't fly with me either.)
Heh heh heh.
This past weekend we snuck up to Manitoba to surprise my Dad for his 60th birthday. (It's actually next week, so I think we managed to really get the ol' heart pumping since his suspicions were targeted a few days out.)
Super fun to see everyone but, of course, super short. We made it to church, which gets stranger and stranger each time we go. It's the same...but not.
Always seems weird to be in Steinbach and *not* see certain people - to know that you're kilometres or even blocks away from people you love, yet they are oblivious to your presence and you're staying under the radar.
Oddly enough though, as we drove home (second time I've done the there-and-back-again-in-less-than-two-days trek in three weeks, gah), I was okay with it. Usually I'm super sad to leave. This time it wasn't so bad, maybe because I'm starting to realize that people haven't forgotten us like I feared, and that even though our visits are short and infrequent, they're still possible.
When we moved, Minneapolis was the second on a list of two - the first place was Winnipeg. Even though my heart is in Canada, this is the largest centre within a day's drive. And that "day's drive" was important. It meant no looking for flights, seat sales, car rentals, or having to plan at least a four-day trip each time. This particular "7.5 hour drive" might mean a new country and work visas and the Tea Party, but it also means I can go home when I need to.
And for surprise birthday parties, I totally need to!
And suddenly life got very full, very fast.
Everyone I talk to seems to agree, whether or not they have school-age children. Labour Day was some kind of crazy "on your mark, get set, GO!" moment after which we all found ourselves running the 100-yard dash.
(And we didn't even know we signed up for it.)
School is definitely the source of some of the busyness. We're back in the homework groove, although much more quickly than last year. The Girl has really matured (or just been beaten down into submission), and keeps track of her assignments and records her reading minutes with pretty minor supervision. The Boy's lone math sheet of the year prompted a lot of tears, but I imagine increased frequency will help there.
Extracurricular activites are another time suck. Football and soccer for The Boy, on Saturday and Sunday respectively, which has effectively destroyed any weekend plans until November. Piano for The Girl on Wednesdays, but I really shouldn't complain since we are super spoiley and the teacher comes to our house.
Plus, we haven't even started our church small group and we've only had one band practice. Add our new roster of orthodontic appointments, and my calendar's looking mighty crowded.
What makes this most ironic is that this schedule is the result of a concerted effort on my part to be less busy than last year. I've said NO to everything that permitted a graceful exit - teaching ESL, teaching Sunday School, directing the Christmas program. We postponed kids' swimming lessons until after the football season.
Heck, I'm even blogging less than my usual "three posts per month" of late.
And despite what looks like a crazy schedule, it's kinda working. I manage to be home four weeknights out of five, and I'm turning into a model of domesticity (partly a reflection of the season - y'all know how autumn makes me want to hibernate). There's homemade pasta, muffins, cookies, and soup - always soup this time of year. I'm making time to just sit down at the piano for an hour. I'm reading Encyclopedia Brown to my son at bedtime and helping my daughter figure out whether a square is a rhombus.
(Aside: Is it just me, or are the various polygram designations a la trapezoid/rhombus/hexagon and their ilk worth anything? The last time I had to know them was grade four.)
So if it's quiet around here, it's actually a good thing. No news is good news (albeit somewhat boring news, I suppose).
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