Here we are, face to face, a couple of silver spoons.
There is no logic to why I just recalled that lyric from the opening to a ricky schroeder show from the 80s. Evidently, he is a bit of a dick. go figure. i digress.
Neither do i feel much logic in the way the cold-like covid has returned to my family nest. Just one, so far, this time. But we will see. There are two of the four of us vaccinated here now, so will the story be different this time? Hm.
I don’t know. I surrender to the gods of eighties teen sitcoms. I do not know.
I think I’m close to speechless though. So, there is that novelty.
I’ll come back soon, most likely.
sigh.
lovelove
Flea market finds. photo by kate @unwifedmotherexpletive
I can’t tell anymore if my moods are because of anxiety about money, or grief, or resentments about past activities. or even the foods I am eating…
How I am stitched together:
I have a therapist, I have fresh veggies in the fridge, I have steps to take concerning money which is more than i might have, my kids are relatively healthy, but boys don’t talk as much as girls and that is deafening sometimes, when they are going through stuff and you only get the spottiest of details and all you can do is cook food for them that you think will make them happy and then you look at your plumpy round belly and recognize where it has come from.
comfort.
How I am falling apart:
reasons for anxiety and mood swings and depression,
bad food choices that are super comforting when they actually occur.
Hello macaroni and cheese, homemade of course, literally heavy with cheese.
i use a test kitchen recipe but I can’t link to it without you having to pay to join and that sucks so much I am going to boycott it. creamy stovetop mac and cheese, if you already pay to play.
3. And then there is candy. I’m partial to cinnamon bears and swedish fish, but also go down hard for chocolate riesen.
4. financial upheaval in the sense that I am still trying to move along with a refinance and trying to dream about a future that is sustainable for me, and might even truly sustain me. like, on the insides, with beauty, work, and joy.
5. i don’t have a lot of energy, which could relate to 1,2,3, or 4, really. And i’ve got a date to attend but I just don’t have any feelings about it and forcing myself to go do it is both good and bad and I’m not sure where I stand on it right now. gah, i don’t want to go, i just want to sit on the sofa and eat my candy goddamnit.
6. I’m heading off to the flower farm this morning, and the beauty will soothe the beast. But one thing I’ve realized now, in my third week of working at two farms, is that my body is not 27 anymore, and I need to be damn careful about how I stand, and how I position myself when I am hauling things, because damn, I need more hot baths than I have time for.
7. Goddamned fucking pandemic is making everyone so afraid still, and everything is tentative and weird and i keep wearing a mask but most people aren’t and I’m just confused as to if one of us is in the wrong or doing something useless. am i doing something useless? really? its exhausting. so goddamned exhausting. and still, nothing to do but feel the feels of the entire fucking world. swampy ground.
8. regular old depression. if you can pick that feeling out from all the others, and normalize it a little, that would feel good, i suppose, if depression feels good.
9. grief. feeling the loss of supports right now, even though new ones are popping up everywhere. grief. loss my shit yesterday at finding a recipe written in my lovely motherinlaws hand. its fine, its fine, i am holding it together.
fine. fine.
all you.
-lovelove.
and don’t worry about me, please, its just life.
Mess. Color. Beauty. Work. Fuschia and Nasturtium and Pansy
Well, two of the three kids have tested positive for covid. So, if you read that last post in which I whine? WELL.
I’m an asshole and so it is. No more whining except that I’m glad I’m vaccinated, and since they’re really quite recovered already, I can say I’m glad that they’ll have antibodies. Sigh.
And, on a positive note, my freezer will finally have its day. (i’m vaccinated, so according to the town nurse I can go to the store, but I’m concerned about the ego of the freezer, and how much its been looking forward to this day.)
It brings up a host of problems in co-parenting, in case you were wondering. So many and so varied, and so much of my life right now is just spent listening, and keeping my mouth shut and waiting for ‘conversation’ to end. I’m definitely out of practice of talking, because I do not know how people rattle on anymore. I really don’t.
Should I get out there and practice? (well, after we’re done quarantining.) Just go up to strangers and rattle off on them? or maybe that is what I use this forum for?
I honestly do not know. I think it might be time for more rattle practice, because listening sucks. I’d like to be the rattler for once.
See here for a small complaining post about why I wish we were all more thoughtful about covid in the schools, and parents, and homelives.
SO. My kids school requires a PCR molecular test if the kid has any of the covid symptoms. Not more than one, or seriousness or any such combination, just one. So my kid had a fever, a mild one but enough to knock her off her game and I kept her home til she recovered. Now, unless I get a doctor to say she has strep or some other distinct alternative to covid, she is essentially presumed to have covid and I have to keep her home for ten days.
And now I have another one with a fever.
SO. I feel this. I know that it is so complicated, and putting decisions like this in the hands of school nurses is just tragic. So, I really do get that. But with kids? There isn’t always a diagnosis to explain everything. Like, sometimes they just have a fever, or get a cold, you know? And yes, I’m getting two of my kids a PCR test today, Thursday, in hopes that, with a negative, they can go back to school on Monday. Because they have a dad who can GIVE a pcr test. because there were no appointments anywhere until SUNDAY. WHICH WOULD MEAN THEY COULDN”T GO BACK TIL POSSIBLY THURSDAY WHICH WOULD PUT ME AT ALMOST A WEEK PLUS OF NO SCHOOL FOR a 24 hour something or other, and in my daughter’s case she’s up and raring to go.
so. MONDAY.
I work at home, and won’t be doing any today or tomorrow and that is just wretched. But what are parents doing? Taking days off? A whole week’s worth?! Are parents going to start lying? Are doctors, knowing what vaguery is doing to a typical family life? Will people just send sick kids to school? Will nurses have to meet kids at the door to keep them out? How is this being handled?
ALL of this is grotesquely caricatured in the assumption that they are negative, of course.
I do not like this, sam.
And here I am. Driving for a covid test, fingers crossed that they’ll go back to school and science is a tricky business and full of rebels and thy will be done, etc. etc. And no, my kids aren’t vaccinated yet, but honestly, it would change absolutely nothing about this post, because the protocol is the same for everyone.
and yeah, i hear you out there calling me a whiner. I do. and I know, I am.
HERE ME WHINE.
-ugh.
Covid, in the shape of the light fixture in the living room. Its everywhere.
I’ve completed the hardest of my projects for this week, and i’m basking. Just momentarily, but still. And, a birthday is completed, and I can’t tell you how glad I am. And the cactus in the houseplant section of my kitchen are blooming. and there is joy in mudville. and tomorrow I get to go feed the chickens again. and that is invigorating. so much so.
so, its not necessarily the otherside, but its well down the path towards it. I can see those greener pastures of january first, i can.
there will be bumps, this is guaranteed.
I’m a bump-ridden kind of girl. But also, I’m a bump rider. I throw my hands up when the car goes over the tracks and I love the thump of my base when I hit the speedbumps. SO.
I wrote this morning about what is in my fridge and how I’m sadly familiar with the liquifaction of zucchini. and thats a bump, but i’m waving my arm around like I just don’t care. Can you see me? More liquid magic for the compost heap, baby.
And, determination. So much determination that maybe next year, I’ll even plant zucchini, just to prove it to myself that there is a way, somehow, someway, to get my kids to eat it. There is. I will lazerpoint my steely eyes on those children and watch them with glee when it happens to them.
The zuke.
(whats funny is that most of my writing this morning had to do with myself being a ‘pantser’ style (by the seat of your pants) writer, a writer without a plan who gets an idea and just runs. This post is a perfect example of the problem with pantsing. No doubt you did not expect the first sentence to lead you through this journey. Neither did I. I’m just along for the ride, like you.)
And herein lies the problem with this every day thing… no, no, i’m not going to say it, or type it, or even think it anymore.
i’m just going on faith here that if you read it, you’ll find something in it that you like. go digging. find something.
maybe my kids won’t need me to play hide the zucchini.
and because I think that sentence is so funny and leads to so much joy and hysteria, i’m going to stop right there.
