Monday Thoughts

Monday always come too soon. I need at least one more day in the weekend! By the time I finish all the chores I do on the weekend, there's very little time for relaxing. I'm sure I'm not alone in that.

Being at work Monday always feels like such a shock. It seems like one minute I'm all snug in my bed and the next I'm walking into work looking around wondering what the boss is going to change or complain about today. We all seem a little shell shocked on Monday.

Why are cloudy Mondays so much harder? After all, don't the clouds match our general mood? It should be harder on sunny Mondays because we'd be wishing we could be home doing something outside or taking a drive somewhere fun.

Coffee is my go-to boost Monday afternoon. Cookies or cake, too. Monday needs a treat.  

In some ways Tuesday is harder than Monday. It's almost like Tuesday is a hangover from too much Monday.

Once Monday is over we can start looking forward to Friday. As the song says, everybody's working for the weekend!

Signs of Spring

There once was a spider named Fred,

Who filled clever Susie with dread,

She said Oh Em Gee!

His legs wiggled with glee,

Then in the shower he found himself dead.

               Here it is the beginning of April and the signs of Spring are few and far between.  We’ve been having cold weather and it seems like every other day we have snow falling.  There are a couple signs that the Earth is waking up after the long winter such as tulips starting to poke up through the cold ground and rotting leaves, the little bulge and some reddening on the tips of the lilac bush, and an errant spider in the shower as well as some tiny ants that found a little crack that needs to be grouted in the bathroom.  I could do without the last two for sure!  The spider joined me in the shower one very early morning and I dispatched him with the help of toilet paper and my fingers – ewwww!  The ants were a bit tougher, my daughter first dealt with them by spraying them with a bleach based shower cleaner, (why do we always notice these critters when we are in a vulnerable state of undress with limited weapons?), but they came back within hours.  So, I used good old Google to find a less caustic method of removing the little crawlers.  Among the solutions were: drawing a chalk line because the ants will not cross it, spraying with a lemon juice solution, and spraying with white vinegar.  Hmmm, I didn’t have the lemon juice solution ingredients, and the chalk line thing seemed a little amusing and I thought that maybe it would be good for not having ants contaminate a crime scene with a chalk outlined body but couldn’t see myself drawing a chalk line all around the top perimeter of my bathroom.  With my luck I’d have fallen off the ladder and injured myself.  I opted for the vinegar treatment and I am pleased to report that so far the ants have not come back after I sprayed their point of entry and all around the top of the room with it.  The only negative is that my house smelled like deli for a couple of days.  I’m keeping the spray bottle of vinegar in the bathroom for now in case once we actually have a few days of warm weather they decide to make a comeback.

I saw a robin in the tree,

He looked a bit confused to me,

Every branch was cold and white,

Not a tasty treat in sight,

The robin thought that it was Spring,

Isn’t he a silly thing?

               Yes, I did see a robin.  It was last Saturday during a storm in which we had over 6” of snow.  He did look a bit confused and our little suet feeder was empty.  I felt bad but I didn’t have another suet cake to put in it so he had to go find food somewhere else.  Sad. There would have been some bugs and seeds around if we were having a more typical spring.  I keep looking every day for the trees to begin forming buds, or the low brush along the road to have a tinge of green but so far no luck.  I just had a week off of work and had been hoping to do some Spring cleaning with the windows open and sun shining bright.  Most days were cold and either snowy, drizzly, and gloomy or just too cold, windy and overcast.  Disappointing, but there’s nothing I can do about it.  That’s what’s so frustrating about the weather—we can’t do a thing about it!  We just have to accept it and move on.  But if I could change it I sure would!

Go Away Winter

The morning’s dark,
Outside it’s cold,
This winter thing
Is getting old,
Give me sun,
And blooming flowers,
Not falling flakes,
That last for hours.

I mean it, I’m tired of Winter! This year it seems like it’s been extra cold and dark, and we’ve had 3 big snow storms in the last 2 weeks. Snow is pretty—on Christmas Eve & Christmas morning. After that, it’s just a hassle. It must be cleared from the deck, driveway and cars. Driving is dangerous and school and daycare centers either close or delay opening. It might melt during the day and refreeze at night making the roads and walkways treacherous to drive and walk on; pushing my daughter's wheelchair in snow and ice is not easy either!  I'm tired of spreading ice melter all over the deck and driveway, and the mess snowy boots and shoes make of the floors in the house.  I'm weary of bundling up in a bulky coat, scarf, and gloves.  Winter time laundry is more time consuming; the clothes are bigger and take up more room in the washer so there are extra loads, and those larger, heavier clothes take more time to dry, and the hampers fill up so quickly!  Soups and stews are nice, but a tossed salad of fresh from the garden (or local produce stand) vegetables, and chicken or a burger cooked on the grill are so much easier.  Cleanup is 1, 2, 3, and boom! You're done with summer cooking. I'm longing for a sunny, warm weekend afternoon spent sipping iced tea and reading on the deck while a light breeze gets the wind chimes tinkling in the background. Doesn't that sound like heaven?

Well, it's too bad that I'm tired of the cold and snow because if the weather forecasters are to be believed, we're in for at the very least more flurries and cold temperatures for the next 10 days, with the possibility of a 4th winter storm next week on the first day of Spring.  Holy cow! I've had enough!  I can't take one more obligatory snow picture for Instagram, write one more poem about the snow, and listen one more time to "Operation Snowflake" on the local radio station to hear the school and business closings without going mad!  Of course, I have no choice in what the weather does, so I'll just have to grin and bear it for a few more weeks.  Hopefully once the calendar says "Spring" the weather will catch up and we'll have some nice warm days filled with sunshine and some gentle showers to coax the leaves and flowers out of their Winter sleep and brighten up the landscape.  I can't wait for that!

Taken For Granted

          There is nothing like having surgery or something breaking to make you realize you have been taking things for granted.  My recent hand surgery made me think about how I don’t really think about them and how useful they are nearly every waking minute of the day; and how much I like washing them.  Then my glasses fell apart when I was home alone.  Did you ever think about being unable to do even the simplest things for yourself?  It is frustrating at the very least.

          I had a cyst removed from the middle finger of my non-dominant had, as well as carpal tunnel surgery.  We figured that as long as I was there in the operating room the doctor might as well address both problems.  The surgery was no big deal, we were only at the surgical center about 2 ½ hours before we were on the way home, my hand bandaged, and I was very hungry! It wasn’t painful, and ibuprophen took the discomfort away.  I was instructed to keep my hand dry until the stitches came out in 2 weeks. Do you know how many times a day you need to wash your hands?  Disposable gloves became part of my daily life.  Have you showered wearing a dishwashing glove with elastic around the bottom to keep water out?  I don’t recommend it, it’s annoying!  At least I was able to shower, though, so that’s a good thing.  Caring for Hillary and working each were made more interesting by my semi-useless hand.  Things I normally do with ease were more complicated by trying to compensate and still get things done in a timely manner.  Trying to put Hillary’s hair in a ponytail was hard, pushing her chair was not easy, and I couldn’t pull her up the ramp into the van.  Good thing we didn’t need to go anywhere just the two of us!  What I missed the most was washing my hand, and as soon as I got home from the stitches being removed it was the first thing I did! The second thing was use hand cream.  It felt so good!  I never appreciated that before, but sure do now.

          The day before the stitches were removed was my birthday.  That morning I forgot to clean my glasses before I left for work.  They felt a little loose so I decided that I would wait until I was home to clean them, in case they fell apart.  Once I was home and had finished reading all the birthday greetings on Facebook I took my glasses off to finally clean them, and they promptly fell apart.  The lense fell out and I tried to put it back in, with no luck. Desperately, I tried to get that lense to stay in the frame!  The problem is, I need my glasses to see up close.  So here I was, needing to fix glasses that I needed to wear to be able to fix them.  I remembered that my husband keeps a magnifying glass near his chair.  Great! Now I could see that a screw was missing, and we had a screw in a little eyeglass repair kit (also near his chair—how handy!).  I needed to hold the magnifying glass with one hand, but I needed 2 hands to do the repair.  I was one hand short! One and a half if you take into account that one hand wasn’t functioning at 100% yet.  I was determined to fix those glasses!  Well, let me tell you that determination is important but when you’re short a hand fixing something small like that is pretty difficult.  I couldn’t do it.  After about an hour I realized that I needed to see if I had an old pair of glasses around the house to wear until my husband came home.  I think I’ve been not appreciating my glasses and how I depend on them giving me the ability to see clearly.

          They say that you don’t appreciate things until they’re gone and I believe it to be true.  Whether it’s a person, the use of a hand, or your eyeglasses, when you don’t have them you appreciate how much they do for you.  Thank goodness that it was only a short time that I had to make do without.  I can’t imagine life absent of 2 healthy hands, and eyeglasses to give me clear vision.

"How Is This My Life?"

There is a phrase that I mutter to myself frequently these days usually when I'm in the middle of shoveling snow or working my way through a mountain of laundry on a Sunday afternoon.  I could just as easily say it with a more positive connotation when I'm doing something I really enjoy, or looking at beautiful scenery. That phrase is "how is this my life?"

Sometimes I wonder how I got to this place, this particular moment in time, and became who I am.  I can recount life events and decisions I made that lead to going one direction or the other and put me on the path to now.  For instance, what if I stayed in chemistry in high school, toughed it out instead of dropping it on the third day of school?  What career would I have chosen?  Would I have stayed in college instead of dropping out after the first year?  It's hard to say, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have met my dear husband and so wouldn't have my 2 girls.  Probably I wouldn't be a lunch lady now.  But if those 2 decisions had been different, I would have missed out on some very dear friends and many eye opening experiences associated with having a child with special needs; and knowing how many hungry families there are right in my own community.  I would have a different house, probably live in a different town and have a very different life.  It's a lot to think about.  I wouldn't want to change anything, I think that my youthful decisions led me to a wonderful place, a good life despite the moments that make me question things.  I believe there would always have been challenges and trials because they are inevitable, just as there would  have been many rewarding moments.  They would be different, I am sure.

I think that as I go forward though life, asking "how is this my life?" is a good way to take stock periodically and gain some perspective.  Maybe make some changes in my thinking and enjoy more of what comes my way.  How is this my life?  Because I have kept moving forward toward whatever comes next.  It's a pretty good life.