Taking a Day to Unwind, Refresh, and Breathe

Well, as we were up getting ready for church yesterday, Mom called and said that she just didn’t feel like going. She had said the day before she didn’t need much in the way of groceries, so I took the opportunity to stay home myself. It’s going to be rare to get a day off the rest of the year for catch up. I will have a few days off to wrap and get ready for Christmas coming in December. I was pretty worn out after our day out Saturday to shop for her rug and get that placed and move her table and get it on the 1st rug. I can’t hardly lift anything without paying for it later. My muscles are so weird. So I was so happy to have my productive hours on Sunday. Usually it’s about 3 when I get home and much past any productive hour of the day.

So what did I do with this new found time?

• Laundry of course – I had not been able to get much done Saturday. We have 2 loads of darks, a load of colors, a load of whites, a towel load, sheets load. And usually one other load like a blanket or tub mat. It takes me two days to get it done.
• Ironing. I didn’t have much to press. I hang dry my pants and they last twice as long that way, but it means pressing them. So I got three pair pressed.
• Cleaned the kitchen (twice).
• Fixed lunch. Spaghetti with the left over sauce from the night before.
• Cleaned/refreshed my bathroom
• Opened all the Amazon boxes that have come in, in the last week.
• Set up a return for something I ordered in XL and it came in as a 5X. WTH?
• Moved some warmer sweaters and sweatshirts over to my current closet and moved some late summer stuff over to the office closet. (Colder weather is here this week with temps 30 to 50 degrees.)
• Cleaned and dusted my office.
• Filed papers away that had been sitting there for the past month.
• Updated my Notion for November
• Ordered much of my Christmas items on the internet. It’s amazing what all we have done. The Amazon card is going to hurt when it comes in.
• I worked on my puzzle because I gave myself a reward time mid day. And I am half way through. I enjoyed it so much.
• I changed my sheets on my bed
• I picked out all my outfits for the week. I love doing this each week.
• I restocked my work bag with items I need for the work week: more peppermint hot tea, applesauce
• I worked a bit on my video editing and I am almost finished with the next video and that is good because we are gone a couple of nights this week.

I really miss having whole days to be home. As I age, my productive hours wane. I have a good window of time to be up and on my feet and after that I have to sit. I try to keep moving and fight with my body to do it because a body in movement stays in movement. I don’t want to freeze up and be immobile. So being able to get a few things done meant so much.

I still got my Bible study done. And George and I had steak for dinner. And we were able to watch TWO shows of Virgin River. This season has been sooooooooooo good. I think it’s my favorite season ever. My feet were swollen a bit so I put them up and was under a blanket and Maddie in my lap.

Random Photos this Week:

Unedited, just a few rain clouds coming in the early morn, giving a blue hue to the sky along with a bit of pink and purple.

My spaghetti that I fixed for us Friday night with meat sauce, mizithra with olive oil and all with a drizzle of balsamic glaze.

Me in the morning sun against the autumn leaves on Saturday before taking Mom out to eat and shop.

An old house in our neighborhood. It’s both an eye sore and a sweet memory of the old past in this area. I mean I guess the tornado or a storm took out that tree, bless its heart. The groundhogs live here now. I see them on the front porch quite often.

Cute little Halloween/Fall cookies at a nearby cafe/bakery. Mom and I ate there for lunch on Saturday. We had an awesome chicken salad sandwich. I enjoyed it so much. We were wicked bad and ordered cake because they had homemade cakes from scratch. I had coconut and Mom had the rare hard to find German Chocolate.

George really had a good day too taking the day off. He was able to move the stumps from the tree that fell in spring. It’s been a process. He got the wood moved over to the neighbor’s place where they have a fire pit fire often. We have been invited to come and join them any time. It sounds lovely but I’m usually about to crawl in bed as we have to get up so early.

I would say the trees are at peak and we’ll be losing most of them. But that said we do have some trees that are still green so it’s weird.

I was busy working in my office and I thought Maddie was by my side in the little bed that used to be Dexter’s but he would chew the stuffing out of it. (We had to put it up, but now that he is over doing stuff like that, I got it back out for Maddie and she uses it). Much to my surprise, it was Dexter. He barely fits but he wanted to hang with his Momma. Maddie was hanging with her Daddy while he was in his office.

Here’s some of our projects that were done in October. The month went by so fast. All in all I guess it was pretty good. I didn’t make much progress on my annual goals but we did get these things done. I feel so helpless at times trying to do the small things. I have a few things that I’ve had on the list all year long and have yet to do them: polishing my silver earrings, hemming my new PJ’s from a year ago, writing in my Grandma’s Journal (about 60% finished), and several household projects as well.

My list of things keeps growing but I keep rolling them over.

Oh and I have ordered Mom three pair of shoes. She liked the first pair and wanted two more pair in different colors. So I hope that she does not decide that she doesn’t like them after she wears them out. I love mine but I totally expect it because it’s hard to find anything that works for her. But I love mine. I have this blue one here. I think I ordered her black, khaki, and I forget the other color she had me order. I think they delivered yesterday. These are a slip on shoe and have memory foam at the bottom.

Ok over and out. Busy week this week. But quarter end is over and I’m so happy. I got the information early so that meant getting things done on time. It made a difference. Now I have to do the month end taxes. But that is pretty easy.

I hope you all have a great week. I feel better going into the week relaxed and accomplished rather than dragging my tail and frustrated that nothing was done here over the weekend. I feel steam rolled on those Monday mornings when I’m back at the grind and got nothing done on the home front. So I’m grateful that we took a day to unwind, refresh, and breathe.