Husband Away (46/60)

The sky all day today was deep blue and clear and tonight as the sun sank in the west . . . the afterglow lasted a full hour . . . we could not stop being amazed by the site.

This is Finnegan's attempt to capture the mountains being outlined with the last light of the day.

John is in Florida. Tomorrow Phoebe turns 19. And there was no food in our house.

So, today was a busy day of purchasing gifts, food, and cleaning up for the party tomorrow.

Her requests for food and desert:

Food:
BBQ chicken
scalloped potatoes
big salad

Desert:
Brownies
Ice Cream
Chocolate sauce
and
Danish Pastries

That's it.

And for Phoebe, we will do it.

And decorate the whole house and hide nineteen 19s and blow up balloons and think about how much we love our Phoebe Laine.

Until then, I have six loads of laundry to fold, two children to put to bed, and a kitchen to clean.

So off I go.

Here's a shout out to all the single mama's who do this every day with less support and more demands. You have my respect and admiration. If there is anything I can do to help . . . please please let me. Thank you for being so strong and doing so much so well with so little. You are my heroes.

Comments

Forced Frugality

We are going on ten months of looking for a job. Last September, after a rather horrid ten months, John got the boot. It was oddly and rather unfairly done, but a great relief to all of us. Working at that company had become a puzzle that grew harder and harder each day until it was in fact, impossible. The stress of it took a wild toll on John's mental and physical health. By the end, he was neither eating nor sleeping. He had strange episodes of racing heart and an inability to tell what was real and what was imagined. I sat him down and told him I would use up every penny of our retirement and sell the house if it meant he could stop working in that environment. And it may take all that. And I still won't regret it. When I feel rather sorry for myself, I remember what life was like for him a year ago and then I don't feel sad that I am once again digging through my closet to find a new way to wear old things. In fact, there is part of me (small though it

The Best Kind of Tired

My often daily life . . . (John is two feet away—I can’t do all of them by myself) Last week, every single time I sat down, I almost instantly fell asleep. I kept telling John, I have the sleeping disease. What is going on? Am I getting old? Is it the covid after effects? What on earth? He didn’t have any answers for me because he was doing the same thing. We didn’t really do anything for seven days straights. And our kids joined us in the sleepy, do nothing, lazy slug bug state. It wasn’t until this morning as I was looking over the pictures of the summer that I realized why. . . We literally haven’t stopped ALL summer long—one awesome amazing trip/visit/fun after the other. It’s like we are making up for last years “staycations.” Holy hannah have we ever made up for it. Just about did ourselves in playing and hugging and kissing and caring for babies. Highlights of the summer (in no particular order): Cousin sleepovers have resumed (most missed activity since the pandem

Midlife-Cri-sis

It's been a year. I'll sum it up by saying that food no longer tastes good to me. The last time that happened, I had lost three pregnancies in a row and John had lost and found a job and we had moved three times. The feeling is very similar. There have a been a lot of losses or near losses. Enough that when the phone pings with a text or vibrates with a call (I long ago turned off the ringer), I take a deep breath and think, you can do this . More times than not, I need that deep breath. I am probably in the second half of my life and I feel it. 47. My children are nearly grown. My house is established. Our bank accounts don't fluctuate like they used to. I don't go to the store and dream of being able to buy things. I walk into my closet and wonder what I can do without. I feel the finality of my existence and I wonder . . . what do I really want out of all this? For book club, we read A Million Miles in a Thousand Years . It's about re-writing o

The Phoenix: Epicuriousmothering Rising

Search This Blog