Another Monday

My first post for the Rocky Mountain Moms Blog is up; you can check it out here if you are so inclined. And please leave a comment if you read it, because I have this terrible paranoia that if they don't think anyone is interested, they will boot me off as a contributor and I will feel horribly ashamed and embarrassed that I wasn't good enough. Oh. Did I say that out loud? Perhaps I still have one or two self-esteem issues to work on...


It is Monday now, another foggy day in which the trees and grass are white with the frost, looking beautiful in their bareness rather than simply stark. When I was younger, I used to hate to fog; it scared me by muffling and disguising the world with which I was familiar. Now, as an adult, I love it; the way it blurs everything and makes it seem softer than it truly is, the way the lights of the houses shine out like beacons, is a comfort to me.


We had a pleasant weekend, albeit a quiet one, which seems to be par for the course for us lately. I am still having a hard time shaking this cough and stuffy head, clear back from when I had bronchitis forever ago, so I walk around feeling tired and half-deaf from congestion. Therefore, the quiet hasn't been just nice, but necessary. I did go to AA on Friday and it was better than it has been, less uncomfortable, and for that I was grateful. Although some lines have been drawn with regards to the CF factor, it was as if the single mindedness of purpose was more evident, which made it much easier to be there. In the meantime, I have been immersing myself in AA literature and talking at length to a few close friends in the program, and all of that serves to keep me sober for another day.


I had to go get my taxes done on Saturday, which used to be really exciting (refund!) but has become instead just one more thing to be done. I still get a refund, of course, but there are always so many things to be taken care of that it doesn't have the same zip it used to. Don't get me wrong, I am grateful that it is there; I will have enough that I will be okay until the rest of the garnishment is paid, which is just barely over $1000 now; THAT is huge, the ONE really big thing that has fucked with my finances for the last year. There are also mundane, not-fun things to be done like get new tires, go get my eyes checked (the last time I had an exam was before I got pregnant with Owen, so going on 4 years now...a necessity this year, as I am really beginning to have problems seeing things. I choose to think it is because my glasses are old, NOT that I am getting older! Just sayin.'), etc...However, what is good is that I will be able to get those things taken care of, so even though I won't get to go on a wild spending spree, I will be able to breathe a little easier, and that is a wonderful feeling.

There is one thing I AM going to splurge on, though: I have one free night's stay at a Best Western Hotel coming (I tell you, those reward programs actually do pay off eventually), and I am going to take that, and pay for one, and take a weekend off. For myself. Alone. No kids, no animals, no Steve (a given), just-ALONE. I am not going to go anywhere new or fancy or exciting, just the next town over (45 miles away), but I am going to browse through the used bookstores and drink coffee at my favorite little place and take long walks along the canyon and just.be.alone. Every year I vow I am going to do this, and I never have yet. Last year I did go to Seattle, and that was wonderful and much needed and a huge blessing, but I wasn't alone, and I long to be. Some might say it is a foolish use of resources, and perhaps they would be right, but for me, right now, it feels necessary.

Nothing else much happened over the weekend; as I said, I am still not feeling well, so I slept a lot, read, did things around the house. The kids were all especially nice this weekend, too, maybe because the older two were either gone or had friends over the whole weekend so were less inclined to torment Sam, I don't know. Sam took Owen outside for a while on Saturday which was good for both of them, and then I took Sam grocery shopping with me. He craves attention SO much, and misbehaves to GET attention (SOME generalizations are true, I have found out), so I have been really trying to spend more time with him one-on-one. Grocery shopping seems like such a strange way to do it, but it works. He feels like he is getting to do something fun, he gets to feel like he is contributing (I ask his advice on certain things, or ask him to help me figure out which is cheaper, or which heads of garlic look the freshest), and he really is a big help. It is one of those small things that seems to make a really big difference.

And now, back to work. The town is quiet, with the banks and post office and city offices all closed for Martin Luther King Day. The private school is closed as well, but the public schools are open, as are we. People must be laboring under the assumption that our office is closed as well, because there have been very few phone calls today, and you know, that is just fine with me. Tomorrow will, I am sure, make up for today. I have phone calsl to make tomorrow to offices that are closed today, work that had to be done but can't be done today, and tomorrow I will spend a lot of time trying to catch up on things I should be doing today. No matter; it will all get done in time.