Thirty weeks! If you're around my age, you probably remember when we weren't supposed to trust anyone older than 30. I hope this doesn't mean I have to start not trusting each passing week. They're hard enough to believe most weeks, but I like being able to trust that they will happen, pandemic or not.
I was feeling on the blue side earlier, feeling as if I were accomplishing nothing worthwhile nor anything creatively fun. I knit or needle felt in the evening while the husband does crossword puzzles or sudokus with the television on for background noise, but I don't want to head down to use the sewing or felting machine given that it's the one time the husband and I can sit together other than dinner. I forget sometimes that I do have a house to put back together which is why I'm not engaging in creative play during daytime hours. Managing to accomplish a relatively big thing this afternoon has helped me to feel better.
Back when my desk in the basement was a desk for work, I had a standing desk accessory on it. When the husband moved home to work, I gave it to him for his home office. He was missing the one he had used at his office. He ended up deciding that the desk in his home office did not have enough extra room with the standing desk device sitting on it. It went out into the hallway where it has sat pretty much since we started putting things back after the floor job. This week, I took the time to clean off my desk so that older son could carry the standing desk device down and put it back on my desk. The HP printer I had down here was too large, so I swapped it with the smaller Epson printer I'd sent up to the husband (yes, I had two printers on one desk).
This afternoon, after telling myself I'd feel better if I did something, I boxed up my laptop and anything else that did not need to be on the unused-for-eating side of the dining room table. Unexpectedly, I had to remove the Epson printer from the network and re-install it, which took a while. I am pleased to report that it works just fine. I just need to remember that it is installed on the wi-fi network associated with the wi-fi extender plugged into the wall just outside the door. As long as I log in to the same network, I can print just fine. Having accomplished my goal for the day, I feel much more upbeat. I had also forgotten how much I like working at a standing desk. Yes, life is good!
I kept my walk short this morning, for recovery purposes and due to the rain that was starting to pick up. At one point, the big pots of fall flowers outside several houses jumped out and hopped on my train of thought. Homey touches, just as the pumpkins on several porches were. I did, for several years, get pumpkins to put on our porch. A couple of years they were made into jack-o-lanterns that sat on the porch until they rotted. When the sons outgrew the jack-o-lantern stage, the pumpkins eventually became katana (Japanese Samurai sword) practice. I haven't gotten porch pumpkins for several years now. You can't see the porch from the road. Neither can we see the porch from inside the house.
Every August or September, my Facebook page gets decorated with first-day-of-school photos posted by various friends. Some, posted by younger friends, are of their kids in real time. Others posted by friends of a similar age to me are throw-backs. Am I a failed parent to admit that taking such photos never even entered my mind? I did recently ask older son if he would miss having such photos as memories of his childhood. He said he'd be embarrassed if such photos existed, and I expect he was being truthful.
Other potential family traditions came and went. The gingerbread house kits were a hit for one year. The sons competed to see who could come up with the best gingerbread house of horrors. They fashioned licorice strings into nooses, for example. Red frosting became the blood flowing out under the front door. Did they want to do this again the next year? Nope. I may eventually have thrown the kits away to keep me from eating all the candy I'd gotten for them to use.
When the sons were middle- and high-school age, I did start making homemade cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning something of a family tradition. I am still expected to make them even if older son's "healthy eating" means he won't eat any. So I guess I haven't been a total failure on the parenting or mothering front. At least that's what I tell myself as I eat the leftover cinnamon rolls.
I will now go rest on my laurels for writing a post bereft (save for this) of any mention of current politics. I think I've earned it.
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