I found myself at the grocery store yesterday, completely baffled. Only I wasn’t baffled because I was at the grocery store. I had a list with food items on it, so I was where I needed to be. No, the confusion came because of the oddity of the moment. Let me explain.
All of the kids are gone to the grandparents for a couple of weeks. This magical phenomenon happens a couple of times a year. After waving them goodbye, I always run maniacally through the house cleaning up. Every room gets a good, solid hit. All trash cans are emptied, all sheets are changed, all clothes are washed, and all toys are picked up. I scan the recent movies out in the theatre. I schedule appointments that just aren’t convenient to take kids to. And I go through all of my “sometime when the kids are gone” recipes searching for things that I want to cook.
I’m not a huge fan of the short-order supper cooking. Oh, sometimes I do it. But mostly I try to plan meals that include multiple items so everyone can find at least one thing that they will eat. That means processed chicken products, macaroni and cheese, rolls with butter and red-hot applesauce grace our table frequently. But when the kids are gone? Those menus take a momentary hiatus.
Which leads me back to the grocery store confusion. I wasn’t at the Wal-mart Supercenter, which was the first thing that was wacky. (Good thing it wasn’t Wednesday, or I might have gone right over the edge, you know?) Second, I was alone and taking my time. And third, the things on my list and going into my cart were strange and unrecognizable.
I was in the produce section. I looked into my cart and realized that half of my list came from the produce section. Ok, that NEVER happens. I had things like red and green peppers, zucchini, green onions, tomatoes and fruit. The dairy section is usually pretty lengthy on my list. But today, I only had 1 gallon of milk in my cart, not 4. I had ricotta cheese, vanilla yogurt and honey butter biscuits. And the cheese? Not processed yellow squares. I had 5 Blend Italian and Muenster. I don’t even know how to pronounce that! The bread in my cart was croissants and English muffins. I looked down and saw raw shrimp and sirloin steaks and real ham in there. Where were the Pop-tarts? And the cereal? And the chips? Strangely missing. But oh, wait…there’s a box of crackers! But not cheese-its or goldfish. Nope, these crackers were the expensive large multi-grain kind. Faaaancy.
The bewilderment passed, but the odd feeling that I was temporarily living someone else’s life made me smile. I found my way to the checkout. Halfway through the process, the bored girl asked me how I was doing. For once I didn’t lie when I said I was doing great.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
School's Out
Ok, so it’s official. I can no longer call it simply “the weekend” or even “the long holiday weekend”. Starting today, it’s summer break, and mostly I love summer break.
Mostly.
I love day after day of being able to get up when I want, with no agenda but the one I make. I love being able to go with the flow of my preferred body’s schedule of doing things. First thing is taking care of last night’s dishes, sorting clothes to get the laundry going, or adding a few things to the weekly grocery list. Next is breakfast while doing a little reading—my current Bible study, my daily Bible reading, or an old but much-loved book from years ago that I happened upon the night before and took a renewed interest in.
If I’m going to exercise, it’s going to happen in the summer. During the school year, I refuse to get up early and deprive my body of sleep to exercise, and I also hate doing it after I have already showered later in the afternoon. But in the summer, I’m able to accommodate my 10:00-11:00 AM tolerance window for exercise, and usually talk myself into working some in.
After a shower is lunch; then the afternoon is mine to design as I choose, usually among a variety of long-term projects that I have running, like catching up on the family scrapbook, organizing the kids school-year binders, or more recently, researching and writing articles and lesson plans for mission trip work in Malawi.
Supper is much more laid-back in the summer. I still make menus and cook, but now I’m not juggling multiple people getting home to eat it at multiple times. When Dad gets home, we eat. Then we do whatever strikes our fancy. Maybe we play the Wii, or a board game. Maybe we go for a walk. Or maybe everybody just retreats to their own area of the house for awhile.
Bedtime is...flexible…in the summer. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say “nonexistent”. Who knows what time the kids really go to sleep? If we don’t have anywhere to go the next morning, I don’t care. Tyler takes up permanent residence on the upstairs couch in the summers. Why? Because he can, I suppose. And because it’s the closest place to sleep to his computer.
So that leaves the parts that I don’t like about summer break.
One, is the constant hazardous waste zone that is called our house. I’m a neat freak. (Not to be confused with a clean freak, which I definitely am NOT). Things can be dirty, as long as they are in their place. But in the summer, nothing is in it’s place. The swim bag and beach towels take permanent residence in the floor. Wet swim suits are wadded up in the most inconvenient of places. Dirty lunch plates, empty coke cans and a multitude of toys litter the family rooms. Every light is on, every TV is running, and every computer is playing some ditty over and over and over until I want to scream.
Two, summer means the swimming pool is open. And other than my daily shower and ice cold bottles to drink, I’m not a water fan. So I try to put the kids off as long as possible by offering water balloons and turning on the sprinklers in the back yard. When that gets old, I throw out the “the water is still cold” card. Of course that one only works for so long.
Three, when the kids are all home, the decibel level in the house is astronomical. Even if they aren’t fussing and arguing, which they usually are, with 4 children at least talking (and possibly screaming), plus 4 computers running, plus a couple of TV’s, plus a kazoo or two…well you get the point. It’s the one time a year I’m actually glad that I seem to be losing my hearing at an early age.
But overall, summer is awesome. Schedules are lax, bedtime is whenever, and baths are optional (the sprinkler counts, right?) And one day very, very far away (meaning the next time I blink) and I’m all old and the days all run together and I don’t know what time it is and I can’t hear anything at all and the kids are all gone living their own lives with their own kids and they only come and visit me once a year or when they need something—well, THEN I’ll probably miss these days. And I’ll have to fight off the temptation to turn on every light in the house and leave all the TV’s running and possibly throw all of my underwear all over the floor and leave it there for a week.
Or maybe not.
Mostly.
I love day after day of being able to get up when I want, with no agenda but the one I make. I love being able to go with the flow of my preferred body’s schedule of doing things. First thing is taking care of last night’s dishes, sorting clothes to get the laundry going, or adding a few things to the weekly grocery list. Next is breakfast while doing a little reading—my current Bible study, my daily Bible reading, or an old but much-loved book from years ago that I happened upon the night before and took a renewed interest in.
If I’m going to exercise, it’s going to happen in the summer. During the school year, I refuse to get up early and deprive my body of sleep to exercise, and I also hate doing it after I have already showered later in the afternoon. But in the summer, I’m able to accommodate my 10:00-11:00 AM tolerance window for exercise, and usually talk myself into working some in.
After a shower is lunch; then the afternoon is mine to design as I choose, usually among a variety of long-term projects that I have running, like catching up on the family scrapbook, organizing the kids school-year binders, or more recently, researching and writing articles and lesson plans for mission trip work in Malawi.
Supper is much more laid-back in the summer. I still make menus and cook, but now I’m not juggling multiple people getting home to eat it at multiple times. When Dad gets home, we eat. Then we do whatever strikes our fancy. Maybe we play the Wii, or a board game. Maybe we go for a walk. Or maybe everybody just retreats to their own area of the house for awhile.
Bedtime is...flexible…in the summer. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say “nonexistent”. Who knows what time the kids really go to sleep? If we don’t have anywhere to go the next morning, I don’t care. Tyler takes up permanent residence on the upstairs couch in the summers. Why? Because he can, I suppose. And because it’s the closest place to sleep to his computer.
So that leaves the parts that I don’t like about summer break.
One, is the constant hazardous waste zone that is called our house. I’m a neat freak. (Not to be confused with a clean freak, which I definitely am NOT). Things can be dirty, as long as they are in their place. But in the summer, nothing is in it’s place. The swim bag and beach towels take permanent residence in the floor. Wet swim suits are wadded up in the most inconvenient of places. Dirty lunch plates, empty coke cans and a multitude of toys litter the family rooms. Every light is on, every TV is running, and every computer is playing some ditty over and over and over until I want to scream.
Two, summer means the swimming pool is open. And other than my daily shower and ice cold bottles to drink, I’m not a water fan. So I try to put the kids off as long as possible by offering water balloons and turning on the sprinklers in the back yard. When that gets old, I throw out the “the water is still cold” card. Of course that one only works for so long.
Three, when the kids are all home, the decibel level in the house is astronomical. Even if they aren’t fussing and arguing, which they usually are, with 4 children at least talking (and possibly screaming), plus 4 computers running, plus a couple of TV’s, plus a kazoo or two…well you get the point. It’s the one time a year I’m actually glad that I seem to be losing my hearing at an early age.
But overall, summer is awesome. Schedules are lax, bedtime is whenever, and baths are optional (the sprinkler counts, right?) And one day very, very far away (meaning the next time I blink) and I’m all old and the days all run together and I don’t know what time it is and I can’t hear anything at all and the kids are all gone living their own lives with their own kids and they only come and visit me once a year or when they need something—well, THEN I’ll probably miss these days. And I’ll have to fight off the temptation to turn on every light in the house and leave all the TV’s running and possibly throw all of my underwear all over the floor and leave it there for a week.
Or maybe not.
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