March madness

If I hadn't used the post title last week, I might have called this one "notes from a zombie," because it's the first day of Daylight Saving Time and that's how I feel -- senselessly, since I didn't have to get up early today. I woke up at 7 -- old time -- a few minutes before my alarm would have gone off if it had been set -- which it hadn't been, because it's Sunday -- but I still felt tired, and I considered rolling over and going back to sleep.

And then I thought: no, don't do that, because it's 8 am new time. So I got up. Or rather, I grabbed my phone and checked my email and did Wordle. And then I got up. Which should have been fine, because I'd turned off my light at midnight, so that's almost enough sleep. I should be feeling fairly rested today. But I'm doing that time change thing where you check the time every few minutes -- or seconds -- and think, OMG, it can't be THAT late already. (For instance, right now apparently it's 1:03 pm and it feels like it might be about 11 am.) Which induces zombiness. So that's how I feel. And I know you all do too (unless you live in Arizona or Hawaii). Welcome to zombie-land, all of us.

This was kind of a terrible week, so I'm basically really glad it's over and don't care that much about the time change (I'll care about it tomorrow, when I have to get the twins up an hour earlier than usual).

First, on Tuesday, we had a tiny little ice storm, barely visible, but it was enough to cause my next-door neighbor to slip on her driveway (i.e., the driveway to the house that we own) and break her ankle. I would have missed the whole thing except that I saw the lights of the ambulance reflecting on the living room wall (I was down the hall in the kids' room). She had to go to the hospital and didn't come home until Thursday night. 

My main involvement with her disaster (so far) has been tracking down a shower chair for her (I borrowed one from another neighbor), texting back and forth with her and a friend of hers and another neighbor, and stressing out because I wasn't doing enough. Oh, and thinking about "what if it had been me?" which was good for some sleepless nights. She asked me, via text, if I could pick up some groceries for her teenagers -- and then it occurred to me that what she was really asking was could I make dinner for her teenagers. And I froze. Froze so solid I couldn't reply to her text to say yes, I'd get groceries. 

Make dinner for someone else! Of course, when someone is injured or ill or whatever, that's what you do, you make dinner for them. When I had my heart procedure and couldn't use my right hand/arm very well for a couple of weeks, two people in my book group brought us dinner. One brought a jar of spaghetti sauce and some pre-made fresh pasta from the deli, and the other made a veggie lasagna which fed us for two or three nights. I was so grateful to both of them, I was just overwhelmed. 

So why couldn't I do that for my neighbors? It's a real puzzle. Instead of going to the store and getting some ingredients, I went into a tailspin. I panicked. I thought about moving, or even just driving away and not coming back. I thought about killing myself (don't worry, I'm not going to do that). Various people I told about my dilemma got a little cross with me (Rocket Boy, my sister). I agreed with them! But I couldn't do it. I got my mind all wrapped around the idea that they wouldn't like what I cook, that I would make a mistake (or several) in the cooking process and the food would turn out horribly, that they would just throw it in the trash -- I don't know why I went down that road. It makes no sense.

One factor possibly contributing to the problem was the second bad thing about the week: the twins' 15th birthday. I have given up trying to understand why I hate their birthday so much. Well, that's not true, I actually spend a lot of time each year obsessing about the reason why. Is it because I'm reliving the terrible two days I spent in the hospital trying to have them? Am I remembering the bad birthdays of the past: the year we invited everyone in both their preschool classes, rented a party room, and only two kids came; or the year Teen B's three best friends not only said they couldn't come to his party, they all dumped him the next day (which was also the year I threw out my back the morning we were supposed to bring treats to school for their birthday)? Or could it have something to do with my general hatred for the month of March, which also happens to be not only the month my father died, but also the month my mother had a nervous breakdown (back in 1970) and had to be hospitalized for several weeks?

I don't know. All I know is that I dread their birthday more than I dread any other day of the year -- no other day comes close, really. I used to kind of dread my birthday, and Mother's Day, because I felt like my family neglected me those days, but now I do things for myself on those days and it's fine, more than fine. 

And their birthday has gotten so easy! We don't do parties anymore. If they wanted to organize an outing with a friend, of course I'd make that happen, but they don't want to. (And nobody they know seems to invite them to celebrate a birthday either. Maybe it's just not a teen boy thing.)  I don't wear myself out making fancy train cakes or cat cakes. I went to Safeway on the morning of the 9th and bought a white cake for Teen A and a chocolate cake for Teen B (their choice) and everyone was happy. Oh, and no fancy dinners either -- we got MacDonald's, their choice.

Presents are normally a little stressful, but they were pretty easy this year. One of my sisters sent checks and the other sent two games (both excellent choices). So I got the kids each some cash and just a few little presents (some new t-shirts from Target and a keyboard from Goodwill for Teen A; a graphic novel and an IOU for a new water bottle for Teen B). And in lieu of "wrapping" I just stuck everything in old gift bags (first checking to see if the existing tag matched the kid I was giving the present to). They were amused: "Haven't I seen this bag, like, a million times before?"

So I don't know why I hate their birthday. I only know I do. Actually, once I got it all set up and we went through it -- opened gifts and cards, lit candles, sang happy birthday, had some cake -- I was fine. It was over and all the stress evaporated. 

And the next day I texted my neighbor and asked her if I could help with anything, but she said her brother was helping her that day, so she was fine. I check my phone every so often to see if she needs anything, but there have been no requests. So there you go. I completely blew it during the time she really needed help, and now she doesn't need me. Maybe she'll need me at some point next week.

***

Anyway, the bad week is over, and now we move on to the middle of March. I have two weeks before Spring Break and I have some ideas about how I want to spend them. I want to start building some new habits, so I thought these two weeks would be a nice contained time in which to experiment with them. 

Right now, my weekdays follow this schedule (roughly). Each # represents an hour or two.

1. Get up, get the kids off to school
2. Feed the cats, eat breakfast, do basic routines like putting away the clean dishes, starting a load of laundry, doing the breakfast dishes
3. Do some house cleaning, Fly Lady missions, decluttering
4. Write for a while
5. Eat lunch, maybe take a walk, maybe do an errand
   
6. Try to earn some money through Mechanical Turk
7. Work on the project of the month -- taxes, files, etc.
8. Kids come home
9. Dinner prep
10. Evening stuff: homework, whatever I didn't get to during the day
11. Feed cats, kids to bed, finish up the dishes, take a shower, read for a while, go to bed
    

For the next two weeks, I'm going to make a few slight changes to this schedule. 

First, I'm going to move my walks to the end of the day, around 4:30 or 5 pm (in the slot called "Kids come home"). Might as well make use of the extra hour of daylight we've just been given. Also, leaving the house soon after the kids come home is usually a good plan, to get away from their grumpiness, give them some time to decompress.

Second, I'm going to flip my money-earning (such as it is) and my project work. So I'll eat lunch (#5) and then work on a project for an hour, before spending an hour or two trying to earn money.

Finally, and this is the (slightly) interesting part, I'm going to divide my "project" time into three types of activities. On Mondays and Thursdays I will spend an hour on the files and piles in the desk room. On Tuesdays and Fridays I will lift weights. And on Wednesdays and Saturdays I will work outside (if it isn't snowing), mostly picking up leaves and branches to put in the compost bin. I want to start working in the yard again, but I can't do anything until I pick up all the mess that's everywhere (I kind of stopped paying attention to the yard last summer).

So, it's a very low-key plan, but I'm interested in it. And if it's a total failure, if I can't get myself to pick up a hand weight on Tuesday or a dead branch on Wednesday, that's fine. I can regroup in April.

***

The only things on the calendar for this week are my parent group on Tuesday and a haircut on Wednesday. I've even planned my meals already:

• Tonight: Grandma Peg's goulash
• Monday: leftovers
• Tuesday: nacho casserole
• Wednesday: leftovers
• Thursday: Thai pineapple fried rice
• Friday: maybe corned beef & cole slaw tacos, unless I lose my nerve
  

Pretty much any of these (except Friday's experiment) could be delivered next door in a pinch (and then we'd have pancakes or fried sandwiches or whatever).

Well, it's already 2:30, horrible new time, so I think I might go to the grocery store. Or have a piece of leftover birthday cake. Or both. It's all good.