Enjoying June

I'm really enjoying June. We're two and a half weeks into it, and I've enjoyed it all so far -- despite all the things that keep going wrong. It's been very peaceful -- no Rocket Boy around planning activities and no teachers assigning homework projects. We go to bed at a reasonable hour (10 pm or so for the twins, maybe 11:30 for me), and get up when we want to, usually somewhere between 7 and 8. Though yesterday Teen B got up at 5 am because he couldn't sleep because it was too hot. That was bad. But today I slept in until 7:30 or so, got up around 8:15. Very relaxing. 

Rocket Boy plans to arrive sometime during Fourth of July weekend, and that will be great too -- we'll do activities, celebrate my birthday, and all that. But I'm really liking the peacefulness of June.

So, what went wrong this week? My car died. The air conditioner stopped working early in the week and I decided I'd better take it in to be looked at. It's too hot in the summers now to go without a/c, and I'm going to try to keep my car at least five more years, so it's worth it to spend the money, even if it's a couple thousand or whatever. But on my way home Thursday (I was doing errands, very aware of how hot it was without a/c), the car started making a rattling sound. When I got home and parked in the driveway, the rattle got worse. And when I turned off the engine, clouds of smoke/steam came out of the hood. The next day Rocket Boy walked me through opening the hood and looking at what's underneath it, and we determined that I have a radiator leak. Among other things.

My regular shop, Hoshi, couldn't get me in until July 6th, but Rocket Boy called around and found another shop that can take me on June 22nd. Still, it's a long time to go without a car. Especially for someone with a tailbone injury, making it hard to go for long walks, e.g., to the grocery store.

HOWEVER, this morning the twins and I decided we would try to walk to the store, because we always get Starbucks on Sunday morning. First, I tried again to order Starbucks delivered. It is a very great mystery to me why I cannot make that work. A month ago, when we all had Covid, I signed up with UberEats (which delivers Starbucks) and even gave them my credit card info, but couldn't make the order go through. This time when I went to the website, it remembered me and told me it had my credit card stored -- but I still couldn't make the order go through. It would not let me click on "Order now" or "Purchase" or whatever it was. I checked everything over and over, couldn't see anything wrong with anything, I'd chosen sizes for everything, all of that. But something was wrong, because it wouldn't let me order. I wandered through the website, looking for an explanation, and then when I got back to my order, it told me it had deleted all my items! There was some comment about how I had very discerning taste. WTF?

So our only option was to walk. I decided it was worth a try. If we got all the way there and I was in too much pain to walk home, I could call for a Lyft. 

We decided to walk to the Starbucks inside King Soopers, because that was only .7 mile away, unlike the Starbucks we usually go to in Basemar which is 1 mile. And it worked! I managed to walk there, I bought them their Starbucks stuff (nothing for me), I did a tiny bit of shopping (bread, raspberries), and we walked home. And I was OK. That is, I was in pain, but not any more pain than is usual right now. We walked slowly (it was kind of hot and humid -- humid for Colorado, anyway), and I was OK. 

The only problem we had was that Teen B had brought his own money with him and insisted on buying five cans of Arizona Iced Tea (Green Tea with Ginseng flavor), which is his new favorite drink. He bought these even though I had just bought him a Mango Dragonfruit Lemonade Starbucks Refreshers Beverage (that's really its name). I refused to carry the cans home in my backpack along with the groceries and my purse and my water bottle, so he carried them in a plastic bag (I hadn't brought any reusable bags with me because I had my backpack). The plastic bag was not intended to carry five large heavy cans and quickly broke. Eventually I agreed to carry one can and his Starbucks drink. The bag broke again. We stopped at every bench in the park to rearrange the cans. Teen A (who never has any money and thus couldn't buy his own nonsense) kept up a steady stream of criticism. Eventually Teen B stuck the broken bag in his pocket and carried four cans rolled in his shirt. Somehow, we made it home.

But I'm psyched! Now I can walk back to the store tomorrow, bringing my little grocery cart, and do a real (small) shopping. Maybe I'll even bring a cooler and we can get frozen stuff.

Of course, there's always a complication, and the latest one came in the form of a text from my cousin Kathy in Nebraska. I thought she told me they'd be out here in July, but it turns out it's June, and it's this week. They'll be staying in Lyons. Would I like to come out and see them? Of course I would, but I can't do it without a car. Lyons is pretty far away to take a Lyft (19 miles). They'll be here Tuesday to Thursday. My car goes into the shop on Wednesday morning. I decided to just say "yes!" and figure it all out later. Can I rent a car? I'll work on this tomorrow.

I had another good week of FLYing with the FlyLady. I can't tell you how much I am enjoying her program! Every day when I get up I make the bed, put away the clean dishes (which are clean because I DID them the night before), and start a load of laundry. I feed the cats, eat my breakfast, and decide what I'm having for dinner. And then I start on my little tasks. Every day there is a small cleaning task (except Monday, when you're supposed to "bless your house," which takes longer), and then I'm supposed to spend 15 minutes decluttering. In addition, there's the special task for the day (Tuesday is planning, Wednesday is doing something you've been putting off, Thursday is errands). And at some point I have to move the laundry to the dryer and later put it away, and then I have to make dinner, and at the end of the day I do the dishes. It's all so easy, it blows my mind.

This past week we were in Zone 3, which is the bathroom and one other room (I chose the office). Some of the things I did in the bathroom this week were (1) throwing away a lot of old expired toiletries and recycling a lot of empty bottles which for some unknown reason we were storing in there, (2) cleaning the shower walls and the windowsill and the sink, (3) cleaning the baseboards even though it wasn't on her list, because they always get so dusty. Cleaning the tub wasn't on the list, so I imagine that will be next month or the month after. I cleaned mine a little anyway, because when I cleaned the windowsill a lot of dirt splashed down into the tub. It's all good.

I couldn't really clean the office because it is too cluttered. Instead I spent 15 minutes every day (six days straight) decluttering. It is still incredibly cluttered, but I made some progress. Of course I don't have a "before" picture, but take my word for it, this is an improvement. "Before," I had a row of books on the floor, too. I managed to cull about 20 books -- some belonged elsewhere in the house, but I'm going to try to find new homes for a dozen books on technical and business writing, because I AM NEVER GOING TO TEACH TECHNICAL OR BUSINESS WRITING EVER AGAIN. I know, never say never. But really. I'd rather work at King Soopers than teach those classes again.

One of the nicest things about her system is that you're not supposed to work on the weekend. Saturday is "Family Fun Day" and Sunday is "Go to Church Day" except she doesn't call it that. What does she call it? "Renew Your Spirit." Which means, to her, Go to Church. But I substitute "Starbucks" for "Church" and we're all good. You're still supposed to make your bed and do the dishes and do a load of laundry -- and maybe declutter, I'm not sure. I did a load of laundry today but skipped Saturday. I did 15 minutes of decluttering yesterday but I'm skipping today.

We didn't do anything special for Family Fun Day, not having a car. We got takeout from Subway. They forgot Teen A's chips, used the wrong bread on Teen B's sandwich (they used white bread and he was really puzzled by it -- "what IS this bread? it's so puffy!"), and didn't toast either sandwich, but what the heck, it was only $43 including delivery and a tip. Of course, all I got was a cookie, so $43, hmm. I don't care, I don't want to give up my once a week not having to cook dinner. Even if it means I don't actually GET any dinner. 

No, I'm wrong, we did do something for Family Fun Day. After dinner, we walked to their old elementary school and played basketball. Teen B wanted to go to the park and play tennis, but Teen A wanted a break from tennis, so we did this instead. They each brought a ball and I was the ball retriever (this is usually my role when we play tennis, too). I walked very slowly and carefully after the balls (I'm terrified of falling again). Teen A was in good form and pretended to be a basketball instructor, shouting to me to "Watch how I do this! No, not that, watch this! No, not that, watch this!" until he finally made a basket. Then Teen B was allowed to be the instructor. They pretended to be their tennis coach, who they don't like. 

I feel so lucky that we get along so well. I mean, OK, we don't always. The two of them fight like cats and dogs. But they get along with me pretty well. Really, things are better than they were, say, five or six years ago. I'm not sure when things changed, but they're so nice right now. High school is coming, two months from now, and soon we'll have fights about serious things like drugs and alcohol, more mature relationships with whoever they end up having relationships with, driving, cutting class, I don't know what all. But it's so nice to have one more easy, pleasant summer.

So, the week ahead. I've got this car problem to figure out -- how to get to Lyons and also how to get my car repaired and all that. I'll have to walk to do my grocery shopping and hurry home before everything melts. And an old friend from high school is supposed to be showing up on Friday or Saturday, so that will mean a bus trip to Denver (if it actually happens). With the FlyLady, we'll be focusing on the master bedroom, and I plan to work on the twins' room as well. I looked at her flight plan for the week: it looks fun. Monday we clean under the bed, Tuesday on top of the bed, Wednesday the left side, Thursday the right side, and Friday the end of the bed. I think both rooms will look very different by Friday evening.

I haven't planned the week's meals yet, and that's a problem, because I've now been sitting (writing this blog post) just about as long as I'm able to sit these days. Last week's meals worked out so well! My book group came on Monday and I ordered two "party trays" from King Soopers for it: an antipasto tray and a fruit tray. Of course, there was tons of food left over afterwards, so I planned a meal around each type of leftover. Tuesday we had pita bread sandwiches with hummus and olives, Wednesday we had baked feta (using the chunks of feta) with leftover honeydew melon as a side, Thursday we had mozzarella biscuits (using the mozzarella balls) with leftover cantaloupe as a side, Friday we had pasta with a sauce made from the leftover sweet red peppers, and both Friday and Saturday we had smoothies made from all the rest of the leftover fruit. It was so wonderful.

Maybe I can go lie down and plan meals from that position. Hmm. My tailbone area is just as painful as it was 10 days ago, maybe more. I finally emailed my doctor and she said yep, it's really painful and yep, it takes a really long time to heal. So I've given up and now I take painkillers four times a day. Two ibuprofen when I get up, two tylenol after lunch, two ibuprofen around dinner time, and two tylenol at bedtime. And I'm still in so much pain. This is a really crappy injury, one that I encourage people not to get.

But there you are. Crap happens. And we swallow our painkillers and try to keep going.