Diet changes are always tough. Giving up things I love to eat or nearly giving them up is not on my list of favorite things. Cutting way bock on salt and sugar is a real kick in the teeth. I crave loads of sweet things so I tried making my own granola bars… spoiler alert: the recipes I found all had sugar in them… so I’ll need to work on finding some without added sugar. I like an oat base, which is typical of granola bars, so yay! But with my allergies I need to avoid a lot of nuts, some dried fruits etc. So things I can use:
honey or maple syrup
peanuts
sunflower seeds
dried cranberries
dried apricots
coconut
dried blueberries
peanut butter
dried cherries
A lot of recipes call for chocolate or white chocolate, some have pretzels or other odd additions I want to steer clear of. My first attempt does have some mini chocolate chips included because I am making these in a weird time where we have no credit cards because we had to cancel them because someone stole the numbers and wired themselves a bunch of money. So we have what we have until we get new ones. Sadly we are probably going to have to wait a while because that jackass who took over the postal system is so busy destroying it. Ah well, we’ve got food.
My Doctor says I have a fatty liver and we’ll need to do an ultrasound after the pandemic is more under control. I don’t think this explains my joint pain but I know all the tests ruled out a whole bunch of things so there’s that. So, this diagnosis means lifestyle changes like diet and exercise. I’m to lose between 15-20 LBs. and eat whole grains, fruits, veg, all the stuff they always tell you to eat, and I need to limit dairy, meats, fats, salt, sugar and alcohol… all the stuff they always tell you to limit. No real surprises. Funny how the same diet is good for so many things isn’t it? Not really, I feel foolish because I had a fairly excellent diet years ago and my burgeoning food allergies caused me to more or less give up. It seems I should have stuck with it even though it was getting harder to maintain. Oh well, this is where I am, this is what I have, so I’ll go from here.
Under this new lifestyle I also need to drink more water which, happily, I enjoy. I had fruit and tea and iced mint tea for breakfast this morning so off to a good start there. We’ll see how I do the rest of the day. Olive oil is supposed to be good in moderation and I can have avocados which I like. I’m allergic to almost all nuts and I hate olives so those are out. A Mediterranean diet is recommended but I’m allergic to tomatoes, lemons, nuts… and a host of other things that make healthy eating difficult. Obviously I’ll have to work on this, figure things out, limiting dairy and fried foods is going to suck.
Maybe I need to make a list of foods I especially like that are “allowed” in my new diet so I can focus on that instead of all the things I’m losing and need to curtail. Good foods I love:
Avocados
Mushrooms
Raspberries
Homemade granola
Sunflower seeds
Kale
Chickpeas
Potatoes
Limes
Sesame seeds
Summer squash pasta sauce
Onions
Garlic
Kidney Beans
Blueberries
Mint tea
Rice
Okra
Butternut squash
Apples
Pears
Nectarines
Red peppers
Beets
Broccoli
Zucchini
Scallions
Garlic scapes
Asparagus
So, pleny there to work with, and I am allowed some dairy, though I imagine my holiday indulgences will be way off book. I’m glad fast food is a no-no. I can be really bad about that at times. My weird indulgence in fast food seems sort of cyclical, I’ve gone through phases with it, I either have it frequently or not at all, so not at all it is. Not frying food at home will be weird, I’m pretty sure Sauteeing is frying and I do a lot of that especially my beloved onions & garlic. I suppose I’ll get it sorted out. I need some new recipes for certain and that’s going to be a bit tricky. Mediterranean cookbooks are out as they lean heavily towards many of my allergies. I think adapting to this new diet might be helped by growing some of the foods I can have and enjoy. I guess it’s time to invest in some raised beds and to learn how to vanquish my black thumb.
Hurting today, my head, my joints, it’s not a great day if I’m talking about pain. We’re supposed to game tonight but I’m not sure I’m up to it. I wouldn’t even have to be out of bed to play so that’s saying something. I took a brief walk this morning. I’ve made breakfast and lunch for Bill and I, done a few dishes, and am trying to come up with a dinner plan but that is the extent of my efforts today.
Oh, wait, I’ve also been emailing back and forth with one of my teen’s mom about matching books that interest her son with audiobooks so he can listen while he reads. It’s really tricky because audio books are expensive so libraries tend to focus on physical books. I’m working on it though, even requested my Director purchase a copy of an audio book to match one of the YA paperbacks the teen is interested in. We’ll see if she feels it’s a good investment. The book is not a new title, not terribly old either, but we’d have the only Ebook in the system so it would likely see some use.
What stage of the apocalypse is it when we’re all stuck in a weird limbo of the world returning almost to normal even as the virus spreads. My grown offspring can’t job hunt, can’t see friends, aren’t sure what their best moves are and neither are we? Even weirder, what stage is it when I love my job but I kind of want to quit it so I won’t be exposed, but we’re taking all the precautions we can at work and I really love the job, and my boss is Awesome, but I cannot, cannot bring this virus home? And what insanity is it that my mother can beg to spend time with me, insisting she has been “Super Careful” and socially distant etc etc… but I looked at her FB and there are pictures from her recent travels of her on the beach with a whole group of people None of whom are masked?????
Later, some time in the dim and distant future I may understand WTH she is thinking, but I doubt it. Almost everyone that I know personally who is acting foolishly about this pandemic is a Boomer. I know some Boomers are actually being careful but in all seriousness, I totally get why Gen-Z is calling this virus the “Boomer-Doomer.” In my household, that has been locked down as hard as it can be since early March, Gen-X, Millennials, and Gen-Z are determined to ride out the insanity and live to see a post Covid-19 world. Our Boomer relatives are travelling, spending time with friends, giving people rides, shopping, etc. I do not get it. They are at higher risk…
My Uncle died yesterday morning, on his daughter’s birthday as if dying with so little warning wasn’t traumatic enough, my poor cousin. I’m heartbroken for her, her children, my other cousin, my other uncles, my mother and my aunt. He’s the first to go of his generation in my family. I am having feelings but I couldn’t describe them accurately if I tried. The whole thing is surreal. I didn’t see him often, maybe a few times a year in a good year, so it won’t change very much in my day-to-day world but it leaves a lot of things unsaid, unresolved.
There was a big upset when I was still little, at my grandmother’s birthday gathering, at our house. My uncle got very upset over something, supposedly he was jealous that my mother’s inexpensive present to Gramma got a bigger reaction than his expensive present, so this uncle grabbed one of my other uncles and took off. When they came back they had alcohol with them, beer I believe, and that wasn’t allowed at family gatherings for some reason, so my grandfather raised his voice at these 2 uncles and the uncle who just died grabbed his wife and kids and stormed off in a huff. He prevented all contact with the whole family for several years. I couldn’t see or talk to my cousin and I didn’t understand what the hell was going on. When he decided to have contact with the family again there was no explanation, no discussion, let’s just pretend all that never happened. That has never been good enough, it’s bullshit. I mean I know my grandfather raised his voice over the beer thing, and I’m sure that humiliation is why this uncle took off that day, but was all this idiocy started because my mother’s gift was more thoughtful and more well-received? That seems flimsy to me. Plus, my mother is the person who told it to me so it is immediately suspect. She lies like it’s breathing, like the lies she tells keep her alive, and she doesn’t admit anything that makes her look bad so there could be a lot of things she might want to hide. I don’t know though, and now I think I might never know.
So I’ll remember him best for that, for taking my cousin away and not allowing us to see each other or talk to each other for years. I’ll remember him too for being one of 2 uncles who utterly ruined the piddly-ass, bullshit gathering we had to spread Gramma & Grampa’s ashes, several months after they were killed. I will remember him for not allowing a single moment of silence, of reflection, not one single moment for so much as one meaningful word before he and my other uncle unceremoniously dumped my grandparent’s ashes into the river, not even allowing all of us to arrive on the bank. “They didn’t want any funeral!” He and the other uncle snarled when everyone expressed shock and dismay over their actions. I am still furious every time I think of it. I waited months, there was no funeral, no memorial, just as my grandparents wanted. I wasn’t the only one who expected a moment of silence and perhaps a little sharing of memories, nothing formal, nothing to violate their wishes. My memories of him are not fond ones. The brother who always leapt to be his partner in crime also remains not one of my favorite people. The both of them have always seemed to me to be harshly rules-oriented people without the kindness that can make such people decent and good. There seemed to be no mercy in their strict attitudes. Other people have had different experiences of my late uncle, and of the one still here who always helped him. I’m glad.
I guess, not having known him well enough to have anything much beyond these stark experiences, I guess I won’t really mourn him. He wasn’t much a part of my life and most of what I remember of him isn’t very pleasant. I feel like I should be sad to lose him but I only feel sad for the others who lost him. I guess they had good times with him, good experiences, happy memories. I only have what I mentioned above and fleeting memories of brief shallow conversations at family gatherings, and briefer, perfuntionary hugs. I never had a real conversation with him so what could I find to miss? For myself, not a lot. For my cousins, they lost their father and I hope that he was a decent one. I hope he was kind and patient with them, I hope there is a lot to miss. I hope he was a good husband and A tremendous loss to my aunt. I hope he was thoughtful, kind and supportive to his little family. I hope he is missed and mourned. I wish I had seen his good side, been allowed to know him more, it’s too late for that now. This is what I have and I’ll do with it what I can.
A lot can change in a day. Yesterday I was focused on my health and work and getting in some reading time. Today I’m wondering if my uncle is still alive. He was diagnosed with cancer about a week ago, maybe two, yesterday he was rushed to the hospital and isn’t expected to live through the weekend. He’s someone I haven’t been close with. There was some kind of weirdness between my mother and he and a big confrontation at a family party, he took off and wouldn’t talk to anyone, for years. I haven’t been much of a fan of his since then. He took my cousin away from me, and I loved her, I honestly have no idea WTF his problem is. The explanation was that he was pissed with my mother because he spent $$$ on some cuckoo clock for my Gramma and my mother had Gramma’s poems typed up and bound for her for $ and Gramma was more moved by the book. ??? So he and my other uncle took off and came back with a bunch of beer… when apparently no alcohol was allowed at family parties. My Grampa raised his voice over it and this uncle grabbed his family and dropped off the face of the Earth for several years. I missed my cousin horribly and he had literally snatched her up from where we were playing and stormed off without letting us say goodbye. He’s been a little mellower in the past decade or two but his actions have never been addressed. I’m sorry he’s dying, very sorry for my dear cousins who are losing their dad, their kids who are losing their grandfather, my aunt, my mom, my other uncles, but my personal feelings are… unknown to me. I feel something, I feel disturbed, upset in some way I can’t name, and sad for everyone that we’re in a pandemic so hospital visits or a funeral are all fraught with danger.
Maybe my muted feelings are just some shade of denial. Since I can’t do what I would usually do, visit, help, hug everyone, maybe my brain is just tamping it all down because it would drive me to distraction if I could feel all my own sadness, if I felt it all enough to break all the rules I’ve been living by for so many months. I can’t go to a funeral, even if it’s outdoors, and everyone is masked, because how the fuck do you go to a funeral and NOT hug all the crying people??? I couldn’t do it, I would break, and that would risk my husband’s health and my daughters. So, I guess this strange, removed feeling is a good thing, for me at least, and at least for now. Hopefully sending cards now will suffice and hopefully they will wait and hold the funeral when it becomes safe to do so.
Everything else: my doc never called yesterday so no news there. I got through my shift at work despite my mother’s phone call to tell me about my uncle. The spaghetti sauce seemed to be well received so I guess it tasted good. I’m still reading, still crafting, still picking berries in the yard and attempting to further propagate my mint. Oh! And I appear to have accidentally grown a squash or pumpkin plant by my compost patch! It’s such a pretty plant I can’t wait to see what it grows. If it produces any squash or pumpkins or whatever it will be a first for me! Tempest the Blight Druid claws her way toward becoming a regular Druid. ^_^ That is very exciting for me. I hope it produces. I will dance and sing if it does.
Now I will scamper off and bake something yummy. I’ve been craving sweet comfort food since I got the news about my uncle. I am not going to drink wine or beer, which I also crave, because I am babying my liver now at least until I find out what is going on with it. I need my liver. I’ll run may game tonight and hopefully not accidentally oversee a TPK! (total party kill) I thought about calling off the game tonight because I feel so unsettled but, since I can’t go to the hospital or otherwise help anyway, sticking to my routine and spending time with my friends may just be the best thing I can do.
So, I’ve been to the docs 3 times this week and I’m right now waiting for a call from them. I’ve been exhausted and not sleeping well, hurting all over, especially my joints, for some time. I’ve had a lot of blood drawn for tests this week and they actually might have found something. Something is weird with my liver. Huzzah! Yes, I am sounding positive about something that is probably bad because I’ve been struggling for years and kept being told I was fine when it is clear that I am not. So yes, I am happy there is something to freaking look at, now maybe we can get me healthy and fully functioning again. On the other hand, I need my liver, it does really important things for me and I am still using it, so hopefully whatever is going on is fixable. It would be great if I had to change my diet and eat healthier, that would cool, extra motivation. We’ll see, I guess, don’t know if doc is waiting for yesterday’s blood tests to come in before calling me.
Other than my liver, my doc put me on a muscle relaxer so my sleep has been better for 3 nights running. Fingers crossed that trend continues! Because my liver is involved I have stopped taking Tylenol for the moment, a nurse suggested it might not be helping, to see if that might give my liver a break. Poor thing, I get so many headaches and struggle with chronic pain, I take a LOT of Tylenol. Well, generics and store brands, but same thing. Lets see if I can make it through today without taking any, I haven’t in … 2 days? I should get an award. 😉
Being so tired means I am reading a lot. Finished So you Want to Talk About Race, The Simple Life, and Sherlock Holmes and the Stuff of Nightmares, so far this week. All very good and recommended books. Now I am reading Touch of the Demon, and This is my America, along with The Color of Law. I’ve got three more books in the demon series after this one, and a few books still to find and read in the Lady Sherlock series, as well as an unknown number of books in the Lovergrove Sherlock Holmes series, so I can hum along happily for a while and not worry about what I’ll be reading next. Actually, my TBR (to be read) pile is staggering. I’ve got a ton of fairy tale novels, horror novels, and nonfiction too. Sheesh.
Best coolness of the past 30 days: I discovered The Bloggess has her own bookstore and book club and I decided to try it. We read Mexican Gothic as our first book and it was creepy and wonderful. Yay! The next book is on its way here: Crossings, by Alex Landragin. I can hardly wait. I let book club books ‘jump the line’ in my TBR pile, the only books that take priority over them are library books with rapidly approaching due dates. I wonder how many library books I have ordered…
I have been cooking a bit more this week. Last week was not a great week as I was particularly tired and sore. I’m making a tomato based pasta sauce for everyone else, they can use it while I’m at work some evening. My son seemed very appreciative that I’m making this effort. He said something like ‘Homemade pasta sauce, that is supposed to make a big difference, taking it to the next level.’ He made his impressed face too. ^_^ I’m hoping to finish making it today so they can have it tonight. We’ll see, my hands hurt and I’m pretty wrung out and still need to go to work tonight.
Nothing is going on with the hippie fort. I have plans for the next improvements and would like to be spending time out there. It’s just been too hot for hanging out in all the uninsulated glory and we don’t want workers here if we can avoid it, at least till the pandemic is under better control. We haven’t had work done on the apartment yet either. So much to do and so much not getting done.
Global pandemic has meant our apartment has been empty since February. How could we rent it out when we can’t interview potential renters? Or show them the place? Well, it turns out a friend has been desperately, and quietly, wanting a change of address, so that happens September 1st. We won’t be able to hang out really, not until things settle down rampant disease-wise, but it will be good to have the place going to better use again and we’ll be able to maybe sit outside with masks and chat of an evening or something. I know it will be great, she’s such an awesome person, I can’t wait to get to know her even better. She’s a creative type too so there will be much arting going on in the near future. Dare I dream? Collaboration? ^_^ All those happy thoughts aside, I am convinced we will be going into lockdown shortly after schools resume this fall. There’s too much in person stuff happening and Covid is going to get out of control again in a hurry. I saw an add for PPE for kids for back to school and it nearly broke me. Face shields with cute stickers on them… what messed up dystopian novel are we in? Or what level of hell is this? I can’t even, I’m going to pet my kitty cat and take a shower. TTFN.
Wouldn’t it be nice if I felt a bit better today? Sadly not the case but I am maintaining. I had hoped today I would have more energy and less discomfort but it is what it is. I think I slept a bit better. I’m waiting for a call back from the Dr. as my joint pain was not addressed in any way. I made sure to discuss it with both the nurse and the Dr. but the Dr. moved on to prescribing antiviral meds for other symptoms and I was so uncomfortable at being in a building in proximity to people outside my bubble that I didn’t notice we’d failed to get anywhere with the joint issues in my hurry to be gone from that place.
I’ve been reading a bit, finished the second “Lady Sherlock” book. I picked up the first idly because I’ve always loved Sherlock Holmes and am willing to give anything relating to the great detective at least a once over but I was surprised to find A Study in Scarlet Women to be not only a fun read but also filled with characters I care about, a plot that woke my mind up, and a well wrought mystery that got more complicated as it went. The second in the series, A Conspiracy in Belgravia, did not disappoint. Sherry Thomas managed to keep on surprising me but I think I might be figuring her out. Well, I have hope that I am close to figuring her out. I should know fairly soon because I’ve put the third on hold at the library. For now I will be returning my attention to Diana Rowland and the 5th book of her Demon series; Touch of the Demon. The 4th ended on a terrible cliffhanger and I’ve been almost out of sorts waiting to start it.
We picked up our groceries, curbside, and our farmshare yesterday so we’re full to bursting again. The entire freezer in the apartment downstairs is full again. I need to make sure I am properly organized, we have a tenant moving in at the end of this month and I need to make sure everything is ready for her. I can’t be using that fridge by then and we need to get the insanity of my husband’s work overflow out of there as well. I’m not sure how we’ll manage all that with the unexpected delays with everything being backordered, but we’ll figure it out.
I haven’t been blogging. I haven’t known what to write and I mostly still don’t. The world is crazy, the pandemic is out of control in the States and we’re just pretending it isn’t, and my health isn’t awesome. My joints are sore and achey, my head hurts most of the time, I’ve got painful swollen glands behind my jaw, I’m exhausted and still can’t sleep.
In more positive news I’m making real progress on a tomatoless pasta sauce that rocks. I made Meghan Markle’s zucchini based sauce a couple of times and it was good but not great so I was waiting for the tomatillos from our farmshare, still waiting, but I had summer squash so I chopped it up and threw it in my crock pot with onions, garlic, and homemade broth. That turned out well enough that I took the next bunch of summer squash and tried to improve on it. I used all the ingredients from the first attempt and added a bunch of spices that are in a highly rated spaghetti sauce and BOOM! Suddenly the sauce is YUMMY. I also added a little lime juice because tomato is acidic and summer squash is… not.
Puddin’, Why I let milkweed grow in the yard, blue visitor, & purple flower.
The blackberry and mint harvests continue, a little bit most days. Today it is raining and we have severe weather alerts but I got 1/2 a pint of blackberries and some lovely flowers before it started. I hope the rain doesn’t ruin the staghorn sumac. If I had the energy I’d go harvest it now but that is not going to happen.
Before this … whatever it is… completely walloped me we walked out to the pond by the local library and I noticed it also has pink water lilies. So pretty, so I snapped the pic above. My fingers hurt so I’m going to stop. Be well!
I have a lovely little cookbook that I treasure called The New Cookbook for Poor Poets & Others; by Ann Rogers that talks about what she calls “the nickel dinner.” The nickel dinner is no longer really possible what with inflation and all, and wasn’t possible at the time “The New” was printed. (supposedly it was possible when the original cookbook was published) I love the idea of super cheap or free, but good, meals so sometimes I’ll figure out how much it costs me to make a meal for my family just to see how it compares to, say, the last time we ordered in or something.
Last night’s dinner was thrown together in a fog of humidity induced mental dullness. It was an evening I had nothing much left to give so I thought “pasta.” We had a bunch of zucchini from our farmshare so I decided to make the sauce I think I saw on Emmymade that was put out by Meghan Markle. It is a good, basic sauce but she clearly forgot the garlic so I fixed that for her. I also added a bit of cream and little shredded cheese to take it up a notch. Her recipe calls for cooking it down for 4-5 hours but I didn’t have that kind of time so i got out my immersion blender and it worked great. Next time I think I will add a little Green Dragon hot sauce to the mix. As I was cooking the nickel dinner idea wandered through my head and I stated adding things up:
16 ounce box of linguini: .99 cents
3 large Farmshare zucchini: $3.25
1 farmshare onion: .50 cents
Splash of cream: .50 cents
1 ounce shredded cheddar: .50 cents
2 cups broth made from chicken bones, veggie ends etc: free
random herbs and spices: maybe .25 cents?
Which comes to $5.99. Not bad! I had a little bit of nice bread left from a previous dinner to have on the side and I picked a bunch of mint from the yard to make mint iced tea. It was a successful dinner that everyone enjoyed and it was inexpensive so a big win in my book. Yesterday I also had enough purposely grown and wild berries to make a couple of smoothies too so, despite the heat & humidity, it was a good day. ^_^ Most of our dinners are a lot more expensive than this but still much cheaper than take out. Even my fancy meals, where I go all out, are a lot cheaper than meals out.
For anyone interested in the idea of making broth for free: it is really simple! I save any bones left from dinner, veggie stems or other unused bits, tiny amounts of leftover anything too small to save, wilted herbs and so on, sealed in bags or say an old yogurt tub, in the freezer. I try to cluster these items together so I can monitor how much of it I’ve saved. When I have what looks like enough for a batch of broth I dump it all into my crockpot and cover with water. I set the crockpot to low and let it cook for a few days, stirring once in a while, until I think all the goodness and flavor has made it from the food into the broth. Then I scoop out all the spent bits and discard them, strain the broth, and store it in jars in the fridge using it as needed for recipes over the next week or two or freezing it for later use. The other day I had some leftover veggie/bean thing that I added some broth to, turning it into soup, and served for lunch.
I just looked over at one of my very latest purchases, online purchases, I haven’t been inside a store since early March, and I was struck by the feeling of peace it gave me just to look on it. It’s a cellophane package containing, I think, 240 little skeins of embroidery floss in what I am calling “Every Color” with capital letters. I think there are 2 of each color so, really, there are many more colors in the world than in this little package, but it is honestly beautiful and I feel like I could make any design my heart could desire with this lovely collection of thread. It only cost about $15 which makes me happy because I love good prices. I’d be happier if I’d found it used, like if I’d stumbled on it at a tag sale or in a charity shop, I prefer second hand things. Second hand purchases save things from the landfill and can be had for pennies on the dollar of their original price. Awesome all the way around.
Anyway, The feeling I get looking at this colorful bundle was striking because I’ve been feeling so stressed lately what with the global pandemic and the failure of our leadership to contain or manage it and so forth. That peaceful feeling made me pause to think about it and I realised what I feel when I look at my packet of embroidery thread is wealth. I feel a great feeling of “enough,” of satiety, I feel content and confident that whatever I need to do with this thread I have got it covered. To me that is wealth. It’s the same feeling I have when my cupboards and fridge are full and their contents are varied. It’s that same feeling I have when my TBR (to be read) pile is vast, deep, and partially unknown, & when I know there are several books lurking there that I am positively hungry for. And it is the same feeling I have when I have several unpainted canvases, tons of paint, a bag of colorful yarn, or a drawer full of clean undies and socks. Oh! And empty notebooks and pens!
I feel so wildly, undeservedly lucky when I can look and see that any of these things are true, but I have realized that the truest wealth is time, is self-determination, getting to actually choose how you spend your time. I mean, we all probably know this, that time is the most precious resource. We have what we have and we cannot make any more of it. We can’t save time we can only spend it. I think the lockdown, and having to go back to work, made me see it clearly, undeniably, and deeply for the first time. For a few months, I got to decide when I worked, when I rested, when I ate, etc. It was disturbing and difficult at first, I made myself get up and go to bed on my normal schedule. I scheduled work activities each day, 2-3 hours per day to get the same number of hours in as usual but never having to work 7 in a row as I had at my job. That felt nice at first but wore on me terribly over time. Instead I worked about 4 hours 3 times a week and found that better, better still when I clumped those days together, though I was still able to be flexible to accommodate webinars and such. I finally found a wonderful rhythm, a way to order my life so I felt less stressed, had time to relax and pursue art, crafts, reading, journaling and other writing. I felt better than I had in a long time.
Now that I am back at work coving my usual schedule, quite honestly, I hate it. I work Monday and Friday evenings and all day every-other Saturday. It isn’t the number of hours that’s the problem, not at all, it’s 8 hours one week 15 the next repeat indefinitely, no problem. It’s being locked into the days and times. It eats me up, it destroys my ability to relax on any day I have to work and makes me feel rushed, pressured, and stressed. I’m back to 2-3 days per week where I am not home to make dinner and 2 days where I don’t get to eat dinner with my family. And the evening hours are not great for me to be working during. I am not at my best then, I am mostly spent by about 5:30 PM, just biorhythm-wise. My body wants me to recline and relax in the evening, or stroll, maybe. My body communicated this quite clearly to me when I was the master of how my hours were spent. I can get a LOT done in a day if I know that once dinner is done I am “off the clock.” Without work taking me away from my home I was able to use my clothesline much more frequently, I got into a habit of foraging berries and making breakfast smoothies, I started walking again for exercise.
It doesn’t help that no one else in my house is leaving it for work yet. My husband is locked into just brutal hours of work, stressed to the max and completely burned out with his job. I am not saying I envy that, I feel horrible for him, what is expected of him by his job (I.T. Professional) at this point is ridiculous and cruel. He is expected to do it almost completely during work hours but of course he can’t confine all that he has to do to those hours, there is just way, way too much. I need to be more grateful that I have as much lingering self-determination as I do, I am going to work on that. BUT, I think it is insane that most people live by the clock, serve corporate or other masters, and are expected to give SO MUCH for SO LITTLE in return. And, shockingly, people are expected to be grateful for even the worst, crappiest, most slavish, dehumanizing jobs. That isn’t me, but it is a LOT of people. Chained to clocks, having to work through illness, injury, at jobs that actually cause them considerable hardship. That is messed up!
Everyone deserves to work a reasonable number of hours and still make a living, have a life worth living, with a schedule that makes sense. Maybe we can’t have the ideal life where we determine what we do with each hour, but we should all have a good, satisfying, and dignified life. We all deserve time to relax, to seek entertainment & education, to spend time with family and friends creating memories. My husband was set to take a week off in March, instead he’s been working his ass off, straight through, at a very stressful job, since New Years Day. He’s got a good job, one that grants him 3 or 4 weeks “vacation” a year. So far he’s only been able to take a day here or there, I think he’s only taken 1 or maybe 2 off honestly, July 4th, the Friday before it was just off for everyone at his job, that’s the only day. There is no way he can take time off now, everything is a mad scramble getting ready to open the school for the fall, with no actual plan for NOT opening… which will likely be forced upon them at the last minute. It’s insane. And he can’t take time in the fall, of course, or likely anything like a week off until Christmas. He will get a few days at Thanksgiving though. They had damn well better let him save all the vacation time he is unable to take now. Gods, I hope so. He needs to take at least a month straight off just to recover from this.
Gen-Xer Remix 