I used to be Queen of the mile-long-to-do list. But today I have nothing to do. It’s 7:45 a.m. and I just got done doing the dinner dishes from last night. The dinner dishes were the one-and-only pressing thing on my calendar today.
(Side note – I always seem to be a bit late to the party with the dishes, doing the dinner ones in the a.m. But that’s mostly because after dinner, the a.m. ones still haven’t cleared out of the dishwasher. That’s weird. The dishwasher used to be of the magical variety, with stuff automatically appearing and disappearing from it quite frequently. But that also might have been because my husband was in charge of the dishes. There was some unspoken division of labor there when I was working. I would buy all the food, plan all the meals, cook all the meals and he would do the dishes. A totally fair split, right? Yep – totally fair. But now that I’m NOT working, I do all that stuff AND I do the dishes. We haven’t actually talked about it [that being the rule of unspoken rules, not to speak about them that is], but that seems to be the way things are headed. And like I said, I’m always late to the dish party. And they no longer magically do themselves. Only now there’s no one to yell at about it. Except myself. And that would seem unbalanced. So I refrain.)
Anywho – I guess I’ll look for jobs this morning. I promised the Unemployment Agency I would (and I have been, trust me). It’s just that now I remember I need to get a new pair of sneakers today. I’ve been meaning to and when I went running yesterday my foot hurt and I was reminded why I need a new pair. So I really must do that today because I’m planning on going running tomorrow and it would be fun plus something to look forward to if I had a new pair of sneakers to wear!
And I also have to find my exercise watch. I didn’t go running outside yesterday even though it was gorgeous because I couldn’t find my watch. Naturally I don’t want to run any farther or longer than I need to, so it’s necessary to wear a watch to know when to turn around and head home. On the treadmill in the basement, I can see both time and distance, so I’m golden. Also, while I’m there, I get to catch up with Matt, Al, Natalie and Savanna? What happened to Ann?! Boy, I’m really out of touch.
And you know what the little voice in my head has been saying to me recently? Well in addition to telling me I’m wasting my college degree – and my master’s degree?? The little voice has been telling me I should totally make a batch of homemade cookies. My mother-in-law made a strawberry rhubarb pie this week-end and the kids inhaled it. The kids love homemade stuff like that but I never make it.
My stay at home mom used to make homemade desserts for us all the time. But would set them on a ceramic plate and cover them with a metal cake cover. So that you could never lift the cover off the dessert without it accidentally banging into the plate and making the whole effort sound like a gong. Clearly some sort of dessert booby trap invented to keep her chuckling. Hey – when you’re a stay at home mom I guess you have to get your jollies where you can! But once the dessert gong would sound, she’d yell from wherever she was in the house, “get out of the cookies/brownies/fill in the blank! They’re for your father!!” But where there’s a will, there’s a way! And come dinner time, Dad would have about three cookies/brownies/fill in the blank left to enjoy.
But back to me. For my homemade dessert foray, I’ll have to get eggs of course, and chocolate chips. I’ll start slow with a batch of chocolate chip cookies. No crazy out-of-my-depth combo pies for me (just yet). So now my day is looking up! Turns out I have LOTS to do! I have to:
- Get new sneakers
- Find my watch
- Get ingredients for cookies
- Bake cookies
- Do dishes from cookie extravaganza before dinner dishes happen again
Oh wait! My son’s teacher literally just e-mailed. She wants to meet with me at 1:10 today. What?! The first thought that occurs to me isn’t: What did the little monkey do at the beginning of the second week of school that warrants a parent/teacher meeting? No. Back to me. My first thought is actually: Does she think I’m just sitting here with an entirely free day at my disposal waiting for her email ??! Doesn’t she know I’m busy!?!