Tis the Season

 Y'all I am NOT in the Christmas spirit. I am cranky. Yesterday was a gloriously beautiful day. My perfect kind of day. Sunny but not eye searing sunny. Breezy and chilly. The kind of day that lets you mix sneakers and wool accessories and be comfortable. But I was at work so I worked. Then came home and did what felt like a zillion household chores. I had made a to do list on my lunch break. And it made me more than a little cranky. I've been asked what I want for Christmas. What do I want for Christmas? I want a maid. I want to come home and my dishes to magically already be clean. I want laundry to not be sitting in the dryer or in baskets in the laundry room. I want the clutter to already be organized and put away. I want space for bookshelves. I want to not have decision fatigue and it rear its ugly head when I'm asked yet again what the plan is for dinners this week. 

Adulting is hard. And yet I'm beyond lucky to have a roof over my head and a job to go to every day. I'm lucky to get paid a living wage. I'm lucky to have amazing coworkers. I'm lucky to have useful things in my cluttered house. To have money in my bank account to pay for food for dinners no one in my house wants to prepare. I'm trying to remember all of that when I really want to throw dirty silverware at someone's head. 

Today is a home alone day. It's a kidless weekend and the husband is working a 12 hour shift. So I'm cleaning and crafting. I'm going to try to kick my shitty mood in the ass. I have a few things I'm planning to make for other people and I may just make a couple of things for me. I am dragging out my sewing supplies for the first time in a while. I've already got laundry in the washer and the dryer. The kitchen table is clean. I've put one round of dishes away and the second round is drying in the drying rack. It is possible that I have another two rounds to go and a fridge to clean out but whatever. I've given up on trying to work, have a husband who also works overtime and keep a tidy house. Priorities, people. And that is a personal choice. Mine doesn't always match others. And honestly I don't really care how mine measure up to others. Take it or leave it. Plus - pandemic. No one else comes over here anyway. 

I read something online - who knows how realistic it was, could have just been something someone came up with and passed along to make everyone feel better. It stuck with me though. It was something along the lines of the 40 hour work week was originally based on the idea that one person in the household was working 40 hours with the assumption another person in the household was home taking care of the cooking, cleaning, child rearing, shopping, etc. Well with those assumptions maybe my house wouldn't look like a cross between a frat house and a teenage girl's bedroom. But reality is my husband and I both work more than 40 hours a week most of the time and we share custody of three kids. And I can choose to prioritize keeping my house "showroom ready" or I can say eff it and put attention on things I actually care about - like pretty much anything else. Periodically I look around and I just think (or scream), "For the love, does anyone in this house throw away their trash or clean up after themselves?!?!?!?" But most of the time, I just clean up bits at a time and hope eventually it won't turn into an episode of Hoarders. 

Basically I'm trying to give myself some grace. Like my dear mom would say, "I'm no Susie Homemaker." I do not like cleaning. I do not like to cook. I do those things because I don't like living in an absolute hovel and I like to eat. What I actually like to do is read and make things. I don't like to seasonally decorate, other than Halloween, and even then I mostly like to do it to irritate my family. I abhor the idea of removing bits of things, putting them in a box to remove other things from boxes to hang them up only to repeat the process in a few weeks. That's a waste of energy I don't have most of the time. You like decorating? Girl, you do you. I love that for you. And I'm sure your house looks AMAZING! But that ain't me. And don't get me started on wreaths...I just can't. Then you have to have special hooks on your door. And the door doesn't want to seal. Or you do the command hook. But then it doesn't always stick and you have to replace it. Or the stupid wreath slams into the door. Or it falls. Then you have to store it someplace special. Listen - I just can't. 

The only bit I like about Christmas decor is the tree. I will tolerate the tree because I like strange ornaments. I like creepy ornaments. I like handmade ornaments. I like geeky, fandom ornaments. I despise glittery ornaments that deposit their glitter that attaches itself on EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE. But the rest - I like those. Here's the problem though - we rearranged the furniture this past year. We made a little crafty nook. And I bought a stationary bike. Basically we moved all the furniture around in such a way that ummm, we have nowhere to put the damn tree. Unless we stick it smack dab in the center of the living room and block my TV. Or we stick it in the middle of the kitchen. I would vote for the kitchen personally but I know that would just give everyone a new reason to not wash their dishes, so I'm going to have to not offer that option. I suggested we go buy one of those baby tabletop trees for right now so we have something up but I got overruled. So we have no Christmas decorations up except my Grinch. Which I find sufficient. And I still have my Halloween lights up - so I have something festive going on. I mean ghosts count, right? Ghosts of Christmas Past, anyone? No? I tried. 

In a better news update - I had trigger point injections for my back a few weeks ago and had a follow up this week. They helped a ton so right now we have another follow up scheduled for March and they will be pre-authorizing another round of injections. That way if I need them, I can just have them done at that appointment. Pain level is completely tolerable currently. And I've decided I absolutely do not want to have surgery at this point. So controlling pain is the goal for now unless something drastically changes. 

I hope you're all well and having a wonderful Saturday. I'll be sewing, listening to music too loud, sewing and drinking too much coffee since I have no adult supervision. Oooohhh and for fun - here's a picture of one of my newest mugs that I just HAD to have :)