Dreams where your neighbors cut
themselves: Don't remember much about this dream except my brother was
in it, I've had a couple of dreams about him lately, not sure why. In my
dream, I was talking to someone in a kitchen I didn't recognize. I made
my way down the hall where my elderly neighbor was in the bathroom. I
remember thinking: my neighbor has a shallow slice across her shoulder
and I must not panic. While I stood there, before I could ask her about
the cut, another one appeared on her opposite arm. I have no idea what,
if anything this means or signifies. It was a fairly gruesome dream and
I'm glad it's over.
In other news: I threw out all the questionable contents of my
fridge. When my children were younger, I belonged to a food club and
bought quite a few things from a farm run store that's about fifteen
miles outside of town. I went back there the other day and was gratified
to be recognized by one of the daughters who works there. Yesterday I
received an application to work in their garden. My family needs to put
in anywhere from one to three hours a month in exchange for the ability
to buy certain goods at the store.
I drove out there yesterday, it was raining and peaceful, but I
didn't realize that I was going to be charged extra for leaving my
youngest in extended care at theater camp while I made my expedition.
They let her stay one day and there was some confusion about this
practice, which is on me for failing to clarify expectations. The girls
have really enjoyed theater camp. Today I am looking forward to seeing
them perform in their respective plays. Attitudes could have been better
during the mornings, but this has us in the routine of waking up,
packing lunches, and getting out the door.
Formerly I volunteered at the Rock Wall only on Friday. Due to the
hiring of new staff, I have been promoted to the Thursday evening shift.
The senior attendant is leaving, last night was her final day, and I'm
really going to miss her expertise. I met two new guys that I haven't
worked with before, I'll miss the girl I used to work with on Friday,
but I will not miss the very negative co-worker who has hygiene issues.
We were busy last night, some new kids came, some of the girls my
children go to school with were there, it was nice to see them again and
catch up with how their summer went.
Since I am a perfectionist, I have a hard time doing things unless I
can do them the way that I want them done. This leads to things not
being done, or being done the way I want at a price that does not match
my return on the investment. This is a new goal of mine, just do things,
regardless of how much better I could be doing them. My weight has been
up lately. I don't like that or how I feel so I am, once again,
reassessing what I eat. I have some things I want to talk about, really
get deep into a conversation, but I don't want to talk about them with
just anyone, so for now, I'm going to keep those things to myself.
School starts soon. I'm excited for the back to school routine to
start. I think the girls miss seeing their classmates and hope that this
year there are fewer bumps in the road when compared to last year. My
daughter's sixth grade teacher receieved her summer school math report.
I'm looking forward to speaking with him about Jill's tendency to
underperform and see what he has to say about her as a student. We gave
both girls a choice for extra curricular activities: they both chose
soccer over swimming, which was a little surprising. Jill will continue
taking clarinet lessons, Jane is going to play the piano.
We went shopping for back to school shoes. This is always a point of
contention and I understand that the shoes are over priced, but I don't
understand other pieces of the equation. I need to find a way to save
money on my children's footwear without compromising quality. Jill has
an exceptionally narrow foot that is also shallow. Jane is not much
better, but has a better arch and more stable ligaments. I'm totally one
of those parents who likes uniforms. That way the kids know what they
are going to wear, there's less stress, and I think they hold up better.
It seems like every year we buy a few things that hang out in the
closet or dresser. This year, I'm going to hold off on back to school
clothes until it gets cooler, hopefully we can snag some things on sale.
I hate going to rummage sales. I also hate having them. I do not like
sorting through things at Goodwill or other thrift stores, my nose always itches and the girls don't like shopping in the
first place, so they are easily distracted by the non-clothing items
available for purchase.
I can't remember if I already wrote about this, but we are going
through the closets in our house, and I've determined that we save a lot
of junk. Good news: we now have next year's Valentine's Day cards set
aside, our cleaning supplies have some new homes and they have been
confined to separate bins, depending on which suppplies are needed for
which room. Less thrilling news: we still have a couple big closets that
need to be overhauled. As a chronic sufferer of overarching idealism, I
have these visions of tidy closets that contain only the essentials
with neatly organized bins and racks. This is my joy and my pain, yet I
believe that this can be achieved by my family who dumps coats, lunch
bags, and footwear as soon as they enter the house.
Saturday night my family is meeting up with my brother-in-law, my
niece, and maybe another niece of mine for a baseball game. I'm excited,
but less so since I know most of the people coming will not care about
the game. I've met a lot of cool baseball people from Twitter, a guy I
follow is going to the Phillies game on the 19th, I'd like to be able to
meet him in person, but we have some details to work out.
Great news on the financial front: I've managed to whittle down my
pile of bills without adding to them. The bills from Jill's many medical
procedures and stay in the hospital have not arrived yet, but they are
coming. I can't think about that right now so I'm going to wait and see
what they're like before going into full blown panic mode. I applied for
a part time job at the school where my children attend. I put off
applying since I wasn't sure I wanted the job, then I wanted to redo my
resume, but ended up having some computer trouble, go figure, let this
be a lesson to me in not procrastinating.
I hate thinking of myself as a procrastinator. I know why I do it, I
don't always do it, but I spend a lot of time being dithery about things
instead of just accepting that not everything has to be perfect and
even the best laid plans can be interrupted. New plan: organize my time
so I spend it more efficiently. Plan in things I like to do so my day is
not tiresome and overwhelming as the house will never be clean to my
standards which does not give me license to ignore things I need to be
doing.
****
Finally back from the last performance at theater camp. Well worth
the seven hundred dollars we spent. Kids loved it, we loved it, my mom
and her husband thought it was neat and hopefully so did my
father-in-law and his wife. We ate at a restaurant called The Safe
House. It's a spy themed restaurant, and while the food is mediocre,
they had gluten free buns which was nice. They did the theme well, the
girls enjoyed it, and now I am back at home wondering how tomorrow is
going to go. In other news, I have an interview on Tuesday for the position of part time school
secretary, wish me luck.
j