whinging
Okay, so I didn't get to bed until two. Thirty. That was bad. Because I can tell that now, I'm going to need my sleep. Suddenly, my throat and glands ache with an unbelievable fierceness. I pride myself on having kids in public school and never getting sick more than once a year, sometimes not even that. This latest run of 24-hour stomach bug was a bit of madness I was sure was brought on by my own decreased sleep (and surgery and narcotics. Funny how going to the doctor, any doctor, can make you sick).
But this is different, this is unholy. My throat is killing me. The entire right side of my neck hurts. Icy hot patches are my new best friend because I have half of one plastered onto the sore spot in hopes it will at least distract me. And now I realize the persistent ache in the back of my neck wasn't just tension brought on by sleeping funny in the car. I am catching a cold of such magnitude, I can't remember when the last time was that I was this sick before I was actually, officially sick. You know how your nose aches after three days of blowing? I've got that now. My sinuses are already recoiling in horror.
I can't afford to get sick. dragonkal can attest to the fact that while I may not work much out of the house in a job quantifiable by a paycheck, I have utter, swirling chaos around me at any given time. Two nights a week, I have classes I need to prepare for, because the books and lesson plans provided for me by the state are utter shite. I have a gorgeous eight-hour block in which the kids are at school, but if I don't use that time to get things done, like bathe, it's almost assuredly not going to happen around here, because hubby's got to get shuffled off to work around ten or eleven. (I am serious, I want a job that doesn't demand my mental, emotional or physical presence till "ten or eleven," noon-ish on weekends), and anyone who has a working husband they take care of can tell you about the swirling chaos they leave in their wake as they're getting ready for work and doing the dance of "Where is my...?"
So during that gorgeous eight-hour block, which just became seven if I managed to get my bath in after pushing him out the door, I have to do dishes and at least a load of laundry, and lately I've been trying to pick at the physical chaos around me because yes, Virginia, even though it's not a tidy house, I'm trying, and no, it doesn't mean I don't do anything all day. Hubby goes there rarely, which is good for him, but occasionally MIL will go, "You could come to the ______ because you're not doing anything, right?" And somehow, "I can't go because this is the only semi-sane, alone time I will get all day" never flies as a reason why she needs to not invite me to her functions, ever. "I haven't had my shower yet, I'm sorry, I'm in for the day." Right.
My ex-girl used to think similarly. "You aren't going to be one of those stay-at-home moms who says 'I do too work!' are you?" Insert eye-rolling. That was clue #1,847 I Shouldn't Have Stuck Around. She also thought Brian Slade's behavioral patterns were perfectly justified. That was clue 1,848.
So let's say I have to go shopping, that's a half hour drive one way into town, or I spend roughly 30% more on my groceries. An hour and a half, two hours a week shopping -- and lately, if I don't manage to do that on a day when hubby works here at the close store, then it's a half hour drive in to drop him off and another hour in and back again to pick him up, because right now there's only one working car.
Okay so for the sake of generosity, let's say the car isn't an issue. Half hour in, an hour or two there, half hour back. That's at least two to three hours gone from my day, seven whittled down to four or five. Half an hour putting up groceries, good luck finding space for everything.
Or, let's say I have to pay bills. That's actually quite a lot more relaxing than it used to be, because Bank of America has online bill pay. So I spend half an hour sorting out where the paycheck went for the week and trying not to dip into savings, and five minutes actually paying the bills. Some days, I do minor online shopping for things like spices and coffee. It makes me feel svelte and exotic.
And when the kids get home, there are snacks to make and homework to oversee and bickering to bring a halt to, and one last laundry load to pull out so I don't forget it and leave it overnight. Dinner. Dinner deserves its own sentence: and dinner to figure out, dig out of the deep freeze, and cook. Then hubby comes home; more chaos. Usually he is starving, so he walks in the door going "What's for dinner, is it ready, I'm hungry, I haven't eaten all day" (insert me, doing the dance of "Whose fault is that?" and him nodding grumpily). While he sets down his computer bag, takes off his shoes, situates himself, I am either in the throes of a grand, home-cooked meal, or already so harried from my afternoon that I'm chewing the end off a pizza or lasagna box so I can shove it in the oven and leave it alone for twenty-minutes-to-an-hour.
Dinner deserved its own paragraph, apparently.
Either way, it ain't pretty. Because hubby, starved because like a DORK, he hasn't eaten all day, has to wait about a half an hour to come down from his day before he can eat. So he's in the living room radiating low blood-sugar bitchiness, though he is much better these days about not throwing it off at me. At this point, I will bite his glorious freaking hippie head off, he knows I will. I love my husband, but goddamn.
After dinner, it's baths, after baths, it's teeth-brushing and putting to bed of the kids. You can see why we don't do sports. That's a level of hell I'm not going to put myself in right now.
So where was I. Then there's the period in which hubby has to have the TV on, which is a stressor all on its own, I would say even more so than dirty dishes or laundry. I live for two comedic series and one cooking show; that would account for an hour and a half of television a week. Everything else is a by-proxy result of hubby having to have the TV on all. The. Time. The real joy happens when he uses the DVR function to rewind the CNN to show me an item on the ticker news. TRY to tell me TV doesn't cause ADD.
By then, I'm so keyed up that I have two modes: stay up till two-thirty out of sheer overstimulation, or collapse in an ill-timed heap at 11:22. Which sucks, because by then, I'm hitting prime time with my west coast writing partners, and squeezing the last moments out of it with my east coast writing partners. Annoying and inconvenient, sleep is. Collossal waste of time.
Sometimes, before bed, I'm lucky enough to remember the load of laundry I was idiotic enough to put in the washer after the one I pulled out earlier, thinking, "I'll just do one more load." Most times, though, I will wake up in the morning to a load that needs to be rewashed, and "aw, crap" ringing through the house.
And these days, the ones just like the one I described up above? These are the days I'm easy on myself. When I get on a mad whirlwind every-piece-of-laundry-NOW kick, or cleaning out cupboards, or scrubbing down the kitchen, that's when I will go afk for two hours during the day and take a nap after, because I just can't hack it. Most times, when there are pauses in my tagging during the days, it's because if I said "brb" every time I had to get up, there wouldn't be time for anything else.
Don't even get me started on my Saturday.