Winter

I don't use this blog really, but I am going to attempt to write and courage, dear heart is the right place for it.

It is early on a Sunday morning, clear and 26 degrees.  I came in the living room for a quite place to write, but as soon as I opened my computer loud children came in the room.

I feel a lot of things but have trouble making sense of them, of expressing them.  I often feel stressed and overwhelmed but it's usually suppressed.  It comes out in ways like leaving my keys in the front door (when my husband is out of town). I feel unmoored.

This winter has been hard.  Allen's mom's decline and passing away has overshadowed most of it.  Lots of sickness and losing our dog suddenly has been difficult.  Sam had to miss a lot of work because of all that has been going on, which put his job in jeopardy.  He gets "points" whenever he calls in sick.  They stay for a year and he is one point away from getting fired, which won't go away until the end of February next year.  They don't accept any medical notes from the doctor and they don't give him any funeral leave.  It's very difficult. Yesterday he decided to give his two week's notice and tomorrow is his last day.  He complains a lot about his job but he also takes a lot of pride in working and I know he is really discouraged that it is ending this way.  I'm proud of how he has grown through this experience and that he has stuck with his first job for almost a year and a half, has been recognized as doing a good job, and even earned Employee of the Month.  He has learned to dress appropriately for work, to pay attention to his time and punctuality, to stick with something, to try to get along with all kinds of people, and just matured and grown a lot.  Sam has a few more classes to complete before he graduates: a US History class to study for and take the exam, an English class to finish (12 more lessons I think), first semester Geometry to finish (he's got 11 lessons left), second semester Geometry, and two sessions of Probability and Statistics.  It's a lot of work, and he deals with a lot of health issues and often doesn't feel well, so I think it will help him a lot to not have to deal with work on top of school these next 3 months.  By April he should only have his last math class left and that will be smooth sailing.

We are adjusting to Allen working for lifetogether again.  He sometimes works in the evenings, is traveling more, has some spontaneous meetings and trips and things that come up, and the biggest thing is that he hasn't been driving uber or lyft.  This means that he is not gone all day Fridays into the night, he does not work on Saturdays or Sundays.  The weekends are looking a lot different.  It's a big adjustment.  I don't know if it is due to the fact that things have been so difficult for us for so long, the exhaustion of survival mode for years, losing Alice, winter, or what exactly, but we are just tired.  These last couple weekends we've been healthy I just don't have a lot of energy to do things.  I have been struggling with energy and motivation in the weeks as well.  I feel like everything I do is through fog, with resistance.  The simplest tasks are difficult for me.  I guess this is depression.

Starting 2020 I had big plans of how things would go but I really haven't accomplished anything.  My health has been neglected and I am not doing any side work.  I am focused on my word of the year, consistent.  Each day I try to do the daily chores needed to keep our household running and take care of my people, and also to make progress moving forward.  For the past month I've been focused on decluttering the downstairs.  I guess I have made progress but it's been really slow.  I got the very messy white shelf cleaned off and organized, and a paper system that works for me set up, but a lot of things I took off that shelf are still sitting out on the island and floor waiting for me to deal with them.  I think realistically it will take two to three more weeks until the entire downstairs is finished, including the entry way shelves and the hall closet.  It will probably take me until summer to get the upstairs in order and declutter the attic as well.  I thought I would have made more progress than I have but that's okay.  I don't think I will be able to really make progress with my health until I get my home in order.  I can't seem to tackle both of those areas at the same time, though I am still trying.

This year I had several goals that have fallen to the wayside so far:
Purchase a SC park pass and start visiting all of the state parks in the state.
Walk/exercise 150 minutes per week
Spend time outside daily 2-3 hours (or about 20 hours/week)
Spend a maximum of 2 hours per day on my phone.

Jesse is the only one getting enough outside time, but even with the outside time he is spending too much time watching tv/youtube since he was sick.  He got in the habit of it then and I haven't been able to keep us on a more productive schedule since then.  We will continue working and trying to get back on track.  I've also been trying to make breakfast Sunday mornings and most weekends that has happened. 

Getting our home physically in order without any clutter is my first priority.  Along with that is putting the systems in place to keep it running smoothly with everyone pitching in.  That includes the bedrooms and bathrooms being cleaned, the weekly cleaning of dusting and floors and bathrooms, the laundry kept up, and being able to feed all these adult-sized people on a budget, which involves menu planning, a good system for shopping, and keeping the kitchen clean.  I plan to get the attic cleaned out this spring.  Once that is finished and the house is in order, I will go back to working outside and in the garage.  I need to finish the rest of the garage and we need to get the front and side yards and exterior of the house in good shape.  Realistically this will take another school year to complete all of this plus a deep cleaning of the upstairs.  At that point we will need to decide whether to begin fixing up this house or selling as-is and moving into something else either here or in Kansas while Julia and Timothy complete high school.  That is the point where I also hope to be making good progress on my health.  At that point I should be able to be making some kind of regular income as well.

Sam's school and all of the above weigh on me heavily, and when he graduates and I can get out from under these overwhelming problems life will feel so much better to me.