Well, today has been a testament to my finding my “new normal”.

This morning I went with my mom to take the kids to the YMCA and get the “lay of the land” as far as their activities are concerned.  Hunter has basketball on Saturday mornings (several of his school mates are in his basketball group which is really nice) and while he’s there Logan goes to the “Kid Care” area to play while mom walks on the treadmill and does some circuit training.  Once mom leaves and my foot is out of “the boot” I’ll be the one taking the kids to the Y and walking on the treadmill.  Our Y is really nice and I am looking forward to all of the possible things for me and for the kids.  Logan has classes (tumbling and something else) twice a week already and Hunter has basketball on Saturdays and swimming on Thursdays.

I’m starting to lay out our weekly schedules so that we have time at the Y at least 4 days a week.  If I want to run a marathon in 2011 I have to really get my behind in gear.

After the Y I came home and spent several hours on the phone “talking shop” and getting ready to get back to work.  I got a lot of things nailed down and am feeling really ready to get back to “coloring in the lines”.  I’m actually planning on starting my “come back” release tomorrow evening… if all goes as planned and I get a little bit of time tomorrow to work on organizing and cleaning my studio.

After a little bit of rest time this afternoon I made an early dinner for the family, did some quick chores (laundry finally went down the chute) and got dressed in a cute little casual jeans and “ballet cardigan” to go to a party at our neighbor’s (Jerry and Diane) house.  “The boot” didn’t add much to my cute little outfit, but I actually felt close to normal as we walked into the party.

We all (including my mom) had a really nice time and wound up staying way past bedtime for the boys.  Logan finally kind of lost it at around 9:30pm and we headed for home.  After that I made myself a hot beverage and sat on the couch to watch a little bit of TV.  Now I am just catching up on some email and so forth and then I’ll tuck myself in and try to get a good night’s sleep.

If there really is a little bit of time to rest I think that a schedule like today’s will be okay for me once my mom leaves.  Days will start with dropping Hunter off at school and then on days that Logan is at daycare I’ll work for those 4 hours then pick him up and come home for his nap and some chore time.  After we pick Hunter up from school (on daycare days) I think we’ll go to the Y for an hour or so and then come home for chores, homework and cooking dinner.  On “non-daycare” days I think that Logan and I will go to the Y first thing after dropping Hunter off at school and then come home for lunch and nap (or run errands if that needs to be done) then do chores and cooking after we pick Hutner up.  On those days I’ll chisel out a couple of hours in the evening to work.  Weekends will be different, but I am hoping to have maybe 2 hours each day to work and then concentrate the other hours on family time and rest (at least until I am back to myself 100%).  I really hope that this works out for me.  I’m a little scared about trying to “do it on my own” after having one grandmother or another here solidly for the last year.  I just haven’t had to do anything that I didn’t  have the strength for but now I am going to have to do it no matter how I feel.

I am going to go back to weekly meal planning and cooking ahead on the weekends when I can.  The last month or so I have kind of been “cooking by the seat of my pants”.  Just having the basic ingredients in the pantry so that I can whip pretty much anything up but not really having a solid plan.  I think I need the plan back though.  It keeps me organized and doesn’t leave me having to run to the store at the last minute if I need something little that I didn’t think of on grocery day and it also keeps me from changing my mind last minute about what to feed people.

Tomorrow is grocery day.  I have a love/hate relationship with grocery day.  I enjoy the quiet time that I have in the grocery store (I take about 2 hours to get the whole week worth of things we need) but I hate getting up early enough so that I don’t have to deal with crowds.  I love picking out beautiful produce and meats to cook fabulous meals for the family but I hate putting it all away when I get home.  See?  Love and hate.  It all balances out though and again, those moments of “normal” mean more to me than I ever could have guessed they would.

I need to get some recipes up here for your guys along with some cookbook reviews, photos of the kids and other stuff that is sitting around here waiting for something to be done with it.  Slow and steady wins the race… I am back for the long haul so I suppose that there is plenty of time for all of those things.

For now I think that I am going to tuck myself in and hope for a long and undisturbed sleep tonight.  Hopefully my Sunday will be productive AND relaxing and I can have something really fun to put here tomorrow night.  Happy Sunday!

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 20th, 2010 at 11:45 pm and is filed under Misc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.