Defunking the Funky Slump
What an unusual week. Tim and Jakob are at leadership camp until Saturday. Joshua is staying at Grandma and Grandpa Stricker’s until August 3rd. Jonathan and Mathilda are going to Grandma and Grandpa Andreasen’s tomorrow for three days. I will be home with only three children. I have nothing on my calendar until dental appointments on Thursday morning. What will I do? Well, I guess it’s not like I will be home with the three oldest who are independent and could actually help me clean and organize and redistribute and rearrange. These little people aren’t terribly helpful in the cleaning and organizing departments, but I guess they can definitely redistribute and rearrange…just maybe not the way I may desire.
I find myself in this annual place of returning from a week of vacation with my family and transitioning immediately into being a single mom. Typically it is because Tim goes back to a mountain of work and I am no longer surrounded by extended family. There is no baseball, no swimming lessons…just this slump. It is not as bad as it once seemed since I have learned to anticipate it. I usually find myself a bit overwhelmed with the mental list of things I need to get done, along with the visibly obvious list of things that just can’t be neglected, but both are hard to get done without the proper motivation. (Pause…) Nope…no motivation here. How does one make a healthy transition from “Go-go-go” to an ABRUPT STOP??
Over the years I have come up with a lot of solutions. **SIGH** Now I just need to implement some of them…or even just ONE of them. I’ve been waiting all summer to just slow down a little, so why should it be so hard? I remember one year, I took my kids up to the park to play to get out of the house. An elderly gentleman started talking to me about how wonderful he thought my big family was. He began to tell me about his own big family, which is always a happy thing, and then decided that I was probably about the same age as his only daughter…she was 45! (I had just turned 34). Yikes…needless to say, his comment did nothing to boost my already low morale!
In my eagerness to accomplish some things on my “obvious” list, I began to mow yesterday…prompted by seeing a neighbor already mowing part of our yard. (The grass and weeds are pretty tall after being gone for 9 days and rain for the 4 days preceding our departure). Same neighbor that we upset because our dog was being obnoxious…same neighbor whose house our children ran away to regularly last summer…same neighbor whose sidewalks and driveway were scooped by our big kids when it finally snowed enough for him (said neighbor) to use his new snow removal equipment! They have one quiet child, we have seven not-so-quiet children. They have two well-behaved dogs that stay in their yard…well, we don’t. See where I’m going here? I’m already in a funk, and now I get to have conversations with myself about what our neighbors think of our overgrown yard. OH…which by the way will not be mowed anytime soon, because when I went out to mow yesterday, I ran over a hidden rock…a big rock…and bent the blade beyond my repair abilities.
Sooo…husband gone, mower out of commission, yard overgrown, house messy, unable to leave the house to run with friends all week…AND, Suburban making funny noises…AND, my internet is not working properly!
YES!!!! I am now laughing out loud, because I just reread that and realize how ridiculous I am being! Could I feel any more sorry for myself? REDUCE EXPECTATIONS. Yep…I will reduce my expectations of how my week will go. I will remember that I tend to fantasize. How many times have I looked forward to time? TIME with my kids and nothing standing in the way of me saying “yes” to them (instead of “not now”, or “just a minute”, or “when I’m finished with this…”. Oh, and I will do my best to not care what other people think…about my age, my yard, my doings or not-doings, especially this week.
Thanks Blogger, for the platform to work through my ridiculous pity party before my week begins!
I find myself in this annual place of returning from a week of vacation with my family and transitioning immediately into being a single mom. Typically it is because Tim goes back to a mountain of work and I am no longer surrounded by extended family. There is no baseball, no swimming lessons…just this slump. It is not as bad as it once seemed since I have learned to anticipate it. I usually find myself a bit overwhelmed with the mental list of things I need to get done, along with the visibly obvious list of things that just can’t be neglected, but both are hard to get done without the proper motivation. (Pause…) Nope…no motivation here. How does one make a healthy transition from “Go-go-go” to an ABRUPT STOP??
Over the years I have come up with a lot of solutions. **SIGH** Now I just need to implement some of them…or even just ONE of them. I’ve been waiting all summer to just slow down a little, so why should it be so hard? I remember one year, I took my kids up to the park to play to get out of the house. An elderly gentleman started talking to me about how wonderful he thought my big family was. He began to tell me about his own big family, which is always a happy thing, and then decided that I was probably about the same age as his only daughter…she was 45! (I had just turned 34). Yikes…needless to say, his comment did nothing to boost my already low morale!
In my eagerness to accomplish some things on my “obvious” list, I began to mow yesterday…prompted by seeing a neighbor already mowing part of our yard. (The grass and weeds are pretty tall after being gone for 9 days and rain for the 4 days preceding our departure). Same neighbor that we upset because our dog was being obnoxious…same neighbor whose house our children ran away to regularly last summer…same neighbor whose sidewalks and driveway were scooped by our big kids when it finally snowed enough for him (said neighbor) to use his new snow removal equipment! They have one quiet child, we have seven not-so-quiet children. They have two well-behaved dogs that stay in their yard…well, we don’t. See where I’m going here? I’m already in a funk, and now I get to have conversations with myself about what our neighbors think of our overgrown yard. OH…which by the way will not be mowed anytime soon, because when I went out to mow yesterday, I ran over a hidden rock…a big rock…and bent the blade beyond my repair abilities.
Sooo…husband gone, mower out of commission, yard overgrown, house messy, unable to leave the house to run with friends all week…AND, Suburban making funny noises…AND, my internet is not working properly!
YES!!!! I am now laughing out loud, because I just reread that and realize how ridiculous I am being! Could I feel any more sorry for myself? REDUCE EXPECTATIONS. Yep…I will reduce my expectations of how my week will go. I will remember that I tend to fantasize. How many times have I looked forward to time? TIME with my kids and nothing standing in the way of me saying “yes” to them (instead of “not now”, or “just a minute”, or “when I’m finished with this…”. Oh, and I will do my best to not care what other people think…about my age, my yard, my doings or not-doings, especially this week.
Thanks Blogger, for the platform to work through my ridiculous pity party before my week begins!
