Andrew has been in away for work for the last few days, which is typically very difficult for me. Difficult because Andrew tends to be housekeeper and Mr. Mom. I go to work a few hours before he does, typically, so he wakes up with me, motivates me to get out the door (I am not a morning person, to put it mildly), makes my lunch, packs up my car, and pulls it out of the garage, so it's on the street and ready to go when I frantically run out the door. Then, before Andrew settles in to read or watch the Wire (which he Netflixes and watches without me because I have a strong dislike of any TV show that makes my pulse race), he does little things around the house like clean the litter boxes, put out the recycling, fold the laundry, and wash the dishes. Yes, I realize I have a fantastic husband. When he is gone for a few days, I miss him like crazy because I miss him - his company, warm body in bed, laughter - but I'm usually also terrified that the house will fall apart under my watch, I'll sleep in by mistake and miss work, or that one of the cats will throw up, since I don't exactly do well with clean up, either. I tend to stay up too late and not sleep well in his absence, which means in my waking hours, I walk around like a zombie. It's not pretty.
But this time, so far, so good. Andrew returns this afternoon, and while I'm cautious to admit it, I've actually had a little bit of fun taking care of myself like I used to when I lived alone (maybe more fun than back then, since I'm now grad-school free).
Andrew left on Wednesday evening, and that night after dinner together, I went to our last class of a seminar we'd been taking at church, did a few things around the house, and fell asleep by my bedtime. On Thursday morning, I did the dishes and the laundry (first time in months), packed my own lunch, and made it to work. When I got home that evening, I caught up with two girlfriends on the phone, and again, was in bed and asleep by bedtime. This summer, I'm able to work longer days during the week for the option of having a 1/2 day on Friday, and this was the first week of this schedule - so getting to bed was a high priority on my checklist for survival. I shouldn't have been worried about it though, because the early morning wake up has been sealing my fate to be asleep by 10:30.
My biggest worry about passing the time without Andrew was Friday and today. Because it was my first 1/2 day Friday, I was afraid I'd be horrifically bored and depressed with nothing to do. But I spent the entire 4.5 hours I would have been at work having a grand old time doing things that Andrew would never want to do - spending our hard earned money. Sortof. First, I went to Panera for lunch. This was actually a low point. One of the lousy things about where we live is that there are not enough Paneras per capita. Where I grew up, I believe there are 4 Panera restaurants (maybe 3?) for 210,000 people. Here, there are 2 Paneras, both in very hard to get in and out of locations, for 377,000 people. This does not make sense to me - and Panera people, if you find my blog (hey, it could happen - the Galena folks found me) - please build more. You'd make money. I promise. Anyway, our city loves Panera, and I made a horrible mistake by going at noon. There were no tables for 2 open, and the "bar" area for lonely single people was sortof taken over by a single old man and I couldn't make out where exactly he was sitting (it was going to take awhile for him to get into the counter-height chair), not sure if there was a spot with one chair in between us, since that would be a necessity. At this Panera, it's pretty typical that during the lunch hours, you have to wait for a table. I finally spotted a table and started making my way toward it - only to get bumped and have my french onion soup pour on to my napkins and a sandwich. An old lady sitting by where I was trying to get by said something disapproving like I nearly splashed her - which I did not. Typically people in Iowa are very nice, but refer back to previous issues with Panera. Anyway, I finally get to the table...and realize that there are 5 chairs around it. At this point, I gave up and plopped down anyway. Every now and then I pretended to look up like I was waiting for 4 other people and just eating without them, but I don't think I was very convincing.
After Panera, I went on my search. You see, yesterday was actually a pretty ugly day. It was foggy until about 3pm, which is well, weird. It wasn't really cool or warm - kindof a bummer for my first 1/2 day Friday, since Andrew and I had decided this work scheduling option was perfect for spending lazy days at the pool by my work (which hasn't opened yet). Running around doing errands isn't exactly the scene I'd had in mind. But, this was a special errand - sometime on Thursday, I'd gotten the brilliant idea that since it would be sunny on Saturday (and I'd be alone all day Saturday), I should buy a chaise lounger and sit out in our backyard and read. I'm embarrassed to say this, but my mom brought me the first two Twilight books when she and my dad visited last weekend. Talk about guilty pleasure...it's the type of book I'll totally make fun of someone else raving about, but I'll happily read if I don't have to sit on an uber long library waiting list nor buy myself. For the record, so far, Twilight reads just like the movie, and that's as far as I'm going to go for literary criticism, since I'm sure this would balloon into a very long and perhaps controversial blog if I dared to go more in depth. Lots of people take Twilight very seriously, and I don't wish to offend. It's like Harry Potter. You don't dis Harry when that series is thing the masses have ever enjoyed reading...
Anyway, the search was on yesterday for a chaise lounge. I had two priorities: 1) Find something sturdy and 2) Find something under $30. This was damn near impossible. I started with Bed, Bath, and Beyond, since I'd found a $30 lounger on the website that looked fantastic and was out of stock. I crossed my fingers that the store would have it. No luck. But I did buy a wine glass, a pillow, and a canvas storage tote - all without the 20% coupon that I of course had 3 of back at home. Then I tried TJMaxx. On my way to Target, I called my mom for ideas. She suggested Aldi and Ace Hardware. I tried Aldi across the street, and then I went to what I thought was an Ace but was a True Value. From there, I used GPS (our friend Joanne) to find the city's only Ace. In a not so nice neighborhood. It did not carry ANY lawn furniture of any type. Then I went to Farm and Fleet, which isn't even in city limits. They had nothing, but I did wind up with a plastic side table for $5 (I figured since I was already out there, I might as well buy something). At this point, it was 4:30pm. I would have been off work then on a normal day. My next stop was Kmart. Here, I tested 3 loungers and found one that was meh...but $30. I bought it just in case I found nothing else. After that, I went to Big Lots, Tuesday Morning, and Menards. By this point, it was dinner time and I figured that what I had bought was probably as good as it was going to get. I returned home, watched a movie (500 days of summer -- really good -- though I feel asleep halfway though and had to go back to scene selections when I woke up) and it was time for bed again. Another day successfully passed without any calamity.
When I woke up this morning, it was 6:10. My cats were pawing at me, even though they have automatic feeders now. This is how I know it's summer - the cats think that because it's light outside at 5am, the day should begin pronto. Stupidly, I woke up with them. I got my DVD in the mail to return to Netflix, wrote a thank you card for a gift, read the newspaper, got my head start into the life of Bella and Edward- I've never been so productive before 7am in my life. By 8am, I had decided that I was going to go to the Farmer's Market for breakfast (love the overpriced breakfast burritos one stand makes) and to do our grocery shopping. I came home, prepped the veggies that I'd bought and listened to Car Talk on the stereo (God bless men - especially mine - for the obsession with surround sound. It's kinda fun to be able to hear NPR throughout the house). Now it's Whad'Ya Know? with Michael Feldman. Oh good times.
While I'm very glad Andrew doesn't go out of town for work very often - I really do need the guy around - this really isn't a bad little Iowa weekend for me. Sunshine, reading, NPR, farmer's market - and if I need something to do, I might actually get around to planting the gladiolus that I haven't yet...though yard work is much better with Andrew there to kill spiders. We'll just have to see what the day holds.
No comments:
Post a Comment