Time and Food

It has been more than a month now since school started; my family's (okay my) routine has somewhat been established; and yet, I sit here and wonder: what it is exactly that I do all day?

I know I am not sitting around eating candy, watching soap operas or reading trashy magazines (okay, I do that sometimes, but definitely not too often), but at the same time, I do not feel like I am actually accomplishing anything.

I tidy and clean, and then the small hurricane comes home from school and the house returns to its normal chaotic state. I thought I would write more, but this is the first time I have written in months. I also thought I would exercise a bit more, but then I would feel guilty if I moved the spider that has made my running shoes her new home.

Seriously, where does the time go? Now that my kid is in school all day, I thought I would have so much more free time. I actually thought that I would be bored, as I am the type of person who cannot sit still for very long (unfortunately my daughter has inherited that trait from me). Yet it still feels like the moment I sit down, I have to get right back up to pick her up from school again.

The only thing I can come up with is my life now revolves around food. I am now forever trying to think of what to make for lunch and dinner; going out to buy the ingredients to make the meals, and then coming home to prep the meals; oh! and let us not forget the actually cooking part. Oh! And then cleaning up after....

I applaud all those women who can work, take care of their families and prepare meals! I do not think I am programed to do this (dealing with food part). I lived on a diet of instant dinners throughout my entire university life! The most cooking I did was boiling water to make Kraft Dinner, instead of using the microwave, and tossing together a bag of pre-package salad. I would have never imagined that food would be taking over my life.

I would appreciate any and all mealtime tips, especially if it means that I can have some free time to go eat my candy and watch some trashy talk shows.

Now, excuse me while I am off to prepare lunch....

Me time

So after the last post about trying to get things done while my kid is at school... this week, I decided to say screw it. I am taking some time for myself and do stuff I want (mainly surf aimlessly on the Internet for hours). Next week, I might just rent me a chick flick and watch it in the middle of the day.

Now, I just have to get over the guilt of not vacuuming, dusting, doing the dishes and folding that pile of laundry in my room.

One day, I will learn to find a way and do a bit of both. But for now, I am going to sit here, with my coffee, enjoy the fall sunshine, type away on my computer...

... and then quickly run inside and finish putting away the clothes before I have to pick the kid up again.

Summertime blues…

When I was a kid, I LOVED summer vacation – no school; sleeping in; hanging out with friends; hanging out in front of the TV; being a lazy blob… what is there not to love?

And then I became a parent…

I now view summer vacation with a slight sense of dread. Don’t get me wrong, I love spending time with my kid, but I also love the couple of hours that I have to myself while she is in school.I need that time to run errands and to clean the house; okay, who am I kidding, I need those hours to watch useless crap on youtube.

Now, she is officially out of school. And, not only do I lose my Internet time; I feel I must find ways to entertain her. Unfortunately, this leads to my second problem… I am a bit of an obsessive planner and scheduler (I blame this on my father). I will plan when my daughter has time to breathe if I can. Also, I like things to run on MY time – if ‘fun’ time starts at 10:00, then it has to start at 10:00, not 9:59, and sure as hell not 10:01…

Now, my child usually will not follow a schedule (willingly), no matter how prettily colour coded I make it – the child does not feel the sense of urgency about anything; I am pretty sure the house can be on fire, and she will still insist on taking half an hour to put on her shoes herself. I, on the other hand, will start feeling anxious if I am slightly thrown off my carefully laid out plan. Not that either of these extremes is a good thing.

This brings us back to why I use to love summer… the potential to do nothing, and everything.So, this summer, I am going to try to take it easy with my little one and see what she wants to do and go from there. We do have a couple of weekend getaways in the early stages of planning, and she does have a couple of weeks of camps booked, but the rest of the summer is FREE!

So, here’s to sleeping in, playing at the park, digging in the sand, biking to nowhere, going on adventures, doing absolutely nothing, and especially the weeks when she is at camp so that I get my couple of hours back.

I admit it; I am a Facebook game addict...

I use to spend hours playing Facebook games. I farmed, built restaurants, created frontiers… I usually only did these things while my child was asleep, and usually only after I finished doing what I have to do (like paying the bills), which also meant that at 1am, I am farming, building restaurants and chopping trees….

I do not even remember how or why I got addicted to these games. I have a feeling it is because of the simplicity of these games; I sit there, click a couple of buttons, and things happen, sometimes I even get rewarded with points and stuff. These games are my slot machines.

I really enjoyed the simple mindlessness when I play. After a long day of entertaining a pre-schooler (even if it was a good day) my brain is just too tired to think, so much so that even reality TV takes too much effort for me to follow the ‘plot’. And, there is an additional bonus to these games: in these games, I get to CONTROL what happens. I have come to realize that my little one is definitely her own little person now, with very STRONG opinions of her own (not that I mind most of the time, but once in a while, it is just nice to ask her to wash her hands and not have to deal with the ‘why’s’).

Well it is now time for me to say goodbye and goodnight to the games, and to find some other thing to do, like reading (reading something with more than two sentences per page), writing more, or maybe finishing some of those knitting projects that I have started. Yes, I know I am replacing one addiction with another, but hopefully this is a healthier addiction.

Besides, my computer slows to a grinding halt each time I try to load one of those Facebook games… OR maybe I just need a new computer to play…