We put the house on the market in 19 days. We need to get pictures done before that. I have about 10 days of work to do. Contractor said they would be done today. I have my doubts. I am starting to suspect they may be here for at least part of tomorrow. They should have been here doing the small side work pieces while the painting happened, but oh well. I feel bad for my contractor. Dude has been sick for all of December and he doesn’t get to stop working because his business partner is leaving the state. He’s doing the work of 2-3 people and he’s visibly suffering. I worry about him. He’s trying to stay afloat in a horribly abusive environment.
I’m going to stop and take a moment to shout out to my lovely neighbors. They are unburdening me of my possessions and thanking me for the opportunity. We’ve had a lot of great conversations with folks who have never bothered to introduce themselves until now. It’s funny.
The kids and I are sifting our way towards an understanding of how next semester is going to go. This semester has been rough on a couple of levels. Some of it was the result of their choices and I don’t feel so bad. Some of it was because I got into a cycle of flipping out and getting out of that cycle is tough. Some of it was because I got my brain into the mode that we were “catching up” to a particular point in the cycle even though…. uhhhh we aren’t really? EC is super excited that she’s starting 5th grade math because 4th grade math is getting repetitive and boring. Perfect. MC is backed off of the textbook because he needs to be spending a lot more time working on reading for functionality before he can be seriously reading directions to learn. I am feeling very upset with myself that I pushed him in a way I never pushed EC. He needed to wait too and I didn’t. Instead he now has the complex I wanted to avoid in public school. Damnit. It’s my fault for cooperating last year with the charter school. It’s my fault for trying to keep going merrily along from our end point last year. He needs a different sort of schedule.
MC’s next semester is going to be a lot more focus on learning the fundamentals of reading. He’s not behind in math. It’s ok if he falls a semester or so “behind” as he’s getting to the point of being able to fluently read the textbook.
Also: I didn’t nurse frequently enough yesterday and my boob hurts. Ugh. Being a dairy cow is so annoying. Nursing is, in general, going pretty well with this baby. When Her Sweetness has bit me I react with hostility, she feels rejected, then I comfort her and she stops biting. It is what it is. My “hostile reaction” is generally a hostile facial expression combined with turning my body away so I don’t look open to her. That’s enough to break her poor little heart. I can live with breaking your little heart. Don’t bite me. It’s a rare day when she bites me so it’s not common for me to look at her with hostility. I do occasionally say (as I’m meeting her needs) “I don’t WANT to meet your needs. I am VERY INCONVENIENCED by your needs.”
Lots to do today. Home Desperate: I need a toilet seat, 30 concrete stepping stones, rocks, and mulch. Seeing two friends. Dropping off stuff at a thrift store and at the storage unit. I get to spend a bunch of time with landscaping fabric/weed blocker and laying out some walkways in my yard. It’ll be perty. Tomorrow morning before picking up a friend I get to clean the house from top to bottom. If I have time before PT I should also do more landscaping. I have a lot of work and a very short amount of time to do it.
Right now I want to go back and give Past Me the biggest hug ever. A whole bunch of people told me to relax and work more slowly. They were all Wrong And Bad Advice Givers. I would be dying now if I had listened to any of those people. Instead I am plugging along and this is hard but not impossible. I have a lot to do but I am not completely breaking down. I am racing to the finish line of picture day. Then I just hang out and wait until my house is sold. I don’t have anything else big to do at that point.
God that sounds awesome.
I mean… I’ll be down to home schooling my kids and the work of perpetual travel. That’s hardly anything.
My life is unreal and I feel kinda jealous of myself.