It seems I start every new blog apologizing for not blogging more often. Even though I have a few friends and family that seem to enjoy this, I'm sure you all have other things to fill your time between my blogging. This may be the last time I apologize for too much time in between.
There is not too much time between my thoughts, though, I assure you. I have many things that I think about throughout the day. But, some of them would have you carting me off to the looney bin. Some are my political opinions and I promised never to bring that to this blog. Oh... so tempted though.
One thing that came up the other day was this. I realized that the metaphor- put on your own oxygen mask first and the question- is the glass half full or half empty are basically saying the same thing. But only when you realize, you can refill the glass.
We all have other people and other things to take care of. Husbands, children, family, our homes, grocery shopping, bill paying, personal correspondence, community events and service, elderly parents, writing a blog, etc. We give a lot of ourselves to other people and other causes. But, we have to take care of ourselves first. We must remember to put our oxygen mask on first and/or refill our glass. When we fill up with things we enjoy, whether that is a long walk, a hot bath, a bit of retail therapy, just watching an afternoon movie; whatever we can do to take care of ourselves first, fill that glass, then we have a bit of ourselves to pour out again. So we pour out. And pour and pour and soon we see that the glass is getting empty. Time to fill it up again so we'll have more to pour out. Or, put on our oxygen masks once again and take care of ourselves first. Then and only then can we take care of others and other things.
I'll put on my oxygen mask, but, I'm a little tired of these other masks. However, I know first hand that they probably are working. Of course, there's really no way to know, but I am very sure they are doing what we need them to do. So I'll keep it up. But, I'm tired of it!
But, back to my oxygen mask and filling my glass. When I worked at the high school, I was off on Wednesdays. My Sissy called those "Gail Days". The girls that I worked with knew that on Wednesday's, I "scrubbed the toilets". In other words, I did whatever housework I could fit in between other errands, appointments and such that were scheduled on my "day off". Now that I'm not working outside my home, you'd think every day would be a "Gail Day". Not so much. But, I have made a conscious effort to make Monday's my Gail Day. Tuesday is the day I have lunch at my moms and do her grocery shopping for her. However, if the weather is nice, she may just mask up and go with me to do her own shopping. I giggle because she tends to spend more money when she goes. I stick to her list. She tends to let other things fall off the shelves into her grocery cart. But, that's part of the experience and I'm glad when she can go and do that for herself. Of course, I ALWAYS stick to my list. 😂
Saturdays and Sundays I tend to leave open for Jack and anything we may want to do together. Take the boat out, go visit Miss Reilly, do some yard or house work, go visit Miss Reilly, watch a little sports on the TV, go visit Miss Reilly, run around in our Honda side by side, visit those 2 people Miss Reilly lives with. So that leaves me Wednesday (formerly known as Gail Day), Thursday and Friday for extra errands, projects around the house (I currently have 2 big ones), medical or other appointments, (did I mention between me, Jack and my mom, there have been over 50 of those since Spring?), and maybe a little more time to refill my glass and put on my oxygen mask.
One month ago we had some vacuum issues and decided it was time to give our nearly 30 year old Electrolux it's last rites. This was about the 4th time we'd ever had work on it, but it was the 2nd time in the past year for the same issue. Time to go with something new. So the Electrolux guy came and sold us a new one. That was a month ago. I would be incredibly embarrassed to tell you how many times I've actually used it since then. Less than you could count on one hand, and I'm not really sure you'd even need a hand.
But, in the past couple of weeks, I want you to know that while there may be a bit of dust here and there, we've taken a fun trip to Georgia to spend some time with friends, snuggled and chatted with Reilly - both in person and a few times on FaceTime (love that technology). I've done a couple of small projects around the house, I've spent some time in my beloved "Lou" with Kelley, I've had some retail therapy, some online retail therapy - "click click - proceed to checkout" followed by some cardboard boxes arriving at the back door and I'm happy to say that I think my glass is full again. I'm breathing.
You keep breathing, too. Even though it has to be through a mask a while longer. Take care of you.
No comments:
Post a Comment