Monday, Day 1:
I awoke early out of habit. Every woman knows the vacation doesn’t start until you’re alone in the house.
Bubba: Maybe I should take the day off.
Me: No, you have to go to work.
Bubba: You don’t want me to stay home with you?
Me: You’ve been home with me all weekend. You go get ready for work.
I had no idea how much goes on here between the time I leave for work and the time he leaves for work. There are power drinks, moving of furniture, setting aside of animals . . . and then the workout videos come on. There is grunting, and panting, and a lot of testosterone build-up.
I spent this time dividing my life into 8 segments on a pad of legal paper:
Personal
Finance
Physical Health
Home
Recreation
Family
Career
Mental Health
This gives me guideline for goal setting, something I’m not very good at. There is one area I have deliberately decided to avoid; career. I’m on vacation, for crying out loud! Even though this would be a great time to update my resume and LinkedIn profile, I just don’t feel the need to wreck my whole week by thinking about work for one minute.
With this in mind, I made a list longer than I could accomplish in a month of Sundays, and set out to chip away at it. My car was in getting some work done ($500 worth), so I began puttering around the house.
Puttering is something I am practicing just in case I retire before I die. The following items were checked off my list:
- Fix Bed Caster
- Make Oat Bran Muffins
- Move the Fake Plant
- Make an XBox Profile
- Steam Clean the Couch
- Watch the Netflix Movie I’ve had for two months.
- Tear the Bed Apart and Wash the Bedskirt, Mattress Pad, and Freshen the Pillows
- 30 Minutes of Yoga
You may or may not be aware that I am working on the transition to some natural cleaning products. This requires some experimentation. I have decided that I like vinegar for cleaning the kitchen floor, shining faucets, and possibly as a fabric softener when sprayed on a damp washcloth and thrown in with the load. However, I have to be extremely careful around Bubba’s things. He has a twitchy nose. I was very careful not to use vinegar on any of his things in the laundry. And yet, this conversation took place at bedtime:
Bubba: (Sniffing)
Me: What? What are you smelling?
Bubba: (Sniffing the blankets, then the pillows, then the mattress)
Me: (Defensively) What? What is wrong?
Bubba: (Crawling across bed to sniff me)
Me: I didn’t wash anything you’re sniffing. What do you smell?
Bubba: I smell vinegar.
Me: OK, I didn’t wash anything you’re sniffing with vinegar.
Bubba: Ok. (Sniffing the blankets)
Me: WHAT? I don’t smell anything! Go to sleep!
that’s pretty funny… I have a nose like your Bubba… some days it literally drives me crazy… sounds like a decent first day for your ‘stay-cation’ hope you enjoy the rest of it… 🙂
Does you nose drive your significant as crazy as it drives the significant others in your life like Bubba’s does me?
yes my nose drives everyone crazy… I am learning to just say nothing (but damn its hard!)… some days however just the look on my face says it all… and somehow everyone around me are like “what? I don’t smell anything…” really? nothing? I guess it’s just me and this nose of mine in hyper drive…
That was pretty funny, Bubba is relentless! I love most of my homemade cleaners and the vinegar doesn’t usually linger try putting in some fresh lemon juice that should help cut the scent a little. Clean the windows and maybe he will head out the door to work a little early :), nothing works better than vinegar, water and newspaper.Then you can have some much earned ‘quiet time’.
I like your thinking!
I use a lot of vinegar for cleaning. But never in the dryer. It does linger and anyone with a sensitive nose will pick it up. Also, a word of caution, It’s quite powerful on floors. Etching grout is one drawback. Found out the hard way. Stipping finish of vinyl floors is another. I always like to be home alone on my days off. What a luxury.
Good to know! I have vinyl flooring in the kitchen. I did dilute it quite a bit. I suppose that will help. Any suggestions are welcomed! This is a new experiment for me. I did find that a small spritz of vinegar on a damp rag in the dryer was not noticeable like pouring it on a rag was! I love the way bleach works in my shower stall, and I hadn’t thought of the harshness on the grout. It does kill my lungs though and I won’t do that again. I think I burned them! I was thinking of trying the oxygenated cleaner to see if I can get the same result and bypass the lung condition!
I am far behind … you are on vacations? Or is it done come Monday? DAmn…I missed out on all of it?!?!?!
I don’t know how I missed this comment, but I’m taking a few days off again, so consider yourself right on time!
I love this. Your writing makes me smile. I can totally hear your side of the conversations with Bubba. The cleaning products is a good idea. I think I shall innovate and update by actually starting to clean more often and THEN move my way into the natural way. 😉 Moving the fake plant on the list nearly threw me off of my chair. 🙂
Hey! so nice to see your comments! Cleaning more often? Should I do that first? Naw. And hey Jack . . this is the monster of all fake plants. A disclaimer: This is something Bubba brought with him. The thing needs to have a leaf glued back together too. Maybe next PTO week . . .