...best-laid plans of mice and men...

Giant Christmas Spider at the Recycling Center

I had so many items to check off from today’s to-do that today has been a whirlwind. The morning began with breakfast. I’m usually the cook in the family but this work week my fella got up daily at 4:30am and made breakfast for us. I’m not even sure that I can process how truly wonderful this is. I’m not necessarily a morning person (I’m actually not a night person either… I’m more mid-day) so when the alarm goes off (actually, I almost always wake two minutes before the alarm… my body is weird like that) I practically sprint in order to get out the door and head to the train. For years I’ve eaten in the car on my way to the train. Sometimes I just didn’t eat because there wasn’t any time. But my goals this year include a bit of slowing down… I just had no idea that he was going to help so much!

hyacinth

Each day he made me fake-bacon (the Morningstar kind) and tater tots, one day some toast, another day an egg… breakfast foods. BUT I’m trying to lose weight so this weekend when I was considering how to tell him, “so maybe I don’t need to eat tots every day, etc.” without really wanting to say “stop doing something so thoughtful that makes my life a zillion times better” he beat me to the punch and said, “what if I just give you a couple tots like 2-3 so you’ll have the taste”… that’s some crazy portion control. He asked if I preferred fruit or perhaps some oatmeal… and it went from there.

This morning after breakfast I immediately did my nails in a French Noir manicure. With hand washing and hand sanitizer, my hands and nails are so dry. One of my resolutions this year is to take better care of my nails. I’m so much happier when they’re put together.

Then after recycling (where there was a giant Christmas spider avec a scarf!) and grocery shopping, I came home to plant… (yeah, yeah, yeah… one of the reasons my nails are so crappy is because I’m always putting them in the earth)… Snowdrops and Black Queen of the Night tulips that will hopefully bloom indoors in about two weeks. The hyacinth bulbs that my fella bought last week are blooming like crazy and wonderfully fragrant. I’m not terribly fond of the winter because I’m often cooped up inside but today was a beautifully sunny albeit cold day so gardening was a necessity. Then I went for a 5-mile walk through town. I’ve been so stressed with heading back to work last week and this upcoming week’s craziness. Part of my extra duties as a faculty member deals with new student orientation so this week if I don’t prepare, it will not go well.

I had just a few more items on my to-do list, which also included some things that I wanted to do and then BAM! My CONTROL key on my keyboard popped off. My plan was to schedule travel for a conference and to blog so the fact that attempting to fix the key took my fella and me over an hour was not a welcoming addition to my evening… but the fact that he would take the time out of his getting-ready-for-the-week evening to help me was so very important. While he attempted to fix, I decided to organize FIVE DAYS of lunches! I planned out my foods so that I won’t starve and will hopefully lose a little weight in the process.

So while today included some “me-time”, it felt more like I was trying to check off boxes to help future me… and sometimes that’s just how the weekend goes. Fun activities are in store next weekend with Edgar A. Poe’s Birthday Bash at the Poe Museum on Saturday and my Horror Book Club on Sunday. I just have to survive the week!