A Day Off

I've had lots of days off over the past year, due to my cancer treatment.  But those don't really count, I guess, because those were days spent at chemotherapy or at the hospital having surgery, or recovering from those events.  I read a lot of books, I think.   I don't even have any memories of some of those days, because I was asleep.  I do have a vague impression that people were in the room with me,  There's also a memory of my son poking me to make sure that I was still alive and not a zombie.

But maybe I imagined that. 

I did have Veteran's Day off.  I think that's great, and hey!  I had the day off.   I had a few happy moments, thinking of the fun things that I could do.

What did I do?

I did not sleep late.

I did not get a mani or a pedi. 

I did not get a massage. 

I did not go shopping.

I did not go see a movie.

I did not have a date to meet my husband somewhere fun.

I did not treat myself to a nice lunch at a fancy restaurant. 

I did not go for a walk.

I would have liked to do some of those things.   Except the mani/pedi.  I still don't have toenails, and my fingernails are still not quite long enough.  

Instead,  I got Zane ready and dropped him off at school.  I came back home to find out that my dog Maisy had somehow retrieved the family-sized tub of butter off of a counter.  She ate all of it.  Since yesterday she somehow climbed on top of the table and ate a giant dark chocolate bar, this necessitated a phone call to the vet. 

I did have a date with the plumber, who showed up to fix the leaking garbage disposal.  I did do five loads of laundry.  I did vacuum.  I did wash some dishes.  I did carry out the recycling.  I did pick up toys and clothes and found several missing socks.  I gathered up the items needed for soccer practice and put them on a chair.

And I had a nap.  

Mom stuff.  I used to get mad about having to do all these chores on my day off.  But over the last year I've developed a new appreciation for routine tasks.  It felt pretty good to do normal things in my own house.  I'm getting my strength, and my stamina back after cancer.  It's something to be grateful for, even if they are chores.   

The next day off will involve a massage, though. 


Go visit Kat Bouska, and her Writer's Workshop!  The prompt I chose was:

1. You have a day off, what do you do with your free time?

Swine Flu

Just for today, I has it. Swine flu. Really. It's a 24 hour case.

Way back when everyone was afraid of getting the Swine flu(which has nothing to do with swine, by the way), the school district that I work for totally freaked out and cancelled school for a number of days. (It really wasn't their fault that they freaked out--the county health department freaked out, and hysteria turned out to be more contagious than the actual flu.) It was a big deal that they cancelled school, and the kids rejoiced, and their parents cried.

While all the teachers got to stay at home, including my husband(who was positively giddy), everyone in MY office had to be at work. This went on for a couple of days, until someone realized that all of us in the special education department spend a lot of time with children and their germs and were therefore not suitable to be in the building. We were sent home, but told to continue working and to document our time. Overall, I accumulated five glorious days of 'comp time'--meaning that I could take five days off whenever and it wouldn't come out of my sick leave.

Some people went on vacation using their Swine Flu days. Other people did glamorous things like spa treatments or day trips.

What did I do with my five days? Stayed home with my child for four days during this school year, because he was ill. Glamorously vacation-y! Dealing with a cranky, sick, recalcitrant three year old is soooo relaxing!

But I kept ONE day. Just for me.

This is that day.

I did have plans to go have lunch with my sister-in-law. I was planning on treating her. However, she texted me last night to say that "something came up", which is universally understood to mean "I don't want to hang out with you." (I try way too hard to be friends with my sister-in-law, and she has to invent lame excuses. Sue me.) So, no lunch. My husband has the car, so no hitting the Sephora store armed with a gift card or hunting through stores looking for a bathing suit that covers enough of my butt without qualifying as a burqa.

That was the extent of my planning for today.

I sometimes feel like my life is over scheduled. There's always someplace I have to be, some task that must be performed, some chore to complete. I wanted to break out of that, if only for one day.

So I am just going to play this day by ear.

I could sleep all day.

I might finish reading some of the 42 books I have stacked next to the bed.

I have beads to make jewelry.

I have walking shoes that need breaking in.

I have episodes of Castle, The Borgias, and Supernatural on the DVR that must be watched.

I have blogs that need reading/commenting.

I have online games I would like to play.

I have a garden that needs weeding and pruning.

Wait, scratch that last one.