Well, Wednesday Mom pulled a trip out of a hat on me. We do this every December, but I like to know ahead of time when we are going to do something. Oh well.
It was a thirty minute trip, I believe, maybe a bit longer. We arrived, found a good parking place and got to shopping. The shopping is Christmas gifts for her coworkers. We stopped at the usual places. I cannot recall the names of them, but I am sure I’ve listed them before in last years’ trip entry.
In the middle of it we stopped for lunch at the usual German restaurant. I usually order German potato salad, but decided to go for something that might fill me up more. I had a potato cheese soup instead. It was awesome.
After that we hit the shopping again. We found one of the places my mom tries to stop at no longer exists, but made up for that by going to some place called “Dogologie”. Just seeing what my mom wore that day told anyone that she was a dog fanatic.
We stopped by a few other places after that and then headed home. I fell asleep during the trip only to awake again as we pulled into Walgreen’s. Mom purchased wrapping paper, tissue paper and Christmas themed bags to put the gifts in. I meanwhile found some tape and a ruler I’d need. I’m basically the resident gift wrapper now that my brother doesn’t live with us.
When that was all taken care of we then headed to Hallmark to get our yearly Christmas ornament. Mom found another thing to give as a gift and soon that was over with as well. I was glad because all the hustle and bustle was wearing on me. In the end I collapsed when we got home.
I believe that was the night I woke up at ten. Mom made sure we caught a show before she had to go to sleep. After that I did some chores, took a shower and wound up going to sleep again after a few hours. I didn’t wake again until mid afternoon on Thursday. I’m so bad.
Well, as said, I woke up very late on Thursday. Upon rising I cleaned the kitchen and did the laundry. I had to stop to get something to eat since my blood sugar was near zilch. After that I did my usual dusting regimen and I really cannot recall what I did after that.
Friday is a bit of a blur. I’m pretty sure I slept most of it as well, but know I did wake up earlier than the the time I had the day before. I did the usual chores, did the deep cleaning on the kitchen and likely read over things the rest of the afternoon until it was time to go out to eat.
Dad didn’t join us that night. Whether he wasn’t feeling well or it was true that he “ate a big lunch”, I have no idea. The night was pleasant though. On the way to the restaurant Mom and I got into a discussion about whether certain animals have souls or at least have the ability to connect with humans. That ended upon meeting my brother. The conversation shifted to a seminar he attended and about what he learned. The meal was good, the conversation was engaging and it ended in sopapillas.
I cannot remember much of the night after that. It might have been the night there was nothing to watch so I found reruns of Monk and watched two of those before hitting the bed. Yeah… it might have been that night.
Saturday I woke at a decent hour. I did some chores I believe, but I ended up falling back asleep later in the morning. I woke around twelve and Dad and I went grocery shopping. On the way there I had talked to Dad about Mom’s vacation soon being over. Basically I said I was sort of glad she’d be going back to work. The reason why was because there was no schedule the whole time she was off, so I rarely got anything done. He apparently took it to mean I was tired of Mom. Oi.
Well, we got groceries, came back home, unpacked them and I finally ate something. After that I cleaned the cat fountain and did some text editing. I think I collapsed around three in the afternoon. I woke up again in time to see Mom briefly and she confronted me. Apparently Dad decided to be an ass and told her about our conversation earlier that day. Mom’s feelings were of course hurt because he made it sound like I was glad to be rid of her. Bull.
Well, there wasn’t much time to talk to her about it since she was going to bed, but I assured her that was not my intentions nor the point of what I was telling Dad. She seemed to feel better after that and we parted on good terms. After that I took a shower and stayed up most of the night editing.
I think I woke up around one in the afternoon on Sunday. I got to work on chores, might have eaten a bowl of cereal and had a deeper discussion with Mom about the night before. She came to understand the whole point of my conversation with Dad. While I am glad to have Mom home and enjoy spending time with her, there was no schedule at all. That was the point of Mom’s vacation, of course, but it was a bad influence on me.
While I don’t follow a strict regimen, I manage to get most if not all my chores done before my parents get home from work. I was unable to do that with Mom home. I never knew when to vacuum, the kitchen would be swept through three times a day rather than briefly in the morning and briefly at night and the surprise trip on Wednesday cut out most cleaning altogether.
Sleep was also greatly affected. Since Mom could stay up late, we’d watch three to four shows in one sitting. I’m used to only seeing one to two shows a night. While it allows Mom to escape, it can take a lot of concentration from me to follow the words and storyline. So, too much television tends to drain me. I like the shows we watch, but if I didn’t join Mom, she could have wound up watching a show without me and thus troubles there. So for the most part I tried to be a trooper.
The other problem is that I usually stay up three to four hours after Mom finishes watching television and goes to bed. Therefore, nights when the television watching ended around eleven or so, I’d stay up until three, sometimes four in the morning. That of course caused me to wake up in the afternoon and then that only left me with so many hours to get chores done as well as nutrients in me.
Yep… the change of routine and somewhat lack of schedule altogether was not good on me.
Well, after getting all that – more summarized though – Mom fully understood the matter and summed it up as “Your OCD was messed with and thus caused you more stress than usual.” Well, it wasn’t in those exact words, but close enough.
Anyway, once that was done with I folded clothes and tackled the Christmas tree. Yeah, Dad had taken down the Christmas decorations from the attic Saturday afternoon while I was asleep. Mom decorated most of the tree, but there were a lot of empty spaces that needed to be filled in. Thus, I came by with the “filler” ornaments. Those are basically “glass” balls.
I have a little routine before that though, so before doing the filling in, I worked on “fluffing” the tree. We use a fake tree with a lot of wire-based limbs and branches. When put up all the wires get bunched up, so I go through them and straighten them so the “needles” with fill out. When that was done I of course finished the tree decorating.
I think after all that I returned to my room to read and edit things some more. During that time my mom fixed up a “Birthday Dinner” for me. It is a few days early, but better done on the weekend. I had asked for scalloped potatoes around Thanksgiving, forgot about it and recently had asked for homemade macaroni. Well, Mom remembered both requests and those made both. Oops.
It was a good, filling dinner, though. Bad us. We mainly ate carbs. I ate all carbs, actually. Still, everyone seemed to like it. I adore homemade macaroni. It is so much better than the boxed stuff.
Well, once everyone got their fill, I worked on cleaning the dishes while Mom put away the leftovers.
I don’t quite remember the rest of the night other than taking a shower and putting my meds in order, but I went to bed around seven thirty to eight only to wake again at eleven thirty. I’ve been up since then and it is now three in the morning. I of course decided to type this down since my last entry was mainly jumbled and consisted of poorly remembered events.
Anyway, that is all for now. Monday will hopefully be normal. Tuesday I have a doctor’s appointment and will likely go to yoga in the evening. The rest of the week will hopefully be normal as well.
Third week of December my brother’s birthday should come up and soon after that my sister should come down to spend Christmas with us. Other than that, I don’t think anything else is planned. Yay.