Mid-Summer (and trip) Update

I have eight full weeks off for summer break and this Monday marks the half way point. Four weeks are behind me and four are still to come. On the one hand I can’t really believe I’ve been away from work for so long. On the other hand, it has been A WHILE since I’ve thought about that part of my life. I really have been able to disconnect this year, and I appreciate that.

The first two weeks of summer were dedicated to crossing A LOT of things off my to-do list. Although, if I’m being honest, I didn’t have most of those tasks on a list coming into the summer break. While I had vague hopes of “riding the productivity wave” of the end of the school year, I did not image I’d get quite so much stuff done. I usually leave for St. Louis with a messy house and a feeling of dread about returning to it, but this year I was really happy with the state of things. And while my husband doesn’t do much cleaning himself, he also doesn’t trash the place when we’re away, so everything was still pretty tidy when we got home. The downstairs especially looked really good, because I hosted book club there a week before the trip.

{I know I need to write separate posts about the farm and our trip to Memphis. I started the Memphis post and it’s going to be LOOONG, with a lot of pictures. I really hope I finish it and get it up. I will say that both went really well and we had a ton of fun, and also it is SOOOOO GOOD to be home. And while I do plan to put up posts about those trips, I wanted to do a little recap of some personal details from the trip, so I have them to remember later.}

A lot of the trip (which I think of in thirds – St. Louis, the farm, Memphis) went well. I remembered EVERY ONE of my morning (thyroid) and evening (progesterone) meds. I also remembered to change my patch every 3-4 days (this was harder). I even remembered my vitamins – and the kids’ – almost (every?) day!

I slept GREAT, way better than I have at home at any point this past year. (MHT FOR THE MASSIVE WIN!) Usually I sleep poorly when I travel, so sleeping better than normal was very weird. I suspect the read eye got us on midwest time quickly, as we were all able to fall asleep really early that first real night in St. Louis, and then I was waking up at 7-7:30am St. Louis time (so 5-5:30am my time), but I still felt really rested. Waking. up that early helped with another thing that went well, working out.

I did five pretty intense workouts the M-F before our trip, in an attempt to front load a little before we traveled. During the first third of the trip (St. Louis without my husband), I ran (and did upper body/core) twice and did a 30 minute strength class once. I never ran at the farm (maybe my first year?) because it was dry, hot, and VERY dusty;every morning when I woke up at 7am asking myself if I wanted to get up and run, the answer was always no, so I honored that. I did swim across the quarry and back once, which I thought would be fun, but was actually super tiring so I guess I can count that as somewhat of a workout, but meh, I feel like I didn’t work out at all the second third (the farm with extended family) of the trip. Then I ran again before we left for Memphis, and spent an hour at the Fitness Center of the hotel one morning, using the weight machines because I never have access to them and thought, why not? So I worked out twice in the last third (Memphis with my family). That is five hour plus workouts during a 13 day trip. I’m pretty proud of that! Especially since it was hitting “feels like” 85+ by 8:30am most mornings, and that is WARM for me to be running outside. I worked out Friday, Sat, and Sun this weekend, which means I worked out 13 times in the three weeks that included our trip, which I’m proud of.

Other things that went well… The kids did a great job. They both felt WAY easier than they have in the past. They were interested and engages during MANY museum visits. They were willing to go outside their comfort zones with some foods (not far outside, but still progress!). The husband and I got along well. Our rental car was a mid-size SUV – I do not remember being the case at all! – which was really helpful because we were in the car a lot and it helped to have all that space on the drive to Memphis. We got to see cousins a ton, but it never felt like too much. The weather always cooperated (though many times it was forecast to NOT cooperate, so we appreciated it when it did).

But it wasn’t all wonderful! Staying at my uncle’s house this year felt kind of fraught. My cousin was coming to stay at his dad’s house during the three nights we were at the farm, so we had to pack up everything and cram it in the one room they don’t use, and make sure our two rooms, and the bathroom, were in pristine condition before we left for the long weekend. Their washing machine broke the day we arrived and the replacement arrived damaged so we had to go to a Laundromat late one night to wash our clothes (OMG the cockroaches! Eek!)

We were back at my uncle’s house (from the farm) by 2pm on Sunday and that night was kind of a shit show. The cousin who had been at my uncle’s house left his two kids there for our final night, which means we had to switch around the rooms. My parents took our room and we got the old master which has a futon for the kids. But my a lot of my parents’ stuff was still in the master, and they would be sleeping in that room again their final night so they spent most of our final walking in and out, either looking for things (my mom) or just forgetting that it wasn’t their space anymore (my dad). One of my cousin’s kids kept puking, but everyone assured us it was nerves. Before we could all shower the water went out, then the electricity went out! By the time I had folded our clothes and gotten into bed (the water and electricity had returned), I was REALLY ready to get out of there.

My rosacea was REALLY bad in St. Louis. It still is the worst it’s ever been, despite using my Rx cream continually for over two weeks. I have red spots ALL OVER my face, not just on my cheeks and nose, my chin and forehead are covered too. It honestly might be something else, and not rosacea? But the stuff on my cheeks and nose looks so familiar, it’s just the rest of it that I’m not used to. I also got sun rash BAD this trip. It wasn’t just on the tops of my legs, where I usually get it, but across my chest and down my arms and down both legs. My skin was raised, red and angry pretty much the whole trip, despite constant oral and nasal antihistamines and rubbing cortizone with aloe all over my body every day. It truly sucked. (Sun rash is relatively new for me, and it seems to get worse every time I experience it – I will definitely be dressing accordingly when I swim in Hawaii this summer and in St. Louis next summer).

I did a horrible job packing for myself – both clothes and toiletries. I brought way too much of everything and felt stressed about space the whole time. The good news is I will be making significantly better choices for the trip to Hawaii.

Finally, flying back was a disaster. Our first flight was delayed several hours and we missed our connecting flight. We knew there were no more flights to San Francisco that night, but were surprised to learn that the only flights they could get all four of us on the next day were at 5:45am and 5pm. We opted for the early flight, and were already planning on sleeping in Houston’s airport even before it took until 1am to get someone from United on the phone about the hotel voucher. At first I set up shop on the floor in a little nook behind a check-in desk, but luckily the husband walked all the way into another terminal while on hold with the airline, and found some beautiful couch things for us to sleep on. We each got a couple choppy hours of sleep. It sucked, but what could we do?

We were at our house by 8am Friday morning. The 11yo and I were able to sleep a bit when we got home. The 15yo and the husband didn’t manage much. The husband was planning on attending some meetings virtually, but only logged on for a 9am. We were all in pretty rough shape. I was supposed to teach a class at the dojo that afternoon, but thank the heavens my friend ended up being around to cover me. Friday was kind of lost to exhaustion, much like the first Saturday of our trip. Friday night the kids and I saw Superman (I bought these tickets in Memphis before the flight fiasco), and while I was dreading it, it ended up being a great way to stay awake until a reasonable hour. Definitely a fun movie to see on opening night with big Superman fans.

Oh, I almost forgot! Friday afternoon, when I pulled out of the garage to get milk, I realized our front tire was flat, as in the rim was hitting the floor. The husband drove the car home after dropping us at the airport and never touched it again so we weren’t sure what happened. Also the downstairs tub wasn’t draining. You can imagine how sleep-deprived-me manage all this on Friday. (::cough cough:: not well). But on Saturday I was able to fill the tire up with my bike pump and it didn’t lose any PSI wile I was at the dojo, so I drove it to a repair appointment at the Costco where I got it put on less than three months ago and they fixed it for free (there was a screw in it). Also I plunged the bathtub and was able to pull a bunch of hair and junk out of the drain (even though it’s ALWAYS covered with a catcher), and now it’s draining fine. Seriously, I’m so relieved neither was an actual issue.

Since then things have been better. I changed all the beds on Sunday night which was divine. Today (Monday), I ran errands after dropping the 11yo at basketball camp, came home and made pancakes for the 11yo’s camp lunches, then taught a couple classes at the dojo. It was a nice mixture of feeling productive and chilling out. The 15yo left for two nights at a lake house with her besties on Sunday and it’s been really nice for her (and us!) to get some time away from family.

This week is more of getting stuff done, but also not doing much. Next week as well. I am here for it! Then it’s Hawaii, and finally my sister is in town for the week before I go back to work. The end of summer is just around the corner, but I’m trying to avert my eyes and enjoy some languid days before the back-to-school rush.

And oh boy did that end up being a long post. I hope I get Memphis up later this week. Crossing my fingers!!!!!