The other day, I mentioned to the lady at the post office that we were starting February vacation. She said, “Ooh, where ya going?”
Going? We don’t go places. We spend all our non-vacation time going places. Going, going, going. Vacation is when you get to stay home. Vacation is when you get to get up at five forty-arghhh o’clock because the baby is hitting you in the face with the collected works of P.G. Wodehouse, rather than because the alarm is going off, and you feel like some kind of degenerate hedonist because of it.
Still, I don’t want vacation week to just slip by in an undifferentiated miasma of Netflix and afternoon corn flakes. So far, I have managed to take one (1) shower and get most of the way dressed (upper front quadrant, I haven’t forgotten you!). The kids are watching something odious on Netflix and the dog is eating corn flakes out of the garbage. But it isn’t dark yet! There’s still time to make a pointless list.
Things that will absolutely not happen:
1. Finish sewing that cloak. Most of my kids have homemade cloaks that I’ve sewed over the years, a project which severely strains the limits of my seamstressness, because unlike curtains, cloaks have some curvy parts. I should have sat contented with the miracle of actually making the darn things; but recently, I foolishly promised to take them to Jo-Ann so they could pick out trim that I would then sew on. This we did, and I got as far as pinning the trim on with many pins, bundling the cloak up, stuffing it in a bag, and hanging it on the wall, where it now remains like a prickly punching bag of guilt. I’d like to get it done sometime before the kid realizes he’s kind of old to be wearing a cloak, but I’m afraid that if I open the bag, the pins will fall on the floor and the baby will eat them.
And I just love my child too much to risk it.
2. Put the Christmas stuff up in the attic. This would be fairly easy. I just don’t want to, okay?
3. Finish painting the dining room. I started stripping the wallpaper three years ago, and I started painting eight months ago. It is now about 80% of the way done, and that’s the way I like it, apparently. Sure, it would be great if my husband could take a photo of a birthday party without me knocking the camera out of his hands and screaming, “Nooooo, you can’t have that wall showing!” but on the other hand, if I get to the end of the project, something something something. I will probably die, apparently.
4. Get caught up on correspondence. I already used up most of my life force by clicking on the little “star” button every time I get an important message. What more do you people want from me?
5. Do something about this feature of my kitchen counter:
[img attachment=”92414″ align=”aligncenter” size=”full” alt=”paper pile” /]
so I can find and organize all those unpaid bills I lost track of, and also throw away all the pictures me four-year-old drew of her and me holding hands, because I can’t save all of them. And Straighten Out the Insurance Situation. Oh, hoop de doo, I will get right on that and not cry at all. *sob*
Well, that’s about enough of that. Here are some things that actually might happen this week:
1.Make homemade ravioli. This is not a realistic goal, but I did tell the kids that we would do it, so now we have to.
2.Finally, finally call the church and see about volunteering, because our pastor has that look on his face again, and someone has to do something. Actually, my real goal is to worm my way into the inner circle where the real influence is, and then I can get them to find another spot for that bucket of rock salt in the foyer, which Corrie wants, with all her heart, to eat.
3.Go ice skating. We’ve done this twice so far, during previous February vacations, and it was actually far less horrible than I expected. The first time, I was eight months pregnant, and they told me to get off the ice. The second time, my son fell and sprained his wrist, so we got had to leave. Don’t ask me what I was expecting, but it was worse than both of those.
In conclusions: Why do they even have vacation in February? Why don’t they just skip it altogether? February, I mean.
