WHEW. We did it, guys. We survived January. Did January feel like twenty weeks long to you too? I seriously can’t believe how long this month has been. Especially these last two weeks! SO MUCH FORCED FAMILY TIME. I’m supposed to have 4 days a week home to myself to work and get stuff done and breathe and not go insane. Both last week and this I’ve only had one day and both of those days were spent out the entire time running errands. I am about to completely lose my mind. I’ve been doing pretty good – better than I thought I would have. But I’ve really hit my limit tonight. I don’t want to make three meals a day for four people anymore. I don’t want someone in the room with me every minute of every day. I don’t want to not listen to my podcasts or watch my shows because of the sensitivity of those in the house around me. I don’t want to be stuck at home because I literally have no freedom to leave with such horrific weather. It’s also killing me that even though everyone will go back to school and work tomorrow, it will be followed by THREE MORE DAYS of everyone home. I’m losing it.
Anyway. January was a pretty rough month. My uncle’s body was found in his apartment and I think the circumstances surrounding his death are going to haunt me for a long time. I helped my mom and other uncle and some cousins clean out his apartment for a couple of days and I can’t get those images out of my mind, especially at night when I’m trying to fall to sleep. It was a devastatingly sad situation that I’ve had a lot of unexpected grief over. I wish things could have been different. And wishing won’t change anything, which really just sucks.
The weather this month also forced my hand and I had to cancel a lot of plans between everything going on. We also all (except Caden) had a short but horrific case of a norovirus last week which felt like it was going to kill me. Except for my one lunch out with my friend Laura and our one little anniversary night getaway, I had to cancel every single fun thing I had planned for January. A coffee date with another friend, a craft night, a dinner with a couple of friends, a shopping day with my mom, a D&D day for Greg, a birthday party for Shepard’s friend. Even the not so fun, yet necessary things got cancelled and are now moved to February which is seriously too busy already. I couldn’t get to my doctor’s appointment this week and my dentist appointment for tomorrow has also been cancelled for non-weather reasons. I really wanted to take the boys to get real haircuts for the first time in years this week, but everything ended up closing and we couldn’t leave the house. It’s just been day after day after day of being stuck at home with either not having a lot to do, or not wanting to actually do anything, or feeling too sick to actually be productive, or feeling guilty for not having done enough. I’ve been in quite a funk and I don’t like it. I’m hoping with the flip of the calendar and the promised warmer temperatures this weekend, I can shake it off and be happy again.
Looking back at my goals for the month, I think I’ve done okay under the circumstances.
1 – No excess spending
I did GREAT with this for about three weeks. And then I desperately needed some hits of retail therapy. I haven’t gone crazy, but I was definitely inspired to collect some more fun things to spruce up the house. I ordered some new pillows and blankets and a large ottoman to go with my reading chair. I bought some Valentine gifts and birthday gifts and added some mugs to my collection. In a desperate need to bring more green and life into my house, I also placed an order for some new and unique houseplants that are going to come in a few days. For those first few weeks, though, I think it did me a lot of good to say no, especially after the crazy Christmas rush in November and December. This is something I’d like to do maybe every other month or so, just to get in the habit of clearly thinking about what I truly want and need before spending my money on it.
2 – Lose 3 or more pounds by the 30th
Oof. Well. I did. But only because I was violently sick and lost 6 pounds in two days. Otherwise, my healthy eating habits have basically been thrown out the window this month. It’s been so hard to think about that on top of everything else. January has felt like being in pure survival mode. Not motivational be my best self mode. I definitely need to find that awesome drive I had in November and early December before Christmas time parties ruined me.
3 – No fast food
I only gave in and got Culver’s one time, one of the days after I helped clean out my uncle’s apartment and I knew that Greg and the boys were gone because they had gone out to Culver’s too. I just couldn’t deal with coming home and making myself a meal and I was starving and I had limited options. But otherwise – I’ve been good. I’ve also just frequented restaurants a lot less often in general this month. Mostly because I’ve been stuck here and haven’t had a choice! 🙂
4 – Make 20+ Valentine dolls
This I did! I actually made 33 Valentine dolls. And until this week (post illness plus everyone home every day due to cancelled school), I’ve been great at keeping consistent work hours too. Almost no nights or weekends and still plenty of time left over for living my regular life and not being overly stressed out about it.
5 – Read 4 books from my shelves
I actually read 9 books from my shelves this month! Pretty impressive, if I do say so myself!
6 – Have a great anniversary getaway
Well, I wrote about this last weekend. I really enjoyed our afternoon and night in Cedarburg. I’m disappointed that we didn’t make more of our second day, just rushing back to get the boys the way we always do. I also don’t think we had any of our regularly weekday at home date nights this whole month because of the weather and a sick kid and busy schedules. So that’s kind of a bummer. Not that we’re not getting a massive amount of time in the same house these days. But getting OUT of the house is always better for us.
7 – Spend time with friends
I explained this one already. I’m really glad I had one lunch out. And twice this week we sort of invited ourselves over to our new neighbor’s house to see her little kittens. I’m hoping it’s the start of a very good friendship. Better friends than enemies when you share a driveway and are forced to work together outside every time it snows!
So, overall…I’m just glad January is over. It wasn’t the worst it could have been. But it was far from great. But, it’s over. On to February and a whole lot of fun things happening!
