I am very old fashioned. Here are five ways that I exhibit my old fashioned ideals.
1. I believe that you should always, always, always be as polite as possible. If you offend someone, whether it's just or not, you should apologize. Their hurt or offended feelings matter more than whether or not you meant to offend. My mother hates to be cussed in front of. I try my best to respect that, even if I myself am not offended by foul language. I try to say "please" and "thank you" even if it's for a task that isn't optional, because it acknowledges that person's compliance. Being polite and caring about what someone else is feeling doesn't put any strain on you, and it might just help heal someone else's bad day.
2. I believe that you should wait till you're married to get jiggy. 95% of modern Americans don't wait, and I feel like they are cheating themselves out of something beautiful. There are exceptions to this, of course... and I don't think anyone should be judged or condemned simply because they didn't keep it in their pants, but I do believe waiting is the right thing to do. I waited. And I am very glad I did.
3. I believe in going to church. This seems like an old fashioned practice now adays... But I truly believe there is something spiritually uplifting about going to church. There are bad churches and bad people in good churches, but I think people should keep going, keep trying... Church is a worthwhile experience. Even if you're going to a church that's a different religion. Being around people who believe in God and lift you up and help you think about spirituality is a crucial part of becoming a well-rounded individual. And if not church, taking some time out of your week to reflect and relax and find some connection to something bigger than yourself is fine too. But actually doing it. Not just ignoring church because you aren't a believer or don't like the church of your religion in your area. Finding time to connect into a greater energy is very important.
4. I believe alcohol should only be used socially. I don't know if this is old fashioned or not, but let's just go with it. Drinking around people who can't drink seems pointless, and drinking to the point of drunkeness is just rude. Don't get me wrong, I have gotten drunk in my life... I felt extremely rude and very silly afterwards. So if you're with someone who cannot drink, or doesn't want to drink, it seems to me, you'll both have a better time if you just stay sober. Even just one. I think not drinking is always a better idea.
5. I believe in reading. There is nothing like reading. You get sucked into a good book and get carried away by someone else's story... but when you read... it's not the author's story anymore, it's your's. It's all your's. You get to picture the characters and create their voices... books are truly magical.
So those are the 5 ways I am hopelessly old fashioned.
Tuesday, June 27, 2017
Prompt 1- A Typical Day
I wake up around 5 to my husband's alarm, clamber out of bed, over my piles of pillows that cuddle my pregnant body, and head to the bathroom for the first pee of the day. I let it flow out of me, but even as the last drops drip into the toilet, I don't get the wave of satisfaction... I will have to pee again all to soon. I stand and flush, remembering just before I leave the bathroom to jiggle the flushing handle so the toilet doesn't run all morning long. I crawl back into my bed, barely looking at my husband as he checks sports updates on his phone, and try to adjust my nest of pillows around me to support the swollen, widening, misshapen blob of discomfort my body has become. It doesn't take long for me to drift into a pleasant in-between land of sleep and wakefulness.
I can hear my husband get up and begin his day. I know his routine by heart. He'll go and have a morning poo, turn on the shower to run into an empty tub for a good 15 minutes as he does whatever it is he does before he jumps in... distracted by a story on his phone, or listening to a podcast, wasting water like he's never known what it's like to never have enough... which he hasn't. I have. This habit of letting the water run without giving it a purpose drives me insane, but it doesn't feel like a fight worth having.
I can hear his podcast as he showers, most likely boys too old talking about a video game they've played for far too long, or sports commentators complaining about people who make too much money not playing hard enough, or even a couple of folks debating some new Marvel movie. I can't make it out, but I hear the passion in their voices as I drift between sleeping and awareness. The shower clicks off and I hear him putter around the bathroom. Shaving. Brushing his teeth. Waxing his hair down in the Good Boy part of the military.
I drift into deeper sleep, so I don't know what he does between bathroom and letting the dogs out of their kennels downstairs, but I wake to the sounds of happy fur-babies outside, getting to relieve themselves out in the backyard, close to my open bedroom window. Gizmo runs in first, coming to my side of the bed, jumping and whining to be let up. I debate whether I should deal with it or let her sit and whine until Chris comes in with Ned, but he's taking too long, so I roll over and grab her by the collar and pull her up. I do this almost every day and she never seems bothered by it, but every time I do it, I wonder if I'm injuring her. It would be painful to be lifted by a collar around my neck, and I know I should be more gentle, but I have no patience... it's so early and her whines have gotten under my skin so I push her to the end of the bed where she happily curls up and stares at me. I quickly lay back down, shutting my eyes... I don't want to look awake when Chris comes in. He'll want me to get up and make breakfast, or to talk, and I don't want to. I just want to sleep longer.
He comes in with Ned and in a gentle voice as to not disturb me, he tells Ned to jump onto the bed with me. Then he gathers his uniform and closes the door behind him. Ned is all love and snuggles, sniffing my head and nosing against the comforter, asking for me to let him under. I oblige and he snuggles right next to me, stepping on my boob as he gets comfortable. Once he's laying with me, we all drift off to sleep again, only vaguely aware when my husband comes in to place a glass of water by me and kiss me goodbye as he goes off to work. It's probably around 7 o'clock now... but it doesn't matter. The dogs and I are off to sleep again.
I wake up to Ned standing up, pulling the blankets off me as he stretches. I pick up my phone and look at it, it's 9:30. I should get up. The dogs need to go out again, and Ned wants his breakfast. Gizmo would sleep the day away with me, but Ned has more energy than us. I scroll through facebook, text my best friend good morning, and then roll out of bed. This morning, I decide to get dressed before taking care of the dogs, something I only do half the time... when you have no where to be and clothes are so uncomfortable, it's hard to want to strap yourself into a bra and underwear. I feel even more pregnant today than I did last night, and I look in the mirror, trying to remember what I looked like before I had a baby inside me. I feel good. I feel happy.
I go to pee again, this time feels a little less unsatisfying, since I am up now and don't have to dread getting out of bed for the next need to pee. I jiggle the handle of the toilet and go out into the hall. I ask the dogs if they want breakfast and Ned starts barking and jumping around. Gizmo jumps a little too, but she's only excited because Ned is... she will not care about the food once I put it in her dish. I scoop out a heaping 1/2 cup of dog food and dump it into Ned's bowl. He's so excited he's stepping on my feet and barking at me. My patience for this ends quickly and I snap at him to sit and wait and he does so, trembling with anticipation. I tell him he can eat and he snorts it down so quickly, I'm sure he might choke. I scoop up a little less for Gizmo and take it into the bedroom to feed her in her bowl. She looks at it sadly and follows me back out of the room as I leave, totally unimpressed by the hard brown balls. I know she'll slip away throughout the day and snack at it... It will get eaten. But not right now. By the time I've scooped up a helping of cat food to feed the kitties, Ned has finished his food and is bouncing around like he's expecting seconds. A few pieces of cat food fall from the scooper as I walk to the kitchen to fill their bowl, and Ned excitedly wolfs them down. There. Done with morning feedings.
I look out into the back yard and grimace at how brown it is and decide to run the sprinkler for a little while. It's all set up in the front yard, so I bring the dogs out into the back yard and put Ned onto his leash that's staked there and Giz and I walk round to the front and I turn on the sprinkler. I watch Gizmo pee and then we go into the house. I set a timer on my phone for half an hour and then make myself two fried eggs, over easy, and a bagel with cream cheese. Cooked to perfection, I put on an episode of some show I've already watched a million times on my laptop, and sit down to eat. I pull one side of the bagel in half and pop one of the egg with a sharp part, watching the warm orange goo dribble out. I take my Tardis shaped salt shaker and shake out an unhealthy amount of salt into the orange pool and then swirl it with my piece of bagel, mixing the salt into the liquid gold. Yum. Yum yum yum. I never cared about salt before I got pregnant, and now I can't eat anything without it. I half pay attention to the show, mostly focusing on my eggs. I use half of one side of the bagel to mop up the delicious yolk of one egg, and the other half on the other egg. Then I put the hollowed out, liquidless egg whites onto the other side of the bagel and eat it. Delicious. I feel all eggy and full.
I wash my hands and go get the glass of water my husband left for me in the bedroom. It's tepid and too warm for me, but I drink it anyway. He's left the Britta out on the counter, so there's no cold water. I fill it and put it back in the fridge. I barely remember to take my prenatal and my other supplements: Folic Acid, Vitamin D, and Magnesium. I know I should take magnesium at night, but I never remember to, so I take it during the day, because it's better to take it at the wrong time than to skip it. Hopefully it's helping with my leg cramps even at 10 in the morning.
My alarm goes off, so I go out and let Ned off his leash, and he happily bounds up to the back door, waiting to be let in so he can scrounge around the kitchen floor looking for any breakfast crumbs I may have dropped. I circle the house and turn off the sprinkler, unscrew the hose from the wall and awkwardly gather it to carry around back. My backyard is terraced, so I set it up on the second tier, then walk down the steps and screw the hose into the side of the house and turn it on. This back spigot leaks terribly, but I try to ignore it and set the timer for another half hour. From the second tier of the back yard, the sprinkler can reach the whole yard, even hitting the roof. I look at my little dirt patch, checking on my 8 gladiola sprouts... I am so pleased they're coming up. I have a black thumb, but these will not be deterred. I planted 30 in all, but even having 1 sprout felt like an accomplishment. Now that 8 have sprung up, I feel like I can call myself a gardener.
The rest of my day is boring. I call my mom and we talk about everything and nothing... mostly chatting about the baby and all the plans we have for when she comes and my nervousness over being a new mom. I might call my best friend... maybe even skype... We'll see. I tidy. Do dishes. Maybe fold some laundry. There are days when my midwife might come, or my family advocate, and those are nice days, days I get to chat to real live people, days where I can clean my house for a reason. But most days it's just me, on the couch. Lounging with my dogs, watching a TV show. Doing light chores. Maybe I'll go on a little walk with the dogs. The weather is always so nice. Today it's a little cloudy. And it's hot. So I don't know. Chris will come home around 5, I'll make him an easy dinner because I really hate cooking, and we'll probably split up for the evening, him in the basement to watch a superhero show, me in the bedroom watching something else. Maybe he'll feed the dogs dinner, or maybe I will. Later on, we might watch something together... Call the Midwife, or any of the other shows we save for when we're in the mood to be together.
I think tonight he has softball and I'll probably go to cheer him on. He's my sporty man, and I love seeing him play. We'll see our church family and that will be nice. I recently chopped off all my hair and dyed it purple, so it will be interesting to see everyone. I'm a little nervous about it.
After his game, we'll come home, put the dogs to bed in their crates, and watch something in bed on my laptop until he falls asleep. Maybe I'll stay up, reading, writing, watching something... or maybe I'll snuggle down next to him once he's fallen asleep, shutting down for the night as well. Surrounded by a bird's next of pillows. I might wake up 10 times to pee. I might wake up with heart burn and need water and tums. But that will mark the end of my day.
We'll see how the rest of this day goes... but until then, I'll tinker my day away... like I do most days. These slow, easy days before the baby comes and upsets the whole routine. Honestly... I cannot wait.
I can hear my husband get up and begin his day. I know his routine by heart. He'll go and have a morning poo, turn on the shower to run into an empty tub for a good 15 minutes as he does whatever it is he does before he jumps in... distracted by a story on his phone, or listening to a podcast, wasting water like he's never known what it's like to never have enough... which he hasn't. I have. This habit of letting the water run without giving it a purpose drives me insane, but it doesn't feel like a fight worth having.
I can hear his podcast as he showers, most likely boys too old talking about a video game they've played for far too long, or sports commentators complaining about people who make too much money not playing hard enough, or even a couple of folks debating some new Marvel movie. I can't make it out, but I hear the passion in their voices as I drift between sleeping and awareness. The shower clicks off and I hear him putter around the bathroom. Shaving. Brushing his teeth. Waxing his hair down in the Good Boy part of the military.
I drift into deeper sleep, so I don't know what he does between bathroom and letting the dogs out of their kennels downstairs, but I wake to the sounds of happy fur-babies outside, getting to relieve themselves out in the backyard, close to my open bedroom window. Gizmo runs in first, coming to my side of the bed, jumping and whining to be let up. I debate whether I should deal with it or let her sit and whine until Chris comes in with Ned, but he's taking too long, so I roll over and grab her by the collar and pull her up. I do this almost every day and she never seems bothered by it, but every time I do it, I wonder if I'm injuring her. It would be painful to be lifted by a collar around my neck, and I know I should be more gentle, but I have no patience... it's so early and her whines have gotten under my skin so I push her to the end of the bed where she happily curls up and stares at me. I quickly lay back down, shutting my eyes... I don't want to look awake when Chris comes in. He'll want me to get up and make breakfast, or to talk, and I don't want to. I just want to sleep longer.
He comes in with Ned and in a gentle voice as to not disturb me, he tells Ned to jump onto the bed with me. Then he gathers his uniform and closes the door behind him. Ned is all love and snuggles, sniffing my head and nosing against the comforter, asking for me to let him under. I oblige and he snuggles right next to me, stepping on my boob as he gets comfortable. Once he's laying with me, we all drift off to sleep again, only vaguely aware when my husband comes in to place a glass of water by me and kiss me goodbye as he goes off to work. It's probably around 7 o'clock now... but it doesn't matter. The dogs and I are off to sleep again.
I wake up to Ned standing up, pulling the blankets off me as he stretches. I pick up my phone and look at it, it's 9:30. I should get up. The dogs need to go out again, and Ned wants his breakfast. Gizmo would sleep the day away with me, but Ned has more energy than us. I scroll through facebook, text my best friend good morning, and then roll out of bed. This morning, I decide to get dressed before taking care of the dogs, something I only do half the time... when you have no where to be and clothes are so uncomfortable, it's hard to want to strap yourself into a bra and underwear. I feel even more pregnant today than I did last night, and I look in the mirror, trying to remember what I looked like before I had a baby inside me. I feel good. I feel happy.
I go to pee again, this time feels a little less unsatisfying, since I am up now and don't have to dread getting out of bed for the next need to pee. I jiggle the handle of the toilet and go out into the hall. I ask the dogs if they want breakfast and Ned starts barking and jumping around. Gizmo jumps a little too, but she's only excited because Ned is... she will not care about the food once I put it in her dish. I scoop out a heaping 1/2 cup of dog food and dump it into Ned's bowl. He's so excited he's stepping on my feet and barking at me. My patience for this ends quickly and I snap at him to sit and wait and he does so, trembling with anticipation. I tell him he can eat and he snorts it down so quickly, I'm sure he might choke. I scoop up a little less for Gizmo and take it into the bedroom to feed her in her bowl. She looks at it sadly and follows me back out of the room as I leave, totally unimpressed by the hard brown balls. I know she'll slip away throughout the day and snack at it... It will get eaten. But not right now. By the time I've scooped up a helping of cat food to feed the kitties, Ned has finished his food and is bouncing around like he's expecting seconds. A few pieces of cat food fall from the scooper as I walk to the kitchen to fill their bowl, and Ned excitedly wolfs them down. There. Done with morning feedings.
I look out into the back yard and grimace at how brown it is and decide to run the sprinkler for a little while. It's all set up in the front yard, so I bring the dogs out into the back yard and put Ned onto his leash that's staked there and Giz and I walk round to the front and I turn on the sprinkler. I watch Gizmo pee and then we go into the house. I set a timer on my phone for half an hour and then make myself two fried eggs, over easy, and a bagel with cream cheese. Cooked to perfection, I put on an episode of some show I've already watched a million times on my laptop, and sit down to eat. I pull one side of the bagel in half and pop one of the egg with a sharp part, watching the warm orange goo dribble out. I take my Tardis shaped salt shaker and shake out an unhealthy amount of salt into the orange pool and then swirl it with my piece of bagel, mixing the salt into the liquid gold. Yum. Yum yum yum. I never cared about salt before I got pregnant, and now I can't eat anything without it. I half pay attention to the show, mostly focusing on my eggs. I use half of one side of the bagel to mop up the delicious yolk of one egg, and the other half on the other egg. Then I put the hollowed out, liquidless egg whites onto the other side of the bagel and eat it. Delicious. I feel all eggy and full.
I wash my hands and go get the glass of water my husband left for me in the bedroom. It's tepid and too warm for me, but I drink it anyway. He's left the Britta out on the counter, so there's no cold water. I fill it and put it back in the fridge. I barely remember to take my prenatal and my other supplements: Folic Acid, Vitamin D, and Magnesium. I know I should take magnesium at night, but I never remember to, so I take it during the day, because it's better to take it at the wrong time than to skip it. Hopefully it's helping with my leg cramps even at 10 in the morning.
My alarm goes off, so I go out and let Ned off his leash, and he happily bounds up to the back door, waiting to be let in so he can scrounge around the kitchen floor looking for any breakfast crumbs I may have dropped. I circle the house and turn off the sprinkler, unscrew the hose from the wall and awkwardly gather it to carry around back. My backyard is terraced, so I set it up on the second tier, then walk down the steps and screw the hose into the side of the house and turn it on. This back spigot leaks terribly, but I try to ignore it and set the timer for another half hour. From the second tier of the back yard, the sprinkler can reach the whole yard, even hitting the roof. I look at my little dirt patch, checking on my 8 gladiola sprouts... I am so pleased they're coming up. I have a black thumb, but these will not be deterred. I planted 30 in all, but even having 1 sprout felt like an accomplishment. Now that 8 have sprung up, I feel like I can call myself a gardener.
The rest of my day is boring. I call my mom and we talk about everything and nothing... mostly chatting about the baby and all the plans we have for when she comes and my nervousness over being a new mom. I might call my best friend... maybe even skype... We'll see. I tidy. Do dishes. Maybe fold some laundry. There are days when my midwife might come, or my family advocate, and those are nice days, days I get to chat to real live people, days where I can clean my house for a reason. But most days it's just me, on the couch. Lounging with my dogs, watching a TV show. Doing light chores. Maybe I'll go on a little walk with the dogs. The weather is always so nice. Today it's a little cloudy. And it's hot. So I don't know. Chris will come home around 5, I'll make him an easy dinner because I really hate cooking, and we'll probably split up for the evening, him in the basement to watch a superhero show, me in the bedroom watching something else. Maybe he'll feed the dogs dinner, or maybe I will. Later on, we might watch something together... Call the Midwife, or any of the other shows we save for when we're in the mood to be together.
I think tonight he has softball and I'll probably go to cheer him on. He's my sporty man, and I love seeing him play. We'll see our church family and that will be nice. I recently chopped off all my hair and dyed it purple, so it will be interesting to see everyone. I'm a little nervous about it.
After his game, we'll come home, put the dogs to bed in their crates, and watch something in bed on my laptop until he falls asleep. Maybe I'll stay up, reading, writing, watching something... or maybe I'll snuggle down next to him once he's fallen asleep, shutting down for the night as well. Surrounded by a bird's next of pillows. I might wake up 10 times to pee. I might wake up with heart burn and need water and tums. But that will mark the end of my day.
We'll see how the rest of this day goes... but until then, I'll tinker my day away... like I do most days. These slow, easy days before the baby comes and upsets the whole routine. Honestly... I cannot wait.
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