Tuesday, May 4, 2010

On unmade beds and high expectations (+ week 11 of the shopping hiatus)

Sometimes things just don't work out. We're not talking huge catastrophic crises, just every day bummers.

I had a vision for the weekend. It involved a sparkly clean house and hours of productive work and tomato seedlings gently nestled in rich potting soil and tea on the balcony and arroz con pollo simmering on the stove. It involved restorative time alone with naps and reading. It involved me being relaxed and happy and welcoming D home (from a weekend away) with a pint of fancy, possibly outrageously priced, beer. We would catch up and laugh and sip and be generally charming and perfect.

The weekend was rather lovely and productive, but I ran out of time. Seedlings languish unplanted, slightly crispy from lack of water. There is no food in the fridge (I know, because I made a meal of stale crackers and olives late Saturday night) let alone fancy drinks. The thrifted glassware I bought last week is taking up all the counter space in my kitchen, waiting to be washed and put to use. I had to sew until 11 pm to finish up orders for this week. And when I finally went to collapse into bed I realized that I hadn't changed the sheets and made the bed, which I knew desperately needed to be done. And since I had planned to do it, the bed was particularly disastrous, complete with cracker crumb remnants of my Saturday night "meal" and blankets set seriously askew.

Sad. In a commonplace, every day sort of way. Made better because D cooked up some spaghetti as soon as he got home, thus saving me from finishing the jar of olives for dinner. And I did feel a bit awesome because I was able to produce a loaf of bread to go with the spaghetti, because I had some chilled dough in the fridge.

rising dough
{one good thing}

Big sigh. Just a little reminder that no one's life is perfect, even if it looks that way sometimes (at least, this is what I tell myself, over and over again). Also, we just finished week eleven of the shopping hiatus (one week to go!) and we're rocking it. No slip ups at all.

21 comments:

  1. you are amazing... boyfriend-made pasta and a homemade loaf of bread sounds pretty perfect to me.

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  2. It's so funny how comforting posts like this are to people like me :) Thank you so much! I'm sure that your seedlings will be planted soon :)

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  3. ((hugs)) yes, i know - it is good to know that someone else scavages to find something silly for dinner too.

    but...boyfriend coming home and making dinner - extra yummy. :)

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  4. I agree with the above commenter: it's comforting to see we all have days like this. You're so right - no one's life is perfect, even though it may seem that way.

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  5. This makes me feel better :-)
    The last few weeks I've had to work from home on the weekends and in the little time I have left over I'm too tired to do anything. The result: A messy apartment, very few homemade meals and a lot of guilt. Thanks for this post.

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  6. love this post! mainly because you do seem to make it all (being generally very fabulous) seem so effortless. thank you for sharing, it's all too familiar to me.
    xo, anne

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  7. ohhh so true....i have a million things to do right now, and my house is most def. an utter disaster! I sometimes come out of a weekend feeling this way, but there's always next weekend :-) How is your mandarin quat coming along. My tangerine needs a bigger pot, and isn't producing fruit yet!!

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  8. I love that you are so relatable...lots of things can seem perfect to the reader, but these little bummers are inevitable. It's just how you handle it - and life-saving spaghetti and homemade bread are definitely a great bandaid. :-)

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  9. I've been needing these reminders more and more lately, and my life becomes more and more hectic and the superwoman facade crumbles a bit. It's impossible to keep it all going perfectly. But you manage your imperfections and lack-of-time with grace and perspective, as seen from here outside. :)

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  10. oh how i relate...i think when i'm envisioning something particularly wonderful, i need to add in a few hiccups into that equation juuust so that i don't get my expectations too high. it's a problem for us taurus(es)/taurai (?), but it sounds like you handled it all in stride.

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  11. i feel this way a lot...it's hard to do all the things i pile on my to do list. i often climb into bed feeling like a failure, but then i stop and remind myself of the things i DID accomplish that day, even if it's just one or two things, and feel a little better.

    thanks for sharing. i think the blog world all too often creates the illusion of perfect lives that needs to be shattered every now and then to bring us back down to earth.

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  12. yes my dear, but you see you still MADE BREAD. you are, even at your most distraught and disorganized, superwoman in mine eyes;)

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  13. Maybe not a picture-perfect weekend, but there's nothing wrong with that! I for one like to know that the authors of my favorite blogs are human just like me ;)

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  14. I so had this kind of weekend too. I may have managed some laundry but there was no bread dough in my freezer from previous moments of productiveness. I'm obviously not the first to say that it's nice to hear that other's have this sort of weekend.

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  15. my puerto rican grandma makes a mean arroz con pollo... you'll have to share your recipe!

    good luck on the last week of the spending hiatus... i made my first foray into post hiatus shopping and i didn't wreak as much havoc on anthro as i thought i would!

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  16. I love this post! You're such a voice of reality in this sometimes sugar-coated blog world. I love you for that :)

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  17. haha so many of my weekends start out so well intentioned and then I get distracted reading a book, or watching a movie. :) Looks like you were still very productive however! And olives are pretty tasty!

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  18. doesn't it always seem that projects are bigger than you thought they'd be?

    I know that's what happens for me!
    I was just 'chatting' with a friend about that - who was hoping to put up a little greenhouse - but the area was covered with "lots of weeds and black berries, so I cleared them away and started to put up one of my frames, but it was way too big, and by that time i was getting cold . . ."

    yep!!

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  19. i hear ya friend...i always go into the weekend with all sorts of expectations and then, well...not so much!

    but fresh baked bread! That's an accomplishment ;-)

    xoxo

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  20. So reassuring to hear - very frequently have the exact same sort of intentions, followed by similar results! Thanksfully, baked goods and an undestanding partner are a great help. He tells me that sometimes not doing anything you planned is exactly what the weekend is *for*! Working on this idea, but it may gradually get there...

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  21. I actually can't wait to start having weekends. Being at university and working part time in retail means I basically have to work every single weekend in order to survive and then come home and rush around getting things ready for the next week. As soon as I get my degree, I have promised myself to devote at least one weekend from every month to doing nothing and not feeling guilty about it. Or maybe start that herb garden that I've always wanted to do, or plant my fruit trees, or even dig out all of my old craft supplies and learn to love it all again? The possibilities are endless.

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