My mother visited this week. She arrived Sunday, Pi Day, the day after my 30th birthday, and stayed until this evening. Almost exactly 5 full days of being silly, eating delicious food, reminiscing, and – oh yeah – tons and tons of cleaning up my life.

Monday, my mother and I cleaned out my study (and what had spilled into the hall). Even the books that I was planning to bring downstairs, she brought downstairs. It was amazing, the lifting and carrying – and this was only the beginning! The only mess left over is the paperwork and CDs and such on my desk, and the table is still up there but, for now, it’s welcome.

Tuesday, we cleaned all my stuff out of my classroom. It was stressful and sad, and it was so much easier having my mom with me. Then we went to the mall, checked out Nordstrom’s, bought some little things at Sephora and got my birthday gift, and… we purchased new eyeglasses! I know that doesn’t sound huge, but if you wear glasses every day and haven’t gotten a new pair in 4 years, it’s a big deal. I got the same shape I had before, but in blue with some silver accents. My mother got a pair, too: wire-rimmed tortoiseshell glasses that are very round on bottom and somewhat round on top. She says they’re Daniel Jackson from “Stargate: SG1″ glasses, not Harry Potter glasses. My first reaction was that they looked silly, but I got used to them quickly and they look very nice on her oval face.

Daniel Jackson from Stargate: SG1

Wednesday, my mother and I tackled the bathroom renovation. We first visited a high-end tile store and found a perfect tile for the shower and floor and a mosaic tile I really liked, too. They gave us a sample of the tile and we went to Home Depot to look at pre-assembled vanities and linen cabinets, as well as prefabricated counters. Not only did we find them in clearance, but they were just perfect for the tile and the room.

cabinetry

Then, we found tiles that were the same color for 1/5 the price and a similar, but less dark, mosaic tile! It took hours and I was exhausted and just sat down in pain half-way through, but the comparing of similar tiles, selecting the edging tile (which is marble), and just finding what I was hoping for was sooooo worth it, and it would have taken me weeks and left me feeling dissatisfied if I hadn’t had my mother with me.

Due to my pain and flagging energy, I asked my mom to stay an extra day so we could actually spend time enjoying each other and doing things at a more leisurely pace. Luckily, she could stay! So, Thursday, we went sneaker shopping and my mother spent nearly an hour taking every single box and bag and random piece of clothing out of my car and down into the basement, where I will be setting up a room for tutoring and waiting (for parents) / game-playing (for friends who we have over).

I have been driving around with 2 classrooms and 1 cubicle in my car since leaving my PT job tutoring special needs college students in October 2008 for an “amazing” opportunity to head up math curriculum for a national virtual charter school (an alternative to, or version of, homeschooling). I have felt homeless and embarrassed of my situation and it (along with my study) was an albatross I dragged around for years, adding to it, letting it spill into my kitchen to make room for groceries…

I can’t even put into words the freedom and hope my mother has given me, just by helping me with all this. I can totally handle the other projects in my life now that this has been sorted out and dealt with. The bathroom stuff was fun and helpful, but the cleaning up of my – well, of my life, really – was such an incredible weight off my shoulders, I get teary just thinking about it. I feel such hope about being a functioning professional special ed math tutor, with room to have a personal life.

Thursday afternoon and Friday, my mother and I just had fun and watched some episodes of “The Big Bang Theory,” including the newish episode of Sheldon getting stuck trying to solve a problem involving electrons moving through a graphite surface (I believe), the episode in which Penny dislocates her shoulder and Sheldon drives her to the hospital, and the episode in which Leonard’s mom first comes to visit.

I dropped her off at the local Amtrak, but I miss her already. Yes, having a close friend nearby would be nice, but it wouldn’t take the place of the wonderfulness of a visit from my mommy. I wish we could just spend a day together every week, or a weekend each month. However, I still haven’t managed to fold the Earth into the 4th dimension so that travel time would be inconsequential. Unfortunately, we’re both on our best behavior, because visits are rare…We love each other, but we can drive each other bananas. If we lived near each other, tears would be shed, neither of our husbands would be able to put up living with us, and killing sprees might not be an impossibility.

So, thanks to my mother, who cleaned up my study, my classroom, my car, and filled my basement (and my husband, who cleaned up my computer and loves all of me, including my craziness), I now start my 4th decade full of hope and excitement over all the possibilities.

Since I’ve been having trouble sleeping, I decided to try doing a little more (or at least keep doing). So I’m doing at least 1 chore each day.

Yesterday, I took care of all the shoes all over the house. Out-of-season or rarely-worn shoes are in the new shoe-cubbies in the basement. Flats and some of my fanciest shoes are in my closet. Sneakers and a couple of booties are in the coat closet. I also washed all the dirty white clothing we have in the house – 3 loads! I also chose a dress and jewelry for next Friday’s black-tie-optional dinner (which I didn’t know was dress-necessitatingly dressy until last night).

Today I stopped at Target for something very simple: one prescription, as well as a wrap and clutch with a color that popped (wound up being scarlet) and black hose. I was there for 2 hours and then in traffic (mostly in the parking lot) for another half-hour. I got batteries for the last of the holiday decorations, a belt, shapewear, some socks that actually fit, Pepsi, gift-wrapping paraphernalia, etc. When I got home, I put stuff away, finished decorating, tried on the shapewear and belt (looked better without), and was absolutely exhausted. I wound up falling asleep before Peter got home briefly before he went to play Magic: The Gathering. I woke up 3 hours later, but now I worry I won’t sleep at bedtime (although I must say my neck and head hurt like all heck).

Now the question is, am I being inactive enough? I mean, I need to take it easy so that I can get better, but I do need to do enough that I sleep at night. Plus, did you see that list I wrote?! There’s so very, very much, that doing one thing each weekday still won’t get everything done AND each thing only takes roughly an hour AND doing these things both removes stress from my life and keeps me from going stir crazy. So am I really doing that much? Maybe I should ask that on an evening when I’m hurting a little less…

Today I woke up and showered and dressed, then came downstairs to be shouted at by Stewie. Or, more appropriately, he shouted at me and then shouted at the doorway to the kitchen and back again. Apparently, he viewed the kitchen to be unsafe. It quickly became clear that there was water dripping from the ceiling, just inside the door, next to where the bath tub above is. A plumber visited and informed me that it will cost $3000 to repair it (well, $2800, but I assume something extra will be needed). Goody. Luckily, I was already planning on making a call to get some money from my nest egg, and now when we sell we can say we have an updated master bath.

In the time between calling the plumber and seeing him, I stayed quite busy. Remember all those gifts that I ordered on Saturday? Well, they’ve started to come in… Each in its own box. So far, I’ve received all the pet gifts (4 cats and 2 dogs), my older brother’s gift, the gift for my brother-in-law-in-law, and 1 gift for Peter.

So what did I do? I opened and checked all the packages and then created an Excel spreadsheet detailing what I ordered and for whom, where I ordered each item from, where they were being delivered, and whether they have been received. I also tracked down Stewie and put the anti-stress collar on him that had arrived with the pet gifts, as well as plugging in the anti-stress room diffuser for cats.

Yeah, I’m totally normal.

Anyways, today’s goal was to Deck the Tree (which was still up from last year, but not decorated). There were a huge number of boxes surrounding the Christmas tree, so I checked their contents and set them aside as either basement-ready or garbage. Then, I got a tree skirt and star from JCPenney at 60% off and put up many of the ornaments I’d ordered last year. Peter’s reaction, when asked? It looks fine. Ahhhh, 3 hours of hard work paid off.

So, the result of today’s hard work: you can see and appreciate the tree, but the kitchen is a disaster. We have boxes everywhere. I feel like we’re drowning in them. Most of that is because we have nowhere to put my stuff. So, do I take all my stuff and just throw them in my room until I’m ready to deal with my room, or do I clean my room and then clean the kitchen?  The latter makes more sense, but the former immediately helps both my husband and myself and our quality of life. So guess which one I’ll start doing tomorrow…

I promised my doctor that I would begin posting a journal entry every day, at least monitoring my wellness: depression, anxiety, pain, tiredness/energy, level of activity, and WW points consumed. So I will begin doing that as soon as possible. I’ve only just started looking for a good widget for WordPress.

Unfortunately, yesterday afternoon I was busy getting my interim grades in. They were makeshift, classwork-only grades, but that is all I could do in one night and all I am legally permitted to do as of this morning. With help from my husband, I was able to grade everything done with the subs (that had been collected) and thus grades were in and I went to bed before 1am.

So, the first weight off my mind is this: grades are in and I am not legally allowed to worry or dabble in work except, perhaps, to check my email.

What else is up? Well, Christmas is around the corner. Literally. So, on Saturday, I procrastinated grading by attacking Amazon.com, Overstock.com, and Novica.com to get gifts for: 2 parents, 2 parents-in-law, 2 brothers (+1 birthday), 2 sisters-in-law, 1 half-sister, 1 brother-in-law-in-law,  1 niece (+birthday), 2 nephews (+ 1 birthday), 1 close friend, 4 cats, 2 dogs, and 1 for the family gift exchange. I also stuck to only 4 presents (under $100 total) for my husband and kept everyone else under $20 per present.

So, the second weight off my mind is that I am done holiday gift-shopping.

The most important weight off my mind, however, is the most major concern I’d been having earlier: the d-word. After an awkward Saturday morning, I spoke with my husband and discovered he had no clue what he had actually said when we’d talked that fateful evening. He reassured me that yes, of course, he sometimes feels trapped. That’s natural. He still feels that we need couple’s counseling, but does not feel ready to discuss separation. We are both going to work hard to be a real couple and share each other’s lives. My getting a life, and having the energy to do things and be a helpmate rather than just a burden, will be a part of that. We even made love in the middle of the night last night, for the first time in waaaaay too long (well over a month) and I don’t plan for it to be the only time this week

So the third and final weight is that my husband and I are working on our marriage/partnership, rather than working on a separation.

Of course, out with the old, in with the new… Now that those weights left my shoulders, a few hovering birds have perched:

1. Finances and paperwork: it will take time, but I can help it out by slowly chipping away at it, doing what I can when I can, cutting out some costs and dipping into the money that has recently been regained in my nest egg. I’ll soon be cutting-out my cell’s data plan and my laptop wireless-anywhere connection and shopping at the supermarket regularly so we eat out far, far less.
2. Combatting depression: I’m going to have to set goals for each day and rules, such as only allowing myself 2 hrs of TV before 4pm. This will include a list of choices of recreational activities and a HUGE checklist of small tasks I can do with minimal pain, and forcing myself to do at least 1 task each day. Tomorrow, the task is to uncover and decorate the Christmas tree. I will also see my doctors regularly and remember to shower, dress, and take my AM meds as soon as I wake up.
3. Getting healthy: I will be using the WiiFit, other active Wii games, “Sit and Be Fit” DVD, or taking walks every single day – at least 30 minutes of activity in groups no smaller than 10 minutes. I will eat within my daily points allowance. I will chew gum or drink no-points, no-caffeine beverages when I feel an urge to nosh.

I’d like to set a routine for myself, but I don’t want to feel obligated to sleep more/less than I feel the need to on any particular day or set myself up for failure, so a list of tasks to check off and required activities seems to be the best bet.