THANKFUL FRIDAY

This is what is currently happening behind me while I'm starting my first day of Python class.

10 Likes, 1 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram: "This is what is currently happening behind me while I'm starting my first day of Python class."

Well, it is day four of me working from home and I am happy to say that I am settling into a routine. Meditation happens every day. Yoga happens every day. I shower and put on a bra every day. Twenty minutes of some sort of cardio/strength exercises happen twice a week. I spend my mornings in a Python coding class. Then I take a break for lunch. Some people from work meet after lunch to watch some tutorials on electron microscopy. There is another meet-up in the afternoon to see what everyone else in the group is up to and then the whole family goes for a walk. The Cabbage chooses a game for us to play after dinner and then it is close to bedtime. I read some before getting ready for bed and then I get up and do it all again the next day.

There has been surprisingly little TV. In fact Michael and I are kind of behind on some of our shows. I also thought I would be spending more time writing or cleaning or re-organizing, but I haven’t done much of any of those things. I am surprised how I have managed to fill up my time. I think about this weekend and how that will be my time to do some chores and watch TV. I will sleep past 5:30 AM and maybe not wear a bra. Maybe I will spruce up the backyard and create some sort of hangout space. My Saturday is wide open. We have food and no place to go. I was worried that my weekdays would blend into my weekends and that I would start to lose track of time. Work/life boundaries would become blurred. So far, this has not happened. If anything, this experiment in social distancing is causing me to rethink my concept of time and how I choose to organize myself in those minutes.

Of course, I know this is only week one and as the days and weeks progress it will get more difficult to maintain boundaries, to take that shower after meditation, to put that bra on. I am not dwelling on the days and weeks to come. I am focusing on right now. One of Michael’s co-workers gave everyone an assignment this week to come up with a mantra to get them through this time. He loved it so much that he made the Cabbage and I participate. I keep hearing people say “this is the new normal” or “welcome to the new normal” and these words resonated in me. Normal seems to me to be one of those things that you make of it. So I typed up these words and placed them on a photo I had taken earlier in the week: Stop calling this the NEW normal; Just make it your normal; We’re still breathing, working, laughing; The environment just looks a little bit different.

This is my normal.

This morning, after my yoga practice, I stood at the stove waiting for the kettle of water to boil. I thought about how I could do this part of my morning every day. I could get up every week day and do a yoga practice before meditation. It would mean adjusting and tweaking a schedule here and there. I might have to make sure Michael gets up and into the shower before I sit down for meditation. I would get to work about twenty minutes later, but I would just stay twenty minutes later. This ‘stay at home’ practice may be a bit of a challenge but it is giving me opportunities to experiment with my schedule. I am finding out that there are parts of the way I was doing things before that could use some tweaking and adjusting.

It is kind of like taking that horrible tasting medicine. You don’t want to. In fact, it is so gross, it makes you gag, but you take it. You do it because it is good for you and it is going to make you better.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Hold still

6 Likes, 0 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram: "Hold still"

It is never all that easy getting back into your usual day to day after you have been out of town on vacation. I made it particularly hard on myself by scheduling my routine physical with a new doctor for the day after we returned. Then there was blood work on Monday and a phone call from that doctor on Tuesday about the blood work (more on that later, I'm fine…just fat). I had a dentist appointment on Wednesday, which was actually good and made me feel like I was at least doing something right. Michael started back to work on Thursday. So now we are officially back to normal routines around here.

What happened to summer?

Did I make the most of my summer?

I road tripped. We scootered. I ate a lot of tomatoes. I slept in until 8 AM on weekends! The Cabbage and I rode some really great roller coasters. Snow cones and ice cream were a weekly menu item. Dear friends visited and we went to the zoo and had a water balloon fight in the backyard. We ate watermelon with seeds and spit the seeds across the yard. We also filled a jar with lightning bugs and then set them free at the end of the evening. My arms have a lovely tan and my feet have flip flip tan lines. Maybe I didn’t make the absolute mostest of my summer, but I think I came pretty darn close. Also, I still have some time. Summer is not completely over just because Michael is back in school. I have plans to soak up every last bit of heat before the weather turns to crap. Or what some people call ‘Fall’. People are already talking about pumpkin spice.

Slow your roll, peeps!

All of this feels familiar. Like I’ve written it before. I think that I write about soaking up every last drop of summer every year because it is my favorite season. I am thankful for every snow cone eaten, every fluid ounce of sunscreen applied to my body, every itchy bug bite because I suck at applying bug spray, and every tomato I have popped into my mouth.

Here’s to making the most of summer.

ROUTINES

C is for cookie, coffee and Cindy.

6 Likes, 1 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram: "C is for cookie, coffee and Cindy."

I didn't write in my Fortune Cookie journal all summer except maybe once. With Michael home and he and the Cabbage doing daily chores, I didn't have a reason to get up early on Saturdays. They got the grocery shopping done on Fridays. If I got up early on Saturday mornings it was to go to a yoga class. Which, I am not going to lie, was real nice. I'd get up early enough to shove a breakfast bar in my gut and then scooter out to one of my favorite studios. Sometimes I'd have coffee or juice with a yoga friend after class. Sometimes Michael would meet me for brunch someplace and then we'd spend the rest of the day scooting around town. Now that Michael is back in school, we are back to our normal routine where I get up early Saturday morning and do the grocery shopping while everyone still sleeps. 

Trust me when I say that I do not mind spending my Saturday mornings this way. I prefer to do the grocery shopping early and alone. No crowds and I spend less money because I only buy what's on the list. I go to Heirloom and order a breakfast sandwich and a cup of coffee. Then I sit at the counter and take my time sipping coffee and writing in my journal while nibbling on my sandwich. I do a bit of people watching. I do a bit of watching some of the employees roll out dough or measure sugar. I dance a little in my seat to whatever music happens to be playing. Mostly, I write. This is good because I need to be writing somewhere since I don't feel like writing here too much lately. The thing about the Fortune Cookie diary is that it's fiction and a story that I don't have to finish. Even if it turns out to be a total shit story, it is still serving a purpose. The Fortune Cookie diary forces me to use my imagination. It exercises my brain. Photography forces me to see things differently while writing forces me to think things differently. 

I worried when I sat down to write in the journal after spending the summer away that I would struggle. I thought I would just stare blankly at the page and listen the gears in my head clink and screech while trying to turn on rusty pinions. I felt for sure that this was an exercise I would not easily be able to pick back up. So I was surprised to fill up that page and wrap the text around the edges. I was surprised at how easily the story came to me and how I wrote so quickly at times that the words are illegible. It felt good. It felt right. And I know I'm not writing anything spectacular or profound. I am just writing a scene, a moment and I'm trying to really put an effort in describing that scene. Those gears start moving and I almost believe that I truly am a creative kind of person. I think for a moment that I could be an artist.

I think to myself that you can take the girl out of the liberal arts college but you can't take the liberal arts out of the girl.