Sunday Morning Thoughts

     As my life keeps changing, or transitioning, I find I need a place to capture all the thoughts. This is noodling through the keyboard type of post but happy to have your thoughts on anything I yammer on about. 

Week Days and Weekends 

      I'm curious how folks that are retired think about weekends and the start of new weeks. Most people in my life will still have the Monday- Friday fray. My son has a varied schedule, so can work 14 days, then no work for multiple days, so he's an outlier. So is my photographer friend, who works with her clients availability at certain times of the year. There's surely going to be a lot of benefits time wise. I figure I can take advantage of free time to avoid crazy times at grocery stores, banks, post office, or other places that the workers of the world have to cram into lunch breaks, vacation days, or weekends. But, I also feel the limited structure will lead me to unproductiveness and even laziness some days. I'm hopeful my social connections improve because I'll be more available to meet other people's schedules. 

Home Improvement 

     I wrote a whole post on all that needs done in my house. It made me overwhelmed rather than organized, so I scrapped it. I decided I need to focus on 1-3 thing at a time, prioritizing maintenance that keeps the house standing over aesthetics. But, decluttering feels like it's both and- making the house functional and improving the appearance. Meg's comments about safety have me thinking of the risks day to day; clutter creates risk of tripping, things falling, not finding emergency supplies when needed, you get the idea. Now I need to think through what the first items to tackle beyond decluttering should be done come April. 

Gardening

     My new free time before May is to learn more about vegetable gardening. Then come May, I hope to be ready to prep and plant. I know I want to get the vegetables we really enjoy, but also are able to save and preserve for later like bell peppers, zucchini, and tomatoes for sure. I'm starting small with two raised beds and a place for ground squash/ pumpkins, a separate trellis and planter for cucumbers. Thanks to Chef Jules for her tips on raised beds. I need to clean up the raspberry bushes too. That's free fruit, and leads to great gifts when I later make homemade jam. I want to start a compost heap, so hope to build some sort of box, similar to what my daughter has. She also has a compost bin for food waste like this to keep organics separate, smells at bay, and detract from critters. Who has something like this? Any recommendations on best  practices for good results?

Holidays and Boundaries 

     All my children are adults and have full autonomy to spend their time as they prefer. Of course, I love when they choose to spend holidays with me. It's trickier with extended family. I have niece's and nephews who I might see one time a year, if that. They've prioritized their immediate family, and their first tier family (parents/in-laws) over the large family gatherings. This bothers some of my siblings, but I remember what it was like the years we juggled four different Christmas gatherings over two dsys plus wanted to enjoy with our own young children. It's too much in large families, and many have multiple sets of parents to try and fit in. 

     In my husband's family, there seems to be an expectation that they get the family time on holidays. I've pushed back on that. My boundary is that I'll join if it's just my MIL's children/ grandchildren, but passing if it goes beyond. I'll do Christmas day, though trying to decrease the time commitment, but Easter and Thanksgiving have had non- relatives to me and my kids, so I'm choosing to pass. It's not that I don't like the other guests, but as I have members of my own family I don't see often, I'd rather join them. Easter and Mother's Day are on the horizon. I'm passing on both, but plan to have my MIL over perhaps the day or weekend before, depending on what might work for my kids. 

     These are my weekend and Sunday morning thoughts. It's a decent weather day and I need a walk. Maybe I'll get one in before church and stop and see my brother briefly after, though may do that tomorrow as he's likely to have more visitors today. I have my book to finish for book club tonight, but otherwise just a lazy Sunday day when I really could be accomplishing things I wrote about above.