What I’m into (March edition)

Time for another miscellany post on life right now. Here are a few things I’m into as of this month.

The running streak. It lives. I have run at least a mile a day since December 24. It will not live forever, but so far, so good.

The pause between sports. Wrestling is over. Little League has yet to start. Swimming is eternal but we don’t have any meets right now.

Nordstrom free shipping on returns. I made the mistake of buying two pairs of jeans online. They looked good in the photos. They didn’t work on me. One was not my fault — they sent me the wrong size (possibly the wrong style too but it was hard to tell given that I couldn’t even pull them on). But in any case, sending them back was just a matter of taping on the new label and running them into the post office. Literally a 2-minute affair. I am kind of dreading jeans shopping, which was why I was trying to order them online, but I guess I will have to brave the store.

Dora the Explorer. I appreciate the high energy of PAW Patrol, but PAW Patrol has 3 commercial breaks during a half hour show. Since we’ve usually DVR’d it for the toddler, this means the adult in charge has to fast forward through commercials 3 times. Dora is 22 minutes straight of downtime (unless the kid decides to demand a “ba ba on couch.” He’s like a guy with his beer. He wants a bottle on the couch while he watches his shows.)

Modern Mrs. Darcy book recommendations. And reading in general! I’ve been padding out the March TBR (to be read) list. You can read my account of how I found more time to read, and got back in the habit, over at Verily.

Apples with peanut butter. This is now my afternoon go-to snack.

The Philadelphia Flower Show. Looking forward to going sometime between March 11-19!

The Frugal Girl’s suggestions on how to stop being 15 minutes late to everything. Leave 15 minutes before you think you need to. It’s not rocket science! That said, I enjoyed the conversation later in the discussion of exactly why people are late. Punctual people assume it’s rudeness. Often, though, it’s about people being exclusively focused on the person they are with at the moment. They won’t stop something to get to the next thing if it seems more must happen in the current situation. While it is incredibly annoying for the next person in line, it is not an inherently negative character trait on its own. I think this needs to be about knowing yourself. If you know you’re like this, don’t try to pack too much into a day. And maybe don’t make appointments with people, so there’s no expectation. Just try calling them when you’re free and see if they’re free and if so, go from there.

Trusting my writing process. I have been cranking along on Off the Clock. In any given week I spend one chunk of time pulling bits of research and notes from interviews on a topic together. Another day, I write a draft of a chapter. Then another day, I revise, and revise again on another day. I was feeling somewhat despondent about the state of a chapter after day 2 of that cycle this week. But I knew — and was reminded as it happened — that after the first revision it would be a lot better. A draft that exists can be made better. A draft that does not exist cannot be improved. Get it down. Suffer its crappiness and wait overnight and then dive back in.

Siblings as friends. For the past few nights, the big kids have been going downstairs together around 8:15 p.m., probably because they don’t want me to find them and tell them to go to their bedrooms. I’ll just sit and relax and let them play and they’ve been playing incredibly well together. There is some screaming, but they work it out, because they know if they come involve me I’ll make them go to bed. I love when all our incentives are aligned.

Being able to abandon a book. So I had another Colgan book (Rosie Hopkins’ Sweetshop of Dreams) and I read about 100 pages last night, and then decided to just read the last chapter and be done with it. It’s OK, as a grown-up not assigned books for school, to not keep reading.

Sleep. I’m always into this one! But I’m realizing from my own life how people wind up thinking worse nights are typical. As I look back on my time log from Monday – Friday this week, I had only one bad night: the big kids wanted stuff until 10, I fell asleep around 10:30 and then the toddler woke at 4:30 and would not go back down. The other nights I slept more or less to 6 a.m., which is far more civilized. But guess which one sticks out in my mind?

Signs of spring. Unfortunately, it’s supposed to get down to about 15 degrees this weekend!