Midwinter Shifts

Mr. Polly and I realized the other day that someone has been sick in our household since we returned from Charleston at Christmas.  We all cycled through a bad cold in January, starting with Mr. Polly. Then poor Annie caught some sort of crud, had a fever for 3 days, and missed 4 days of school *and* the first two performances of the play she is in (which Finn is directing).  Fortunately none of us caught that illness. But on Monday I spent some lovely time with a friend who then texted me Tuesday saying she was now sick. I wasn't worried about it, but on Wednesday I came down with the plague, and poor Finn caught it on Thursday...fortunately, I really wasn't very sick this week. I was aggressively devoted to resting, and spent close to 48 hours mostly in bed with a heating pad on my chest, drinking vitamin C. I think it helped. 

Finn and I are both on the mend now and neither Annie nor Mr. Polly show signs of illness, so I'm cautiously optimistic.  Finn is giving the curtain speech for his play, and so for the past couple of days I whisked him to the back of the theatre, he jumped out with a KN95 mask on, ran in, gave the speech, then ran back out and I whisked him home. I told him it was like chauffeuring the President!

The play closes today and I will confess that I am relieved and thankful. It has been a challenging 6 weeks, with rehearsals, heavy involvement in production and set-building, Finn trying to manage his schoolwork with theatre, multiple illnesses, lots of snow days, even more sick days, etc. I sort of feel like I need a vacation week just to restore order to my home and my mind!  It's often sad for the children when one of their productions ends, but it's a deep exhale from their mother. :) 

We are still over a month away from spring. I'm trying to re-orient myself into domesticity (while still needing to juggle Annie's ballet schedule and facilitating school with Finn).  Here are a few things I want to do before spring that I think will help me shift in the right direction:

*implement a new cleaning routine that makes more sense to me in this stage of life

*get into the yard once things are warmer and drier, and rake out the flower beds, assess the mulch needs, and think about gardening

*commit again to walking every day on our lane. I dropped this habit for a few months and I *really* miss the stress relief and peace it provides for me!

*look at my evening and morning routines and make sure those are working for me and not against me! I always tell my children that a good morning starts the night before--I think I need to internalize that myself. ;) More on those soon.....

I'm calling these my "midwinter shifts"--I think they'll be life-giving for me during these cold and dreary days while we wait for spring!