Tuesday, September 06, 2005

The New Regime

I blew my stack at my poor husband yesterday. The darling man, thinking it is Labor Day, he thought we would do something holiday-like. Take a ride, visit someplace new, get out into the sunshine and see the world... Unbeknownst to him, I had just reached my limit of putting-everything-off-til-tomorrowness. I snarled:

Everyday is a holiday when you don't have a job!!
We are having a bit of an adjustment getting used to him being home all the time. I am not doing any real work. Or it is only happening in teeny increments. He is on new meds again and is getting used to those.
We had a talk. Nothing got resolved. We talked some more and I stomped away. This is NOT like me. Really. I have sniped at him twice in the last week. I apologized again and made a plan, at least for myself.
The New Regime:
Be dressed and off line and ready to work by 9am.
Work in the studio til noon and make the main meal (for the sake of my diet, another thing that has lost focus).
Kitchen cleaned up and back into the studio til 5PM.
Cocktail hour: Ginger Ale in a wine glass.
There will be schedule alterations for trips to the post office and grocery shopping. I will keep my papers off the sofa in the living room. I will do laundry on the same day every week and I will keep my dyeing confined to the dyeroom. I had been dyeing yarn in the microwave last week, with drips everywhere of course. (Magic Sponge to the rescue). I will try not to feel guilty about ignoring Dave during the day.
This sounds perfectly doable. I will no doubt have trouble with the guilt. I see him sitting there looking lonely and bored. Or he sits there watching something interesting on the TV and I want to know what...I have a door on my studio and it closes. I will take advantage of it.
So to institute this new regime, we did a good hour of furious housecleaning, with two vacuum cleaners going. I put away all my yarn. I mean I PUT AWAY ALL MY YARN. This has been my major vice/distraction in the studio and now it is out of the way and stacked neatly in the upstairs library. I had to unload another bookshelf to accomodate all the new dyed stuff. My Japanese quilt magazines have got to find a new home. I may be putting them on the other site.
The studio got organized and I gave over to quilting the Fucshias for two hours, very nearly finished by 5pm and then we popped into The Car for a spin. A blogger friend is house looking in my town and we had to check out the house she is considering. This was fun, since we disagreed about where it could be and then we had to drive from one end of the area to a street very close to us, before we found it. It turns out that even tho we have lived here almost 17 years, there are parts of our small town we have never seen. Way huge mansions have been built and lots of hidden townhouse villages that have just appeared.
Getting back to our house and having some ice cream on the deck was so quiet and perfect. We realized how great we have it here, now that we have figured out a plan for living.
I think my new mindset is just what the doctor ordered. A person needs to work and feel that sense of accomplishment. I will visit my accountant this morning and see Frieda and deliver her dyed yarn from last week. Then I will finish the quilting and take good photos and make that new pattern more than just a bunch of talk...
PS: My sister Brooke and her family are now in Singapore and she and my 10 year old niece Glory both have blogs!!! Glory's is called Want Want Jelly Bubble after a local drink.

6 comments:

  1. I so agree. Everything in life messes up my schedule. Each nite ends with a plan for the morning and by eight am it is already screwed up. I am going to evaluate my time use and thanks to you doing it first, maybe, just maybe I will get my act together.

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  2. Husbands being in your space is the hardest adjustment we have to make. Love sweet Ronnie to death but ended up being snarky before Labor Day was over. It isn't that he is doing anything wrong, it is just that he is there...in my domain. We share an office space...he has his own computer and I walked in last night to find him on both his and mine at the same time....bleech. That was when the snarky remarks came. Hang in there..it will take time but y'all will get it worked out.

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  3. Oh boy, do I HEAR you on this. Summers, when R. is home for vacation, make me crazy. I do love September when I reclaim my schedule! Good luck--sounds like continuing to talk and set up structures that work for you is the way to go...

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  4. My husband was laid off after 9/11 and was home for 6 months, it made me crazy. i hated seeing him there watching tv all the time. i knew he was probably dealing with some depression as a result of the situation, but he was in my space and i had a hard time getting back to doing my work. i just had to keep biting my tongue. Eventually he did find some freelance work in seattle and los angeles (there was nothing in Austin) and he was away from home for weeks and months at a time then. The opposite extreme. Since your husband won't be returning to work, it sounds like he needs to find his passion or bliss as James Campbell used to say. Maybe you could suggest he take a class in some subject he has always been interested in but has never really pursued. After working for so many years interacting with others daily and now finding himself just hanging around the house he may end up with some significant depression. good luck

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  5. I had to laugh when I read your post today! It reminded me of a situation last week when I barked "this is not a vacation" at my husband when he wanted to play and I wanted to get back to work. I laugh about it now because it all sounds so silly, but believe me, I know your frustration. It's a drag. No wonder there is a saying: Men, can't live with them, can't without. Anyway, thanks for your encouraging words on my blog today. I'm so fortunate to have you give me tips to help things run more smoothly. With all that you have accomplished, you gotta be doing something right!

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  6. My husband works (NOT here) every day, thank god! But every so often, in the evening, he will plunk himself down in my studio while I am TRYING to work and just sit there. I have to stop. I know he wants my company but - argh - not when I am in the middle. He finally 'got' it when I asked how he would feel if I came into his office and just SAT there while he was trying to work.

    My previous profesion was as a career transition counselor (counseling people who had been downsized, fired, or taken 'early' retirement). A terrible period of adjustment and I ran a support group for the wives. It can be a truly disfunctional situation - not usual. So don't feel guilty.

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