Wiped beyond belief

Tags

exhaustion, family visits, postaday2013, writing

I am so wiped from this weekend, I feel as if I ran a marathon; in between walking Jack a mile six times a day, helping my mother and my sister with the Mother’s Day celebration. My mother and I made two quiches both with caramelized onions and leeks and prosciutto de parma and when we got to my sister’s, we helped her with chopping and mincing the herbs and vegetables for the frittata, and setting the table. We even shared my Mother’s Day gift of cheesecake with my sister and her family. The two and a half days of making sure that Jack didn’t have any accidents and the walking plus with the helping, makes me one exhausted lady today.

As for my gifts, my hubby indulged me on my love affair with handbags with my newest acquisition that he picked out himself. He picked a beautiful and interesting handbag, I love it. My babies for the first time went to the mall and picked out my presents, just the two of them, and bought them without being reminded by their father. They were so happy and proud of themselves, they touched my heart, my babies did with their thoughtfulness. Being a mother is the greatest challenge that gives the greatest rewards, everlasting unconditional love.

Home sweet home

Tags

exhaustion, Home, icy roads, postaday2012, snowstorms, travel

We are finally home and Jack is so happy to be home, he ran out in back and did all of his business and ran around the whole house once or twice and now he is curled up on my lower legs while I type this in the living room, sitting on the couch with a roaring fire that my hubby built for me. I have to say that my hubby was the champion today; he got us home safe and sound during another snowstorm. Can you imagine it? He drove us down during a snowstorm and treacherous roads and today he drove us back home with the roads getting more treacherous as we got closer to home. My hubby, my hero.

We are all tired. My hubby for all of his driving under horrible conditions, the babies, being the young adults that they are, seem to be always tired and I, who gets exhausted quickly just at home by myself taking care of Jack, I am exhausted because since we all descend on my mommy like a tornado and she gets tired easily. I make sure that I do as much as possible so that she doesn’t get tired at all by our stay. My mommy has a very set way of doing things which I am used to and I never mind doing things her way, it brings me back to my childhood and really nice memories. We also get the chance to talk about everything under the sun and I ask questions; all kinds of questions about my mommy’s childhood, what she might have grown up to be if she had made other choices, questions that I can ask as an adult. I treasure our talks together.

Back to the exhaustion, it is stressful to visit someone’s house who doesn’t have dogs and who is very used to having their house just so. My mommy knows Jack from coming up here and visiting with us and she of course thinks that he is extremely cute because he is. It’s another thing to have a dog in your house with nice area rugs and Jack is known for being sneaky when he doesn’t want to go outside. He will hide his business if he doesn’t want to go outside. So part of my mission and I chose to accept, it was to anticipate when little Jack had to go outside. So I was dragging his backside very often outside and speed walking him to Astoria Park because that is the only patch of greenery that met his standards. So in between helping with cooking, setting the table, clearing the table, bringing the dishes up and down the stairs, setting the house back to rights and walking Jack back and forth from my mommy’s house to the park. I’m beat.

I had a very nice time as did my hubby and the babies. Jack I’m not too sure.

Jetlag redux

Tags

airports, exhaustion, France, jetlag, postaday2012, travel

The baby girl and I got back home last night from Paris, my hubby picked us up from JFK and drove us back home to the baby boy and our two dogs, Rex and Jack. There was much hugging, petting and kissing; the humans were very happy to be reunited and the dogs were jumping, wagging their tails, smiling and presenting us with their toys. It was beautiful and sweet. My hubby and I watched our shows that he gallantly didn’t watch without me until I fell asleep. He is a sweetie that way.

Today was painful in that jet lag and I do not get along at all. It makes me feel ill, not just tired, but trust me that jet lag will in no way keep me from traveling in the future because I know that tomorrow I’ll feel better. The dogs were happy to have their Maman back because we took our habitual walks together and they were both so happy taking them. Rex may have arthritis but he loves his walks big time and Jack loves going outside anyway but he thinks that walking with Rex on the leash is extra special.

Aside from doing a few things on the computer, in the house and in the pool, I spent the day watching three weeks of General Hospital if only to free up space in the DVR storage space, lol. It was a lot of hard work, the things you must do to keep a DVR running smoothly. Since I am now caught up and seen the trajectory of both good storytelling and bad storytelling, always valuable research in learning about writing, I feel better. These are my little justifications for watching a soap opera that I have followed on and off since I was five and watched it with my mother.

I need to go lay down and get my inner clock back to speed.

Exhaustion setting in

Tags

exhaustion, family reunions, France, memories, postaday2012, travel

Today was day two of the family celebration at Tonton’s house. The baby girl and I have shuttled off to another bedroom, this one is back at the house where I spent most of my summers during my childhood. We are sleeping in the room that I shared with my cousin Leon when we were kids, the one who taught me how to hunt, capture and kill lizards to prevent them from growing into alligators. Those are really fond memories, our family was still large, it was my grandparents, my aunt and uncle, my mother some times, at least three cousins and my sister and myself with other family members dropping by all the time. I remember conversations that were spirited  fun, long conversations at the table involving children and adults, everyone had a voice, very democratic as I remember it. I’m laying on the bed writing this very happy that I don’t have to change beds anytime soon.

Speaking of which, I don’t know what came over me today but I was hit by a wave of exhaustion that was so powerful it made my muscles weak. I felt almost ill, it was rather unpleasant but there wasn’t anything to be done about it. I just kept quiet and ate with everyone taking the time to just listen, every now and then I would take the little princess Rose in my arms and that helped distract me from the exhaustion. When you have a darling princess in your arms, how can anything bring you down? Interestingly enough, when I was walking around with the precious cargo in my arms, I felt no exhaustion, it was only when I gave her back that the tiredness hit me like a ton of bricks.

Tomorrow, we aren’t doing anything. The baby girl and I ate going to sit back and enjoy Tonton’s and Tantine. Francoise, Nicolas, her daughter and fiancé and baby Mathis will be leaving and we are of course going to miss them terribly, they made our stay in Rouen and here very special.

The eyelids are seriously drooping and I have to go to bed. Until tomorrow’s potentially ordinary and lazy day.