The Long, Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

My husband has just returned from a (hopefully relaxing or at least vaguely encouraging) trip to Cleveland, Ohio with several of his close friends, to attend the Basics Conference.  He deserved a break from everything else going on in life, and it is truly his last hurrah before starting on the two full time courses he is working on this summer, so I didn't begrudge him the trip.  But...ugh...if you've been the parent at home alone with the children for days on end you know of what I speak.  Ugh.

He left after church, and that first night I said to myself I said 'Amy, let's try and be fun okay?  Don't be all crazy like and sobby.  No one likes that.  Stop being a bum.'  And I inquired with false cheerfulness what everyone would like to do and it turns out that was play with my make-up.  And put it on me as well.  We all looked like slightly worse-for-wear college kids after a party.  Then we had hamburgers, which were part of my plan to buy all the easy food possible and feed it to the children.  I let them play video games and listen to tapes of Adventures in Odyssey and watch Paddington Bear and fill up the bathtub way too high for baths, and then I put them to bed and thought about how much more relaxing my life would be if I drank.  Just kidding.  Sort of.

I had stocked up on face masks the last time we were in town so I was well prepared to occupy myself with this:

I love these sorts of beauty products.  Are you kidding me?  Rub gold stuff all over my face AND look 'fresher'.  Can't beat that advertising for $3.19.

And I roasted a chicken, because I am on a crazy restrictive diet for very boring reasons I won't get into and one of the things I CAN easily and safely eat is chicken.  And I didn't need to be getting all hangry and sobbing into a cup of cashew milk.  So my evening was:  rub gold on my face, eat some chicken, and call a friend who knew the woes of the minister's wife and was happy to avoid watching Game of Thrones with her husband and chat with me instead.  I had emergency anxiety back-up, too - a laptop that played dvds and the complete series of Bless Me Father.  Just in case it was lonely all by myself.

The whole three days was essentially that, on repeat.

But then he came back and we had one long, glorious day just us as a family before we have been thrust into the chaos of a 7yo birthday, the start of two university courses, a complete renovation of the church office, and all the other odds and ends of life.

I need to stock up on more weird face masks.