Monday, November 30 2020

Dear Journal,

Good morning, everyone. Happy Monday. Right now it feels like there isn't enough coffee in the world to help me wake up. The first mug I finished while showering, and it practically passed through my tired body like water. I'm well into my second cup, and I'm still acting like a magical well spring of alertness awaits me at the button of this mug.

It's a rough one today. I had a relaxing Thanksgiving weekend, but I have this really bad habit of staying up late and sleeping in late on days where I don't work. On regular weekends that doesn't really make for much of a problem, but on holiday weekends like this one I can apparently do some real damage to my sleep cycle. Compound that with an earlier Monday morning start. Trying to fit my morning routine into a block of time that is thirty minute shorter was certainly interesting. I practically had to resort to my half awake dolphin brain to finish cleaning the kitchen and ordering groceries for this week.

I'm tired, but it fits the mood today. I'm on my last set of clean clothes. I'm wearing a beanie to hide the fact that I haven't shaved in almost a whole two weeks. I think it's going to be a ruddier day, muscling through the tiredness to get things back on the rails.

Sip. How are you feeling today? How does your fridge look? After cleaning out the last of our Thanksgiving leftovers, ours is looking absolutely bare. We're down to one sippie cup's worth of milk. Our meat drawer is empty. Our cheese drawer is completely empty, if you don't count that weird little package of feta that has been in there longer than I remember. I thought about finishing the groceries yesterday, but the day got away from us with church and working around the house. So food wise it was a "scrape by" kind of day.

Lately, when our fridge and pantry are bare, our go to meal has been huevos rancheros. What do you need in your fridge to whip up some huevos rancheros? All you need is some corn tortillas, a can of black beans, and old jar of salsa, and some eggs. Sure, if you want to be fancy, you can jazz it up with a red onion, cilantro, and lime, but the bare bones fridge proof version works just as well too.

Most surprisingly of all, huevos rancheros was responsible for getting all three of us on the same page when it comes to runny eggs. Marissa wasn't too crazy about the concept of a runny yellow egg - that is until I threw one on top of a warm tortilla and a sharp red onion next to some chilled salsa. Rodney also likes huevos rancheros night. Last night as we were setting the table, after he climbed into his booster seat, I caught him ripping egg white pieces off the platter. Rodney of course only intentionally eats the egg whites.

"These eggs are SO delicious dada," he said trying to butter me up. "Thank you for making eggies." Meanwhile, he was strategically trying to cut out his yolk so he could get a full bite of tasteless gummy egg white. What a weirdo.

Sip. Update - I've now finished my second cup of coffee. It appears there was no magical burst of energy waiting at the bottom of this one. We'll see about the other. But while I was up, I fortunately remembered to water my plants. Thanks to all of the hustle and bustle getting ready for Thursday's dinner, I forgot to water the plants in the kitchen. There is one pot on the high shelf by our back door - it's long dangling leafy stems a testament to how well it's doing in that sunny corner. And than there are a couple of "air plants" hanging off the side of our cubbard.

To water the air plants, I've been instructed by Marissa to just pluck them out of their bowl and hold them under a running faucet for a few seconds. Consequently, when I water them it feels more like a superstitious tick than it does an actual chore. Almost by magic, they've managed to find the strength to get large and curly from only a quick swipe of water every Thursday night. What a weird plant.

I'm sorry I'm so scatter brained today. I think it's partly due to how tired I am, but also because this is the first morning entry I've done in a while. It's good to get back into a more regular rhythm, but during the change-off I don't have much to write about. I've already thoroughly covered our weekend activities. I don't even think I have any new Rodney stories to share.

Right now all I can think about is how tired I'm feeling, but the coffee is finally starting to make an impact, and I'm feeling a glimmer of hope that I'll be alert and ready to rock for my meeting in a half hour. Also, thinking about the next opportunity I'll have to take a nap is giving me hope. It may not be tonight, but it's Marissa's turn to cook tomorrow, and just before Tuesday dinner is a prime time to steel an extra hour of sleep. Thinking about tomorrow's nap is giving me the motivation to earn it and keep plugging away at my todo list. With Christmas break around the corner, I have just a couple of work weeks to build some momentum with the intern project and keep attacking my own little holiday todo list. There are cards to write, presents to wrap, and a particularly important 2020 hip hop mixtape to finish making in time to go out with the Christmas cards this year.

And with that bit of rambling, I'm finally at word count. This rambling entry goes out to any one else who is feeling tired. Hang in there, the next nap is right around the corner. Just hang in there and keep slugging coffee, we're almost there.

Thanks for stopping by today. Happy Monday, everyone.