J is for Juggling
If you are older, try to remember the many tasks your 25 year old self juggled in one day. If you are still young - take a moment in your busy day to check out your future.
Let see ... I pick a typical Friday when I was 25 years old, married, a grade school teacher and pregnant.
Friday looked like this:
- Pop out of bed before 6 am
- Dress while sipping coffee (thankfully set up the night before.)
- Feed the cats before breakfast - Clean the litter.
- Feed myself breakfast standing at the counter making a bag lunch
- Make a quick grocery list for food shopping (budget for the week was $20, ha!)
- Quick review of Friday lesson plans
- Commute to work
- Stop for weekly gas fill up on the way
- (We will skip the school day where I juggle the hundreds of things grade school teachers do in 8 hours.)
- Gather up next week's lesson plan materials and papers to grade.
- Commute to grocery store - Fridays were food shopping day right after work - and stop by the liquor store to pick up some cheap wine fizzy something. Liquor wasn't a no-no for a pregnant woman 45 years ago.
- Do a fast unpack of groceries, a quick clean up of the apartment upon getting home
- Fix dinner, eat quick, and clean up
- Prepare a few dips for chips and veggies for visiting Friday night friends.
- Slap out board games and snacks
- Grade a few papers while waiting for guests to arrive
- Entertain until say midnight
- Spot pick up after company leaves
- Set up the coffee for Saturday morning
- Hit the sack at 1:00-ish am.
- Inserts bunches and bunches of bathroom breaks in-between other things (remember - pregnant!)
Saturday
- Off and running again for weekend fun activities and school work prep.
That was then!
Today!
Some demands are gone, of course, and some are changed - no job, no commute, not pregnant for sure. Still married - however, husband is disabled (legally blind), and needs more assistance. Today a 72 year old me might prepare for a Friday - with company like this.
Wednesday (Yes, Wednesday!! Give me a break - I am older.)
- First off, there is absolutely NO POPPING OUT OF BED on any day of the week!!
- Make a list of everything I need to do - without the list I would just sit and knit or read.
- Vacuum and dust.
- rest
- Prepare the menu and grocery list for the next week and for Friday company. This prep is exhaustive - checking cookbooks for recipes and reviewing grocery store sales.
- rest
- Cook Wednesdays dinner, eat and clean up.
- Assist husband with finding an item he has lost, or searching Amazon for something he wants to purchase, or sending an email on his behalf, or problem solving a computer issues he cannot find on the screen, or picking up prescriptions on his behalf.
Thursday
- Food shop - this takes all morning now - no fast spin through the grocery store. There is more checking for cheapest prices, reading food labels to insure a choice is healthy, doubling back to previous aisles to get things I missed the first time through. (Lots of doubling back. Sigh.)
- Unpacking groceries and repacking certain items - freezing, labeling, reorganizing - making sure things are where my legally blind husband can find them independently.
- rest
- Begin to prepare food for Friday night company dinner.
- Order take out dinner - which I pick up because my husband doesn't drive. Reality check: No standing and cooking tonight's dinner after food shopping and cooking for the next day.
- Assist husband again with something.
Friday
- Compete food prep for company
- rest
- Do a pick-up sweep through the house
- Do a liquor store run - for company and for us - Yes, we have a nice cocktail once a day - one of the benefits of aging and not giving a sh*t. (See? It isn't all gloom and doom.)
- Clean the guest bathroom so it isn't a health risk, ha! (I don't think I ever worried about health risks at 25 - remember, young ... I was going to live forever!)
- rest
- Set out appetizers (now I call them appetizers instead of snacks 😝)
- Serve dinner and entertain until about 10:30 - fading out occurs about that time after company prep.
- Pick up after guests
- Collapse in bed around 11:00 pm
Saturday
- Recover! Schedule nothing!
So what lessons have I learned about juggling all the balls of life with this exercise?
- Thank God I am not trying to juggle a job as well. Yea!!! For Retirement!
- Lists were never part of my 25 year old life - my brain retained everything. Everything I tell you!! Today? My brain still retains stuff like before, but the retrieval window is extremely short.
- I can't abuse my body by eating crap appetizers only! We serve dinner. (Sigh, those were the good old days, when dips and chips were good enough!!)
- The cost of living is crazy more than almost 50 years ago. Weekly food budget has increased from $20 to $120!!
- Question of the Day: When do I get to retire from cooking dinner!!! My next life: Marry a chef, who wants me out of "his kitchen.".
- Still taking lots of bathroom breaks - 72 years old, you know!
- I remember laughing at my mom who would schedule exactly one thing a day on her event calendar! One thing!!! I couldn't imagine why!
I get it now, mom.
Sorry.
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