President’s Day | Earful of Cider

It’s President’s Day today, which means many of my fellow citizens get a day off from school and work to ~~contemplate the history of our nation and celebrate the men who made it what it was before other people came in to make it what it is now~~ sleep in, cruise the sales, and in certain regions be grateful that we don’t have to commute through the 3 inches of snow that’s already fallen since early this morning and the 3 we’ll be getting throughout the day because we can’t seem to catch a $#!%ing break with the weather.

I’ll admit I slept in until 8:30, despite my determined plans to get up only one hour later than usual and whack out the next chapter of my WIP before the kids woke up. I figured my husband’s alarm clock would wake me, but my American can-do spirit didn’t even hear it.

Oh, well.

But in my defense, I’ve already started dinner—the slow-cooked beef stew I’ve mentioned here before, and yes, I managed to get the tomato soup to splork out in one column because I’m just that good, though the potatoes weren’t half as sexy this time–taken a shower, Facebooked, webcomicked, YouTubed, read a bit, made much peanut butter toast for hungry children, folded laundry and formulated early afternoon baking plans that may show up in tomorrow’s post, especially if they go horribly wrong.

None of which is writing, which kind of ruins my defense strategy, doesn’t it?

But the moment I publish this post, I’m going to go feed my kids leftover pizza for lunch, grab my laptop and a mug of hot tea, and work on that chapter while glancing occasionally into the whited out world outside the window, relieved that I am lucky enough to be warm and dry on a stormy winter’s day and that in a few hours, my children, who are also safe and warm and full, will be bored enough with this lazy day to help me make a mess of the kitchen.

Can’t really think of a better way to spend the day.

Holiday or not, how are you spending yours?

I’m not used to having Presidents’ Day off, but it was recently decided that the library should close when the rest of the city departments do, instead of giving library staff ‘floating holiday’ time. As a city employee, I appreciate this—it saves on money and resentment.

Can’t say I’m too pleased about losing six random days of writing time, though—vacation hours are for family, but the holidays were mine. But it came in handy today, since the kids are off, my husband has classes, and Watson is driving back from Tennessee, where my MIL will be visiting family for the next couple of weeks.

It’s going to be interesting, not having my MIL around—we’ve been living in the same house for five years and we’ve settled into a routine, modified when Watson joined us.

A lot of that routine, to be perfectly honest, is absolutely to my benefit. I’m gone for roughly ten hours a day, so most of the daily housework tasks tend to just . . . happen . . . when I’m not around.

Timing is everything.

But my MIL will get breather from the kids’ exuberance and the kids will have one less adult looking over their shoulders. It’s possible that this will hold true for Watson and my husband as well.

And it turns out that emptying and refilling the dishwasher, picking up the living room, and changing the sheets on the beds is kind of . . . satisfying.

At least for today. We’ll see how it goes when the novelty wears off.

In the meantime, the kids and I will be having a dance contest in front of the TV during my MIL’s usual afternoon nap time.

Timing is everything!