These days, I’m missing respite.
We live several hours from our nearest relatives and have a spotty social network in our area (life is busy, and it’s hard to make new friends post-college), so each time we added to our family, it was with the assumption we’d be doing the parenting by ourselves.
Mostly, we have. The Chaplain and I figured out how to ask each other for what we needed to keep our tanks from running empty, and we made it work. That was when I had out-of-the-house activities a couple of times a week, and so did the Chaplain. Those out-of-the-house options narrowed to one during the pandemic: The Long, Solitary Walk.
If it had to be just one thing, the Long Solitary Walk is the best. But there comes a time in an introvert’s life when she just wants to be home alone. And when everyone has to stay home all the time, that just isn’t happening.
Last week, the Chaplain came home, saw my face, and offered to take the kids to the pool and leave me home.
It may have been my first time home alone since lockdown started.
Back in February, our family left for Tobago.
I brought my DSLR camera with me. The autofocus had become a little unreliable, but not bad enough for me to do anything about it.
The first day of our vacation, it stopped working completely. I was able to take a couple of photos, and then it refused to do anything further.
As fiddle leaf figs were blowing up the lifestyle and home design internet a few years ago, I walked into a big box home improvement store one frigid night in February and saw fig plants sitting there in the houseplant section. They were just $10 for a decent-sized plant. I put two in my cart.
I’ve always loved plants and gardening, but I always felt my plants survived in spite of me, not because of me. It wasn’t for lack of good intentions.
The second and last day of Carnival is Carnival Tuesday. Originally we weren’t planning on doing anything that day, but I found out that mud mas is Carnival Tuesday and man, I really wanted to do it.
This is part II – Jouvert, the first event of Carnival, was last week.
By the time five o’clock rolled around, it was time to start getting ready for the Carnival Monday road march, which went through downtown Scarborough. I had a black and neon green mesh and spandex two-piece suit which I wore with Carnival-strength stockings my sister-in-law picked up for me.
