WNBP: Stuff's Getting Real Now

Last week, due to my mistakenly wandering a week ahead on the calendar track, was an emotional roller coaster.  In my mind, it was the last week of my summer vacation and I mourned it hard.  Then, when an exasperated sales clerk demanded repeatedly that I change the date on my check so that it represented the correct day, I realized the truth.  I still had another week to go.

By then, it was too late.  I'd already unpacked a great deal of the emotional baggage that comes with summer's end and trying to refold everything was just too difficult.  Now that the actual "end is nigh," I'm not sure how to feel.

What I do know, however, is that a sense of reality is beginning to creep in.  It's not the same diamond  edged clarity I had last week.  (And that, as we all know, was of the cubic zirconium variety but it was close enough to wear to a semi-formal occasion and be able to fool the masses)  But it is definitely a feeling.

Yeah.  It's maybe starting to get a little real up in here...

So here is your last Summer Vacation Edition Of The Wednesday Night Bullet Post.  May it adequately express all the confusion and mixed emotions of the day!

*I always make a lot of promised to myself before summer vacation.  Mostly about things I will do to improve my life while I have the time to do them.

*During the school year, I spend most of my down time on the sofa wondering if I have the strength to get up and go do it again tomorrow...

*This year, per usual, I promised myself stuff all willy-nilly.  I know me and I don't expect it will all get done, but I like to think I get to some of it.

*The one thing I promised seriously, however, was that I would finish clearing out the spare bedroom.

*AKA: The Border Hoarder Room.

*Not quite up to genuine Hoarder Standards, but you can see the potential.

*I did a lot this summer.

*I painted the living room during a heat wave.  I also painted a contrasting wall that leads into the kitchen.

*The latter involved patching a large hole.  There was drywall involved.

*I refinished and reupholstered my grandmother's sewing chair.  

*One of those things I snagged right before the house was sold.  Not sure why I took it, but it's been a handy little chair.  Very sturdy.  A solid chair to have about the manse.

*Especially when I realized I didn't have a step ladder for painting.

*Which is why it needed to be refinished and reupholstered.  

*Gotta respect the handy chair.  Even a workhorse likes to look its best.

*I installed a new light switch in the bathroom.

*One that stays up or down as my mood and lighting needs dictate.  

*It also doesn't make that weird sizzling sound when it can't decide which position to take.

*That is comforting.

*I installed roman shades in the living room.

*I rearranged several pieces of furniture to update the look around here and replaced some of the art to reflect something other than the Late Nineties And Too Lazy To Do Anything About It period.

*Budget art shopping.  Took some time.  Took some digging.  

*I hung several shelves.

*I replaced my printer for a wireless model that could be stored less obtrusively but still used.

*I found a killer deal on a faux fireplace and built a faux hearthstone upon which to place it.

*Faux mantel is forthcoming.  I ran out of Faux.

*And Time

*I did a lot.  More than I've listed.

*What I did not do was finish cleaning out the spare bedroom.

*I've cleared a path.  If you look at it with one eye closed and think positively, it almost could be considered charmingly cluttered.

*That is probably going to have to be good enough.  The reality is, I'm out of time to do the job fully.

*And out of steam.

*I went to the doctor's office last week.

*And was promptly sent home because my real appointment was for this week.

*So I went today because it seemed like the right thing to do.

*I have tendinitis.  Of the Tennis Elbow variety.

*I have moved one too many pieces of furniture and I can't help but hearken back to that time I was crawling around under the sink yelling to myself, "Hey, stupid!  Your arm doesn't bend that way and you should have just bought the correct wrench like the internet said in the first place!!!"

*I have the wrench, but I think we are going to add "replace the sprayer attachment on the kitchen sink" to the List 'O Stuff That Shall Remain Undone.

*Gotta get real about that.  

*Now I am supposed to wear a Tennis Elbow Brace.

*I'm not just making up a cute name for it.  That is what it is called.  A Tennis Elbow Brace.  You can get them at the grocery store for fifteen dollars.

*You probably already knew that was a real thing.  I did not.

*I also had blood work done today.  I have my rheumatoid factor tested every few years just to be on the safe side.

*Family history of rheumatoid arthritis.

*Thought you only had to do that once and, if cleared, all was well.  I was quickly disabused of that happy notion by a nurse with RA.

*The factor is shy and hides until it isn't a so much a factor as a reality.  Hence, I re-test every so often just to be sure I've covered my bases.

*I bring it up because I am right handed.  Which is why my tennis elbow is on the right side.

*And where they tend to take blood.

*It is nigh on impossible to wear the brace so close to the site of today's vampiric carnage.

*To be fair, I don't give up my corpuscles easily.  Nurses have to work for it.

*I try to keep it real and not scream obscenities at them as they fish about with the needle hoping for a glimpse of red.

*Very bruised inner elbow.  Very sore outer elbow what with the tennis influence and arm wrenching that occurs when a frustrated nurse is desperately trying to make blood appear.

*I don't have arthritis, of that I am fairly certain.  But, I almost feel like I've earned some sort of diagnosis after this.

*I can't be mad at the nurse.  I just can't.  She's real nice.  And she thinks I'm funny.  

*It's not her fault she has to weigh me or stab me.

*My doctor was late to my appointment.  

*Stuck behind a school bus full of kindergartners.

*The kids were fine.  The problems were more centered around parents clinging to the bus and begging reassurances from the driver.

*She lives in my hometown.  A place where school has already started for the year.

*My school starts later than most.  We get away with it because we don't take much in the way of staff development time out of the regular school year.

*It works.  And gives me a few days of non kid-impacted shopping/driving/basically enjoying life during the last week of summer vacation.

*Now that I think of it, the plethora of kids around last week probably should have been a clue that something was off with my date calculations...

*I spent fifteen minutes rhapsodizing to my cats about the features of my new back-to-school bras.

*I was enthused.  To say the least.

*Da Boyz were clearly less than impressed with my description.  In fact, I can't help but think they were not even really all that interested.

*I understand, but they could have at least faked it for the sake of politeness.

*It is entirely possible that it really is time for me to go back to school. 

* Not just in the temporal sense.  In the personal sense.

*I might be in need of some Daytime Structure.

*And a little reality check...


And there you have it.  The limit of my recollections for the week. As much as I'd like to continue thinking Summer Thoughts, I need to get real here.  Vacation is pretty much done.  A couple more days and then it's just a plain, old weekend.  Just like the one I get during the winter months.  Except for the part where Monday is a holiday, but you get the idea.

Ready or not.  Reality, here I come...

SA