To Socialize Or To Self Care? That Is The Question!

I'm about to embark on 10 days of 90% parenting alone and being lucky if I grab 20 minutes of conversation with my hubby daily, and then seeing him for all of 2 hours one morning this weekend. #Restaurantlife

At the end of this 10 days I realized my daughter will be at an all day camp for Girl Scouts and I am left open and having a day to myself. I mean this when I say, it never happens unless I'm somehow home, and she is at school. Truly, it is extremely rare. 

Now I am faced with this question: do I take a quiet, uninterrupted day in my own home to be productive and watch TV? OR, do I schedule time with people I've been meaning to catch up with but just haven't found the time? Do I socialize? Or do I self care? Such decisions!

This is what truly stinks about being an introverted extrovert, it's such a weird mix:

Should I recharge or should I go catch up with my tribe? Part of me says, let's see how next week goes. The other part wants to reach out to the people who have been trying to catch up with me and schedule some fun. Oh what a tangled web we weave.

I love my down time. These next 10 days will be ones that end with quiet, reading, and tea, and are calm and mentally healing I hope. With that comes the mixed in stress of knowing that by the end of all of this, I will have one exhausted husband and a very anxious six year old to care for in their reboot needs. This too shall pass. 

Sometimes after a week of feeling alone, I do thrive on being out in the world and mingling but there is a part of me that wants to curl up and do nothing. I don't ever just "do nothing," anymore. "Do nothing" was a phrase I loved and a goal I had always made for myself before motherhood and adulting came at me full swing. Now I just try and do what I can when I can, which is all I can do in fact.

That duality of the "ambivert" within me is so weird. I found this meme and it sums it up well I think:

I can rock some serious quiet, now more than ever. You don't know the true value or importance of quiet until you have a child, in my humble opinion. I can also be the most social person you've ever seen, which can be a blessing and a curse.

I hate this internal mental wrestling match within myself because it shouldn't feel like a chore to enjoy "free time." I'm just that person who feels like there is always something that should be done and keeps on going until I hit my wall and deflate like one of the balloons after the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

For today in my allergy haze, just starting on day one of the mania, I've decided to sleep on it. I do my best decision making on a good night's rest, or so I'd like to believe. Maybe I will hide from the world or maybe I will re-emerge fierce and ferocious and ready to play. Of course I will report back!

Allergic To The Best Weather Of The Year

When I was younger the ideas of allergies was like, when you were allergic to flowers or peanut butter or bee stings and you would puff up, your throat would close up or you could like die. They never warn you that allergies just randomly show up in adulthood to better hinder you from regular functionality without drugs.

It happens the same two times every year for me: October and March. And it's always during the most beautiful weather. It's the weather where you want your windows open and fresh air everywhere, but you can't because you already are covered in boogers and phlegm from when you took a walk earlier.

We have gorgeous oak trees in Safety Harbor. We have a huge one in our front yard. It keeps our house nice and cool in the summer too. We are all ridiculously allergic to it, but it's still a fabulous tree.

My favorite events are in March, and end of October, early November and all are usually taken down a few pegs from my allergies rearing their ugly heads. Besides yelling at the concert, being less hydrated because beer was cheaper than water, and adding being tired on top of it has made my allergies all kinds of unhappy. Not to mention how much I've been outside.

I don't have to miss work; I can still function but boy does my head feel filled with phlegm. It's a gorgeous picture, you're welcome. It's sniffing, sneezing and blowing noses along with deep smoky voices and sinus pressure. It's quite a picnic.

I usually do Benadryl at night and Sudafed by day. This is the only time when I think drugs are my friends and they become a necessary ritual. 

So here I am, ready for my favorite 5K of the year, the Nolan's St. Patrick's Day 5K for St. Baldrick's foundation. It's a great crowd, you get a commemorative cup after and free beer if you want, I never do. You get a shirt and it's under $30. Plus I can walk to it. 

When I do a race I only have one goal: no stopping, so no giving up. I hear my trainer constantly saying, "A slow job is better than a fast walk." And I keep that every time I slow down a little because I'm not feeling so hot or things start to hurt, and I always love that accomplished feeling after I hit the finish line.

I'll be an outwardly horrible person by admitting that my favorite part of any race, is running past the "Fit moms." The "Fit moms" are the moms that look like they've never had a baby and don't even have rolls when they sit, and 9 times out of 10, they burn out first, answer a phone call or slow down to find a friend or a kid, and I jog past them at my steady pace.

I also always get a sick sense of pleasure from the fact that the 19 year-olds who are a foot taller and a good 50lbs less than I am in weight always end up walking at some point. That's right, this slow mom has the endurance!

Even with my allergy stuff kicking my butt I completed my 5K. The morning went nothing like I'd hoped but I did sneak an allergy nap so that's good. We got a little rain but for the next few weeks I'm just settled into the misery that is allergy season, before it starts to get gross and hot for another 7 months. 

Even as I took the dog on a walk with the weather overcast but temperate I was all stuffy and my head was killing me. So as I wind down another successful, but busy weekend, I feel really ready for an early bed time filled with Benadryl and hope for a less snotty week. 

I put in the effort to enjoy the weather at least, so there's that, no matter how allergic I may be. Happy Sunday readers!