By the end of last week, I’d kinda had it. Not that anything catastrophic had occurred, but just many little things had all kind of piled on. Stuff at work. Stuff at home. Even kinda dumb things, like the fact that my beloved car of over 11 years is getting near the end of its life (per our trusted mechanic). It was all bumming me out.
I worked from home Friday, which is typically a mood elevator for me. I can be in my jimjams and warm slippers and overindulge in tea. But even that wasn’t really doing it for me.
But then came Sunday afternoon. I was even more exhausted after a day of car shopping. I’d gotten up, gotten a shower, done the grocery store deal and come home. Tabby was working on her science fair project with her friend, Dom, and Ben was doing what Ben does: playing Fortnite.
We were getting ready to have a small family celebration for Tabby’s birthday and she’d requested the fairly intricate rosemary chicken potato pizza (this is way more delicious than it sounds). You have to make the dough, marinate the chicken, cook the potatoes, make the shallot butter “sauce,” cook the chicken, shape the dough, top the pizzas, etc.
I wasn’t super thrilled about doing allllll that cooking on my one “day off” but of course, what she wants on her b’day, she gets. So I started in on it. And I don’t know why, but I told Alexa to shuffle songs by James Taylor.
And though I was on my feet doing “manual labor” somehow, with my tasks at hand, James Taylor in the background, snow coming down like crazy outside, working with Matt and listening to Tabby and her friend do their thing, my funk lifted. It was just so good to be there, doing something I enjoy with all my people hanging under one roof, safe and sound and happy. No TV in the background, just a little James Taylor and happy chatter.
You just never know.