A Distracted Week

This last week in Lockdown 3 I've been very distracted. Partly by LB's impending 18th birthday and partly as a consequence of a task I needed to do, but had been putting off. The result has been that I haven't been as productive as I was in Week 1. I just took things slowly this week and took one step at a time. Simple self-care tasks, such as cutting my toenails and plucking my eyebrows felt like the utmost in progress. 

Most days have passed quickly. By the time I've read my book in bed for half an hour each morning, got up and got ready and then done my exercises, it has been at least 11 am, so half the day had virtually gone.

After a bit of housework, laundry, lunch, plant watering, watching a few YouTube videos, reading a few blogs, shopping for food or attempting and failing to do an online food shop, it's been time to take the dog out, getting back around 5pm. Day virtually over. 

Supper, a bit of TV and then bed. A familiar rhythm to most days, which hasn't been altogether unpleasant actually. I'm not always tired when I do get to bed though, so often I lie awake pouring over the day's news in my mind, wake up late the next morning and the cycle begins again.

On Tuesday, I headed out to ASDA to get a birthday cake for LB. She wanted a caterpillar cake - a definite sign of regression during lockdown - she's 18 not 4, but as it was for her special day, and as it's going to be pretty miserable for her to have her 18th birthday during lockdown, Clyde the Caterpillar it was. Who am I to argue?

Whilst at ASDA, I decided to do a bit of a larger shop than planned. I figured that if I was venturing out at all, I may as well make it worth my while, so I bought all of the things I thought we might need in the forthcoming week or so, mainly so that I wouldn't need to step into another supermarket for a couple of weeks at least.  ASDA wasn't actually too bad in reality, not as bad as Lidl had been the week before anyway, as the store was so much larger with much wider aisles. A couple of aisles were pretty busy, but on the whole it was okay.

Buoyed by the experience, I also popped into B&Q to get a bag of houseplant compost, as I need to pot on a few of my plants and maybe split the odd one or two at some point. It was very quiet in there too, thankfully.

In other news, our dog has been finding walking quite difficult this week. At first we thought it was just arthritis, which she suffers from, but then we began to realise that she's definitely pulled something in one of her front legs, so she got just one walk on some days, cutting out mine, which wasn't actually great, as I desperately need the exercise. I guess I could have gone out walking without her, but I wasn't feeling it really. I need the excuse of having a dog to get out there. Besides, it's been raining most of the week, the parks are full of people and I would rather avoid venturing there if I don't have to go out.

I've been thinking this week, that I might buy a litter picking stick, so that when I do take the dog for a walk, mainly on the more rural walks that we do, I can fill a carrier bag with litter I see dropped and do my bit for our community. I will wear gloves, of course, and won't be picking up anything that looks remotely suspect. I'll let you know if I do buy one.

My spending has been under much better control so far this month, just food, household items and gifts for LB mainly. It feels good not to be mindlessly buying stuff on eBay, which had become quite a habit before Christmas. 

Having said this, I have to admit that I don't think I got LB's birthday present quite right for such a special one this year (18th). I hate that feeling.  I think it's partly to do with the Lockdown, a kind of feeling of enui has overtaken me and I don't think I made enough effort to buy her a special surprise. On the day, I decided to buy her an additional couple of gifts online that were pretty special. They won't be delivered until early next week, but I'm glad I did it and I'm hoping that she'll like them and will get a pleasant extended birthday surprise.  Do you ever feel that you don't quite get a gift right? With it being such a special birthday and with us being stuck in Lockdown, I really don't mind overspending a bit. My only regret is that I hadn't thought that way before the day itself. 

On the evening of LB's birthday, we ordered in a takeaway to celebrate. To be honest, I don't really like takeaway food, it always tends to be so calorie laden and I thought about not ordering, but went ahead, instantly regretting it. I should have trusted my first instinct. LB spent the remainder of the evening having a Zoom party with her friends. I think she enjoyed herself, a little too much, judging by the number of  cocktails she drank.  Once things are back to some sort of normality, we are going to pay for LB and half a dozen friends to have a meal out and celebrate properly, but that's a while away yet. 

Anyway, the painting has not been coming along at all this week. We need to take up the carpets before I can really get on with painting the woodwork upstairs, so I haven't done any at all. I'll try to make up for it next week when there should be fewer distractions. My paint samples came at the end of last week and they are very dark. Probably too dark, so I'll just have to find another use for the tester pots and I've now handed the baton over to OH to find a suitable colour that we can agree on. Why is choosing colour so difficult?

This week, I heard someone on social media suggest that it would be great if we could think of Covid as just a kind of hibernation until spring. That's a much nicer way to look at it. I like the idea of hibernating. It does describe what we are having to do quite well. Being on Furlough, I have the luxury to do this, but it's not so easy for people who still have to work from home or otherwise.

Later in the week, I did my row of hand stitching on the quilt which was good and felt very satisfying. At least something got accomplished. I also did a bit of sorting through some old clothes that LB was throwing out. As a consequence, I was able to cut up some old t-shirts into dishcloths and dusters, so I now have a plentiful supply to keep us going.

On Friday, I finally got around to doing the task that had distracted me all week. It felt like such a relief once it was done. It involved a bike ride, which actually felt great and inspired me to try to get out and about on my bike more in the coming weeks.  I feel like I can now relax and start to try to enjoy the remainder of the Lockdown. It's strange how just procrastinating and worrying about something, can cause you such anxiety and distraction in our current circumstances. Everything seems magnified somehow.

I'm hoping that next week will be a much better week. How was your week?