I woke up at four o’clock this morning and couldn’t fall back to sleep. After some stern self-talk (and some unadvised scrolling), I finally managed to Get Up and Start the Day, which I find very difficult to do when I could be sleeping. When I go to bed at eleven, I want to sleep until six. Well. It seems that I am not the only one of us who is struggling with sleep these days, and I hold up a sleepy yawn-covering hand in solidarity.
Gift Giving Give Up: Thank you for your ideas about what to get my niece! I ended up… totally giving up on getting her something special. Carla and I instead went to Target, where Carla picked out something she was sure her cousin would like. We added a little souvenir we’d picked out for her in Paris and then I threw in a gift card for good measure. Is it the big, special, milestone-marking You Are Ten! gift of my dreams? No. But some days I just have to acknowledge that a) I am a mediocre gift giver and b) I got a gift in the mail, so that she will (hopefully) feel loved and celebrated. Some other soothing thoughts I am focusing on: 1. We got my niece’s parent a super special gift for a milestone birthday and to this day I’m still unsure if the gift made it. 2. No one got Carla anything extra special for her tenth birthday, and none of us felt slighted. 3. The gift is IN THE MAIL. (Buying gifts for my niece has got me thinking about Carla’s upcoming birthday, and what to get her. Ugh. She has expressed interest in roller blades. Is that something I can just… buy? Or does she need to try them on? Is it better to go to A Sporting Goods Store to find them or does it matter??)
Will Not Give Up, Will Not Give In: You know who isn’t giving up? The grocery store tulips I bought last weekend. They are in the sunniest place in the entire house, and yet there has been very little sunshine of late. But have they withered and died? No, they have not. They have instead stretched as far as their stems will allow them, to eke out every last morsel of sunlight they can get from our sun-starved spring skies.
Is It Time? My holiday cards are still up in my kitchen. More and more, recently, I have been looking at them and wondering, is it time to take them down? I continue to conclude that no, it is not time; I still enjoy wandering around looking at the happy faces and joyful messages. My mother keeps holiday cards on her fridge all year round; a friend I haven’t seen in too long used to keep holiday cards up on the picture rail in her kitchen all year. I have never once thought, “Hoo boy, those are long past due to come down.” Clearly I have a bias. Anybody else still have their holiday cards on display?
The Last of Us. Psych – this is not about the hit HBO series. (I am loving season 2, by the way.) This is about the last X that never seems to get eaten. Right now, we have a well-past-its-prime banana and a couple of crusty, near-stale pieces of sourdough that have not yet been – and, I hazard to guess, will never be – eaten. I sort of understand this phenomenon when it happens at, say, a work event where no one feels comfortable taking the last appetizer off the tray. But when it is your house? And when you are the only person in the house who eats bananas? JUST EAT THE BANANA. Possibly I am enabling the situation by buying new bananas and sourdough before every last crumb (what is the banana equivalent of “crumb”? weird sticky string?) of the previous purchase has been eliminated. I am not going to make banana bread or banana muffins with the lone overripe banana; I have learned from hard-earned experience that those will simply languish uneaten as well.
Today’s Tasks: Now that I am awake, I can turn my attention to the things on my to-do list. My priorities include: Grocery shopping; I am hosting Mother’s Day brunch and am planning on making this frittata (except with sausage instead of prosciutto). An editing/revising task for my volunteer role that I have been putting off for unknown reasons. A series of phone calls I have been dreading; I need to find someone to address the possible rotting issue with some of siding. This is the worst kind of phone call, in my opinion, because I have very little idea what the problem is or what I need, plus I think this is a situation where it’s prudent to get estimates from multiple sources which means I have to research and then call multiple places, feeling stupid each time. And then I have to deal with the inevitable call-backs and juggling of schedules and ick. The level of resistance I feel toward completing this task is astronomically high. In positive to-do list news, I have managed to sign Carla up for every camp she expressed interest in. I think her summer is going to be very fun but not overfull.
Hey, look at that! I managed to end what somehow turned out to be a list of whines on a positive note! Now it’s time to go wake up Carla, which – thanks to a friend’s suggestion that we start the day watching cat videos on Instagram – is one of my favorite times of day, when it used to feel like walking unshielded into a hardcore dodgeball game.
I’m sorry you can’t sleep but happy that we got this blog post out of it!
Yay for recruiting Carla’s help for the gift. The right time to take your holiday cards down is when you want to. The lone banana can either go in the freezer to wait its turn for banana bread, or you can (gasp!) toss it and free up the mental space.
You figured out summer!!! Way to bury the lede! Congrats!!!
It’s so funny you mention gifts as I was just thinking about it! My new circle is a really gifty bunch and we just had three May birthdays. Historically I think I have been a stressy gift giver in that I worry that the person won’t like what I got, or they’ll have the same thing already, etc. But then I talked to my friend who always gets the perfect thing, and she said simply “I just pay attention to what they like.” It’s so obvious, and yet. I also thought how I feel when someone gives me a gift and it’s always pure happiness. So now I’m relaxing a lot and it’s so much better. I think it’s rare a child will remember a momentous gift anyway. My parents gave both of my kids “special” things for their 16th birthdays, and they kind of…never wear them (watch and ID bracelet). I’m not sure they even remember they have them. Anyway I’m sure your niece loves the gift you gave her, particularly the Paris memento!
I take my holiday cards down but I display them on one of the countertops, and so after the holidays I do like the space. If I had a method like you have, I’d keep them up longer for sure!
Hey, you never know- your niece might feel like this IS the gift of her dreams! I think it sounds really nice. Tattoos, a Paris souvenir, a gift card- it sounds awesome.
I would freeze that banana! You could use it in smoothies or maybe make banana muffins someday? You can freeze bananas and thaw them out to use in baked goods and it works just fine.
After the holidays are over (sob) I take down my card display, but put my favorites on the shelves in my living room. Then as the months go by and I have other things I want to display, I take cards down one by one. I know I still have a couple up though. I say if it’s making you happy, leave them!
For the record you are an INCREDIBLY gifted gifter. I’ve read about what you give and it’s amazing. Also, I give so few gifts that I think you get gold stars for sending gifts to family members to begin with.
Keep the cards up for as long as they’re bringing you joy. You could literally leave them up 365. There is no Christmas Card police waiting to knock on your door and arrest you for being out of season.
Ditto what Jenny said – we freeze ripe bananas in coins and then use them in smoothies or later in muffins (you could also look to find a small banana bread or muffin recipe that only makes a couple of servings). I actually find frozen and then thawed bananas give a richer flavour to banana muffins!
OR make banana muffins but freeze them all and only take out one at a time when you want one.
I don’t think that’s a shabby collection of gifts for a ten year old at all!
Could you make a smoothie with the banana if no one in your house likes banana bread or muffins? (I had to read that twice and stop to try to imagine such a household.)
Our holiday cards are down, but I just the other day took down anniversary cards (from mid-January), Valentines, and North’s b-day cards (late March) to make way for May birthdays and Mother’s Day cards. I am not here to judge you.
Congrats on getting Carla’s summer sorted. I remember what a big stressor that always was.
Sausage instead of prosciutto sounds better to me. Our holiday cards are down and long gone. I love cards for holidays during the holiday, but seeing them too long afterwards makes me feel sad. Kind of weird, I know.
Happy Mother’s Day!!!
As a fellow mediocre gift giver, I relate to your stress over this. I never know what people really want and even then, there are too many choices. Tulips are cold weather flowers so it surprises me that yours have lasted so long inside. I love the colors! I’m with Ally in that cards left up long after the holiday make me feel sad. That said, I’ve left out the sympathy cards about my mother’s death for over a month.
I like how your holiday cards are displayed! I’ve always put holiday cards in a box when I take down the Christmas decorations. I hadn’t thought about leaving them out. I like your idea! Cat videos are the best!
I bet you can find a cute wreath or something to make with the cards. I never throw mine away & always sad to take them down
Our holiday cards come down with the tree. It makes it that much more special when they’re up! But I do sort of like the idea of year round love. It’s a conundrum.
I think that the fact that you think to give (and worry over) gifts means you are an excellent gift giver.
Also, my holiday cards are still on my mantel – from sheer laziness obviously; but still I smile when I see them there; so there they will stay for the time being.
That lone banana? I’ve heard you can throw it in the freezer (along with any future lone bananas) until you are ready to make banana bread.
I leave a string of Christmas lights up around our front door all year long. And turn them on whenever I want. Just sayin.
oof. That is a terribly early wake up time! Sleep issues are the worst. I am such a zombie if I don’t get the right amount of sleep.
I think your gift for your niece sounds perfect! Kids are pretty easy to please and she will be happy to have some fun mail!
Enjoy your Mother’s Day brunch!
I definitely agree that the gift card will be a hit with the ten-year-old. Gift cards may feel kind of impersonal to adults but my own tween crowd is THRILLED to have their VERY OWN money to spend on whatever they want! Plus the Paris memento feels special and cool. And you’re so right that some of the gifts we spend the most time anguishing over don’t land with the same intensity as we have built up for ourselves as the givers!
I’m sorry about the sleep, but as others have said, at least you got a good blog post out of it! Sleep issues are so frustrating.
I am on the same cycle- going to bed at 11 and hoping to sleep till 6 or 7, but that is not always working and I plan to go to bed early.
I do not consider myself a person who comes up with great gift ideas. I’m sure your gift was appreciated though.
loving the waking up to cat video idea. So fun.
good luck with the phone calls and repair orders.
Tulips are one of my favorite flowers, so I love that yours are still going. And I love that you have your holiday cards on your walls—that’s such a lovely touch. This act might actually inspire me to start sending holiday cards again. 💜
I think you are much harder on yourself than you need to be when it comes to gift giving. I think what you gave is PERFECT. Gifts are so low down on my list when it comes to love languages that I really don’t stress about them. Sometimes I try to find something personal but often, a gift card hits the spot. I love getting a gift card!
I giggled at all of the tags on this post, especially the “I don’t even eat bananas.”
We tend to keep the photo holiday cards up on the fridge or etc until the new ones come in 🙂 It makes it fun to see how the littles have *grown* when you are directly replacing 2022 with 2023 for example.
I love the fact that your holiday cards are still up (and I love the way you’re displaying them!). I usually keep mine up year round – why not? It makes me happy to look at cards from people that are dear to me 🙂
Cat videos! A much better way to start the day, compared to hardcore dodgeball. And now you can have your own real-life-not-a-video-cat help with the wakeup. 😉
I am again on a catch up round and just made it to this post.
So sorry you joined the insomnia club. I would have gladly kept you out.
I love that your holiday cards are. And I especially love the unique place you hang them.
As for rollerblades – probably too late – but I would definitely have her fit them. Otherwise they hurt and get never used.