Yesterday was one of those days. It felt like everything I touched broke. In reality, some things absolutely did. In my first “squeeze and freeze” tomato squeezing session of the harvest, I was trying to separate the auger from the food mill by two glass containers. When the auger suddenly released, my arm hit the pitcher which then careened into the KitchenAid mixing bowl which proceeded to smash against the side of the cabinet with a ricochet piece bouncing back and cutting my leg. I’m fine, the pitcher’s not and a replacement has been ordered.
But genuinely, yesterday was supposed to be that first glorious Monday of the rest of my life. Instead? I broke stuff.
Now, I’m not going to be overly hard on myself. I also processed 57 onions, getting them all in the freezer as either 1-cup bags of chopped onions or 1-onion bags of julienned onions for stir fry. There’s still another 60 or so onions to go, but many will be dry stored and others will be given away to family and friends. So, that task is largely done. We also dug up a row of potatoes for another 20-odd pound yield. I was able to gently clean the dirt off, wash them well and get them on drying racks.
Still, what resonated at the end of the day was the broken stuff. That may be because it was the last to occur before I made dinner (at 8 p.m.). But glorious? The day was not.
Yet, for once, I’m giving myself and life a little grace. Bad days are going to happen. I’m still going to fail spectacularly. In a lifetime where I’ve been all “thrills and spills” anyway, there was nothing that was really going to happen in my homemaking era that didn’t happen in my professional era. This is a bit, unfortunately, of who I am.
Still, I’m trying to prove my worth here. We are giving up a lot in income for me to be a homemaker. On one hand, it makes sense. Everyone has a professional expiration date and I’m nearing the end of mine. Opportunities were drying up a bit as was my own energy to go find them. So, income was likely going to drop anyway.
On the flip side, this makes sense for us. If my husband is going to do Ironman (and he is, it’s all paid for), there needed to be capacity found at home. Otherwise, weekends would have been spent mowing, trimming, cleaning the house, doing laundry and running to the grocery store. Without one of us having the capacity to take care of those things during the week so that weekends can be largely unscheduled, there wasn’t any chance in you-know-where that my husband would get the requisite training in. Finally, it only made sense that the person with less opportunity would be the one to call it a career. Coupled with my own desire to focus on home, this decision still feels right.
But yesterday? Well, on the ledger in my mind, I didn’t hold up the bargain. (Interestingly, my husband still insists I did but he’s generous like that.)
Today? I know I can do better.
Part of my problem yesterday was being in a hurry and unorganized. I felt like there was so much to do that I may as well get doing it and figure out the rest later. When I take that “ready, fire, aim” approach, it tends to go wrong. Today? I’m a little more determined to be a little more principled. Time to slow down and worry less about how many “to do” items I tick off and instead focus on the process to get them all done.
So, my docket today? A whole lot more measured. In fairness to me, Mother Nature applied some pressure yesterday. The onions, which had been harvested a little over a week ago, weren’t curing as planned due to humid, wet weather. They needed to get chopped and frozen or we would have lost them. The potatoes had to be harvested after a torrential downpour meant they would rot in the ground. A little scramble was necessary. But today? The intense natural pressure is off. I also have a rare Tuesday at home. That means I can pivot to planning vs. doing… at least for an hour or so. Coming up with a plan also means I’ll be less frenetic and less likely to make mistakes which results in tomato squeezings all over the kitchen at 6:30 p.m.
But my final thought as I start my day? Giving myself a little grace isn’t about giving myself a free pass. Yesterday was not my best outing. Yet, last night? We sat and had a good home-cooked meal while we talked about garden progress. We shared our thoughts about our days and managed to laugh a little. The kitties got their very precious outdoor time. The house is still in reasonable shape and, well, at least the kitchen floor got mopped.
Mostly, I don’t have to be that hard on myself. I know I’m searching for my value right now. I also know that it’s a whole lot more about satisfying my sense of contribution than it is about my husband feeling like I’m not pulling my full weight. And I know that this life that we’ve built takes more than just two people frenetically getting on the professional hamster wheel everyday to churn out as many reps as we can get. It takes someone who has the time to do the little things everyday. It takes someone looking out and smoothing the path. It takes a little quiet preplanning every day and a methodological and unhurried approach to managing our lives.
And it takes a new realization: my new life isn’t going to be measured by a general ledger. I can’t point to take-home pay and say, “I matter.” Instead, my new life will be measured a little more subtly and a lot more personally. Do the heartbeats in this house feel calm and safe? Does the house feel peaceful? Do we have time for our own thoughts and dreams?
It is a process and yesterday did not go well. I generally stumbled out of the start. Today? Let’s see how it goes. I’m not holding myself to any grand standard and instead I’m just going to come at life with a whole lot more planning and a whole lot less intensity.
The Yuppie Homesteader 