30 Posts in 30 Days: Day 26: Your week, in great detail

Most of the days of the working week follow the same pattern I just described in the previous post ("Your day, in great detail"). It used to be that I had yogalates classes on Monday nights during the fall & winter, & our support group meetings on the first and third Thursday nights of the month, but yogalates is no longer being offered (at least, at the convenient location where I took classes) & we stepped down from facilitating last December.

Once every week or so, dh has to take his turn on a rotating schedule, working until 6:30. If I have a lot of work to do myself, or the weather looks really crappy, I stay late too, work until about 6, then walk down to the train station & wait for him there. He comes flying up the stairs about 5 minutes or less before the express train departs; if we miss that one, we have to wait another half hour for the next (non-express) train (& if we miss THAT one, there's not another train for another hour).

But if I'm tired, I head home by myself. Because I don't drive, I take the bus home from the train station & walk from the bus stop (which is not very far). I'm generally home between 5:45 & 6 p.m. I immediately get dinner started -- generally a simple casserole that's ready to eat by the time dh gets home around 7:30. Once it's in the oven, I get changed, take off my makeup, turn on the suppertime news, & enjoy some quiet computer time until dh gets home.

Friday nights, because we don't have to get up at 5 a.m., we sometimes stay up later than our usual 10 p.m. -- although we generally don't make it past 10 or 11 (how pathetic!). We sleep in -- but of course, when you get up at 5 every morning, "sleeping in" generally means until about 7 or 8 (sigh). (Feels good, though!) We have breakfast, I make coffee for dh & tea for me, & we spend some lazy time on the couch with our mugs & the newspapers.

Once we're finished, by 9 or 10, I start cleaning the house & doing laundry. In the summertime, dh goes outside to mow the lawn (never earlier than 10 -- although some of our neighbours have been out there at 8:30 or 9 -- grrrr....), & once he's finished that, he comes inside & does the vacuuming. We pause for some lunch around 12 & then continue. We try to wrap things up & get into the shower by around 3, & head out for dinner around 4:30-5.

Yes, I know that's early. We like to joke that we're practicing to be senior citizens -- but seriously? Out here in the suburbs, most of the restaurants tend to be the chain/family variety. And if you try to go out around 6, you will inevitably wind up standing around a crowded waiting area for anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes, along with mobs of young families trying to shush their whiny toddlers. (Just what every infertile couple wants, right?) ; ) Not to mention that my husband is among the least patient men in the world when it comes to waiting in line for ANYTHING, let alone food. And, frankly, by 5, we're both generally pretty hungry. Because we're away from home for lunch for the week, we don't tend to keep a lot of "lunchy" stuff in the house & the pickings can sometimes be a little on the slim side.

So we take our chances earlier with the seniors, lol. The number of restaurants we eat at has become sadly limited since I started having issues with food reactions. :( But we've found three or four "reliables" that each have a couple of dishes that I know are "safe" for me to eat. Dh could care less about eating out & would probably eat all his meals at home, if he could, but I like having at least one meal out together a week -- kind of like when we were first dating. ; ) We rarely have alcohol, appetizers or desserts, which helps to keep the bills down.

After dinner, we almost always make the pilgrimage to our local megabookstore. There's a Starbucks attached, so we pick up coffees & spend the next hour having a leisurely browse. Usually the afternoon crowd has thinned, so it's not too noisy, although some nights are better than others.

From there, at least once & sometimes twice a month, we drive directly to FIL's house to visit. Usually BIL & SIL & sometimes one or both of our nephews come (from the other end of the city). We sit around the big table in the kitchen, eating & talking.

If it's not a visiting night, & it's in the summer ( = light outside), we will stop at the cemetery for a visit with Katie. Then to the supermarket to pick up some groceries for the coming week. And then home, where we spend a quiet evening, reading our new books, watching TV, playing on the computer.

Sundays we sleep in again & watch CBS Sunday Morning with our tea & coffee. Take our showers & make & eat some lunch while we listen to The Vinyl Cafe on CBC Radio at noon. We used to go out for brunch a lot, but we ran into the same issues with huge lineups everywhere ; ) & decided we really didn't need to be eating out for both Saturday night dinner AND Sunday brunch.

Sometimes we decide to go see a movie (sometimes we go to the earliest show & have popcorn for lunch!). If we haven't been to see Katie, we go to the cemetery; if we were at FIL's the night before, we probably headed straight home afterwards, so we do our grocery shopping on Sunday afternoon (although the store tends to be a lot busier). Sometimes we find ourselves back at the bookstore. Dh tends to get a little stir-crazy if he doesn't get out of the house for at least a little while, although I don't mind so much.

Sunday night, we generally make a casserole or something else with leftovers, so that at least one dinner during the week is taken care of. ; ) I call my parents while it's in the oven, or after we've eaten, & catch up on the news with them. After dinner we watch TV (60 Minutes, if the stories are good; The Simpsons; Battle of the Blades, when it's on) 7 start getting ready for the week ahead. If I have ironing to do, I set up my board in the living room & work at it while we watch.

And that's about it. Pretty quiet. Not terribly exciting. ; ) But as dh says, sometimes routine gets monotonous -- until you get away from your routine for too long, & realize how much you miss it, lol.