Winter Break Down

Not enough Febreze in the world.

In an unprecedented and spectacular calendar event, this year our school district's winter break included two four-day weekends thanks to Christmas and New Year falling on Saturday/Sunday. Normally, I work even on non-school days, but this year I decided that mama needed a break. So I took those four beautiful paid holidays, a couple personal days and thanks to a migraine, one sick day, a couple days of just straight up no pay and I carved out the longest stretch of days off I've had in years.

Last night, whilst sitting in the nest I made on the couch (see photo above), I started to feel kind of crappy about what I'd done with it. Like, this chunk of free time was a glorious, hopeful bundle of hours and days full of potential. Not unlike a newborn baby, really. So many wishes and dreams and plans!

Oh the plans! I was going to tackle the mess in the laundry room. One of my children had a bed with drawers underneath it. What are those called?? CAPTAIN'S BEDS! Yes. They had one of those and got a different one and decided to plop the drawers- still full of clothes- in the laundry room. This was over a year ago.

I was going to clean my own room. Right now it looks like my dresser, my closet AND my clothes chair* are suffering from a violent bout of the stomach flu. *clothes chair: a chair that exists to hold the clothes that are neither dirty nor clean. And which are eventually forgotten until the owner of said clothes suddenly can't find that one black top. You know, the black one? 

I was going to work out and clean and read a book and have a slumber party with a friend. The Christmas tree was going to get taken down and dragged outside. At least one of the three four junk drawers in the kitchen were going to get gone through and organized.

Naps were going to be taken. The dog was going to be walked every single day. IT WAS GOING TO BE LIKE A MILLION WEEKENDS PACKED INTO TWO WEEKS.

I made a nest.

And I sat/layed/lied in that nest for many hours. I napped in that nest. I did read a little, I wrote a little and corresponded with friends. All from the comfort of the nest.

I watched approximately a shit-ton of televison. Movies! Shows! Netflix! Hulu! A couple DVDs!

So many pretend boyfriends, some old and some new. Here's a sampling:

Kal Penn and Kiefer Sutherland, both in "Designated Survivor"
Chandler in the first season of Friends (I love all of them in the first season, they're still hungry actors hoping to make it big, plus I love smoking Chandler)
Young Dennis Quaid as the a-hole in "Postcards from the Edge"
Several random slurring guys who seemed vaguely familiar on "Drunk History"
Jack Black in "The Holiday"
Tea Leoni in "Deep Impact" (lady, yes, but come on! She was the epitome of angular preppy cool chick...like the J Crew catalog took up acting)
and everyone on The West Wing

Nothing super constructive was accomplished.

Of course, Christmas happened, and I did pull that off again. Somehow. Molly and I had a long shopping day together, one of the best times I've had with her in ages. My kids are old now, so the magical part of Christmas doesn't happen like it used to. I still do the stockings, the gifts from Santa (stockings taken from the mantel, filled up and the Santa presents, unwrapped, next to them). This time I woke up around 4:00 a.m. and did the stocking stuffing part. Made coffee, waited a while and then they all gathered to open presents. The kids went to Big Daddy's for their requisite 2-3 hour Christmas visit and then we ordered a million pounds of Chinese food as a nod to our wonderful Jewish friends.

Our Christmas was perfect.

In fact, the whole stretch of time was perfect. No, the laundry room didn't get taken care of. To be completely honest with you, I haven't been down in the laundry room for days. I've been going commando because I can't find any clean underwear.

Going commando on winter break? Sounds about right. If not then, when?

I'm going to stop beating myself up for not "accomplishing" anything because when you think about it, I accomplished everything.

I relaxed.
I hung out with my kids.
I spent some time with friends.
I napped with my dog.
I cooked some good food and some mediocre food and ate way too much of both kinds.

I also grew a new chin and what is starting to feel like a hump on my back.

The one thing I did kind of mess up was personal hygiene. The youngest kid and I were in the car last night. I said, "Sweet Jesus, what stinks?" and he replied, "Pretty sure that's you, Mom."

Winter Break: that's a wrap.