So today is the first day in my new role as the dutiful housewife! Soon (one can always hope!) I will be adding stay-at-home-mom to that my self-description. <\/p>\n
I was very thankful that Friday went by as quickly as it did. Given that the days prior dragged by at an interminable pace, I hadn’t had high hopes. But you can always count on that last-minute mad dash to get things done – and in this case, for me to train my maternity replacement in everything that I felt would be absolutely necessary – to make the hours fly by. A few of us went out at lunch time which was very nice, and then before I knew it, it was four o’clock and I was making the rounds to say my “farewells” to everyone.<\/p>\n
The fact that I am now off for give-or-take a year didn’t really hit me then. It just felt like a normal Friday, the start to just a weekend. Neal picked me up at work, we went to get groceries, came home and ate some pizza, watched a movie (“The Fighter” – Christian Bale was as great as everyone said). Neal had a duty watch on Saturday; since I really didn’t have anywhere I had<\/i> to go, I opted to sleep in and let him take the car. I spent the day being extremely lazy, which was the plan. Since the ship was leaving on Sunday for two or more months, the last thing I wanted was to go into labour and thereby force Neal to get someone to come in and cover him and thus lose their last day at home with their families. They often try to do that – get someone who isn’t sailing to cover the last duty watch, and this time, that was (thankfully) Neal.<\/p>\n
He had to work a little later than usual on Sunday morning as he and some other guys were “slipping the ship” – i.e., helping the ship leave – but even so he was still home by 10 a.m. We didn’t do a whole lot yesterday either. Went to Walmart, then went over to Nina and Brad’s for a couple of hours in the afternoon to celebrate Nina’s birthday. We ate a fair amount over there, so we opted not to have an actual supper, and that’s when the reality of this new role started to hit me. Not only did I not have to make supper, which was odd, but I didn’t have lunch to make or clothes to pick out. When I’m working, I normally take my shower at night so that I can sleep later in the morning (6 a.m. is early enough thankyouverymuch), but now that I’m off, I’m doing that in the morning after I eat (I figure I’ll go back to evening showering once I have Baby Guthrie as Neal can watch her while I do that). So I didn’t have that to do either. I actually wasn’t quite sure what to do with myself! I wandered around a little aimlessly for a few minutes before settling down with a book. <\/p>\n
And it’s a little strange today as well. I woke up when Neal got up a little after 6 a.m. He kissed me goodbye around 7, and then I fell back to sleep within 30 seconds of hearing the car drive off. Slept off and on until around 8 a.m. or so, then got up to have breakfast. It’s strange because, unlike when he has duty watch on ship which requires him to be away for 24 hours, he’s going to be home close to 5pm today. And yet, I’m not home because I’m sick. It’s also extremely rare for me to be home on a vacation day when he isn’t since I’m allotted 3 weeks vacation per year compared to his 5. So if I have a vacation day off, he typically does as well.<\/p>\n
So I’ve had breakfast and showered, cleaned the bathtub and I now have a pot of chicken and mushroom barley soup simmering on the stove, some of which will be today’s lunch. I’ll probably eat some of that this week for lunches, but I’m also going to freeze a bunch for when Baby Guthrie is first born and I’m looking for quick but healthy things to eat for lunch. I’ll probably walk over to the library later to return a book and to get some fresh air, then I’ll do some writing before starting supper so that it’s pretty much ready for Neal when he gets home – thus fulfilling my role as the dutiful housewife.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
In other news, I’m 38 weeks along now! Although yes, I’m sure I’ll appreciate getting more sleep and being able to tidy up the guest room downstairs, I told Baby Guthrie this morning that she can seriously come ANY.TIME. I’m feeling pretty good really, now that I’m able to sleep and rest when I need to, but I’m just impatient for her to arrive. Every so often, I have contractions, but they’re only teasers. I get one or two, and then that’s it. I don’t even have a chance to get excited!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So today is the first day in my new role as the dutiful housewife! Soon (one can always hope!) I will be adding stay-at-home-mom to that my self-description. I was very thankful that Friday went by as quickly as it … Continue reading