Feeling stuck in kind of a rut?
I need to explore or find something different in my life... too much in the past couple of months (outside of work) has been quiet and dull. Lots of time on weekends spent cleaning and repairing and building things at home... granted, there's been a couple of years of deferred maintenance, but I miss going out and doing the occasional frivolous or recreational activity, or seeing friends. Or even doing activities with the kids... it has been three months of much work and little play. And being both the primary earner and able-bodied adult around the house leaves me often sliding into doing more caretaking than I'd wish.
The breaks, for me, have been travel... I'm really looking forward to going to Minneapolis in two weeks for the weekend for my 10th anniversary with Nancy. Or two weeks ago, when I went to DC a day early so I could spend all day Sunday with![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
geekchick before my business Monday morning. Or going to Atlanta on business in December. I've held these out to myself as carrots and motivators... the problem with this is that it then sets my hopes and expectations really high, which can cause me to crash emotionally if everything isn't sparkly and fun when I visit for the weekend. Which in turn places an undue burden on my out-of-town partners and friends and family. They can't, alone, be my escape-valve or the spice in my life.
I'm really not much of a homebody, or happy retreating to a nest. I could be comfortable spending half my time on the road somewhere. And I don't watch DVDs, movies or TV, and rarely read anymore for pleasure, so there's not much to do at home *except* clean, cook or work on household projects. Except playing with the kids or cats? Any suggestions?
The breaks, for me, have been travel... I'm really looking forward to going to Minneapolis in two weeks for the weekend for my 10th anniversary with Nancy. Or two weeks ago, when I went to DC a day early so I could spend all day Sunday with
geekchick before my business Monday morning. Or going to Atlanta on business in December. I've held these out to myself as carrots and motivators... the problem with this is that it then sets my hopes and expectations really high, which can cause me to crash emotionally if everything isn't sparkly and fun when I visit for the weekend. Which in turn places an undue burden on my out-of-town partners and friends and family. They can't, alone, be my escape-valve or the spice in my life. I'm really not much of a homebody, or happy retreating to a nest. I could be comfortable spending half my time on the road somewhere. And I don't watch DVDs, movies or TV, and rarely read anymore for pleasure, so there's not much to do at home *except* clean, cook or work on household projects. Except playing with the kids or cats? Any suggestions?
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Study something?
Skating, geocaching, other kinds of social exercise?
Cook or bake with your kids?
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Cooking... I used to bake all of our own bread and buns, back in grad school. But in recent years I've stopped, because it messes up the kitchen, and it usually is already messy? By the time I've cleaned the kitchen enough to do baking (or homebrewing), I'm usually tired or edgy to get outside.
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You're right that we've been emphasizing long-term goals (home improvement projects) over short-term ones lately, and I think that at this point we don't need to consider ourselves on a deadline to finish any specific projects, so let's do start looking for more fun things to do with weekend time again. I know that K was in rapture the other week when I took him bird-watching along the shoreline, and you're right, we need to be doing much more of that with the kids than we have lately.
I didn't realize you didn't know of more hiking trails... they're all over the place in our region, and I'd be happy to work with you to find new ones to explore.
And if you want more skating company in your life... I can't do your usual Wednesday nights post-lessons, but am very happy to go twirl on the ice on weekends.
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When you have to work on household stuff -- carpentry, maintenance, cooking, laundry -- that's another activity to teach the boys.
And you should have some adult time -- dinner or lunch with friends occasionally. A concert or play.
Maybe these aren't the kinds of things that would be pleasant for you. But they may spark ideas that would.
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I tend to expect concerts and plays to cost $50 and require driving to SF? Are there better options?
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As for hiking, check out the Bay Area hiker site. That's the kid-friendly trail page, but there are other pages ranking all the trails by difficulty. I've been to a number of the parks, and they're all beautiful.
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- hike
- go to the gym
- explore the downtowns on the Peninsula or the neigbhorhoods in SF
- volunteer
- various activities with my spiritual community
- go to lectures (e.g. City Arts and Lectures)
- go to concerts
- art gallery openings
(edited to add the last bullet)
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I'd like to hike and geocache (which for me is often a social form of hiking) more... I go to the gym at work.
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I'm sure that you didn't mean that line to sound hurtful to your at-home partners, but...
In any case, my perception is that you often seem to wait for others to initiate entertainments, rather than planning them yourself (with some exceptions, granted). Perhaps you could identify some of the things that might sound fun on a weekend and suggest 'em? You're not the only one around here who likes driving trips, geocaching, trying new things. Me, I've also been looking for new things to try, and have found soap-making classes, drum circles, book clubs on Meetup recently. There are lots of online activities listings (Meetup, Craigslist community pages, etc). I often see lots of things listed that the kids might like (hikes, bird-watching outings, wii saturdays at the library).
We can talk more later on it...
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Relatedly, some of the impetus for me to begin looking for more outside activities for myself was the realization that I was relying more heavily on you than was optimal (for either of us) for my own social interaction. In retrospect, perhaps I ought to have made that process more explicit... at the time, it felt more like an "I need to clean up my own codependency" thing, so I simply set about taking care of it by looking to expand my own social and activity repertoire. But, it didn't occur to me that perhaps I needed to make explicit the parallel intention of "hey, it's ok for you to go do your own thing more" likewise. I know that I've been trying to encourage your time with other partners more in recent weeks; perhaps we need to make that encouragement more explicit in the realms of hobbies and your seeing other friends as well.
Ideally, you'd be able to take time to go do your own thing apart from the house more, and *also* collaborate more on cool new adventure-finding with those of us who you live with ;-) Sometimes perhaps there could be larger group adventures as well, with both house folks and friends. Let's do talk more later on how to bring more of this about.
(Acknowleging as well here that you and P might need to have your own conversations around these themes, which may or may not be similar to ours. In any case, you have my support for whatever she feels comfortable with in these realms).
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The boundary between work and home, and the quantity of stuff I need to accomplish at either place, blurs the difference between them. Home really does often feel to me not like a refuge, but just another jobsite, albeit one where it is OK if I sleep...
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Have you already tried having each person have a "day" that's "theirs," that they get to do whatever they want, without discussing it with the others in advance--or at all?
Self-Sourced Ideas
As far as things being expensive, I was able to find stuff by googling Free Events, Cheap Theater, Cheap Concerts, etc., in my case for Los Angeles, but I'm sure the Bay Area has it too.
And if you're interested and available, maybe you could check out Lori Smullin's dance class on Monday nights :) It's a whole community of loving, creative people, and dance is a great way to energetically hold your own space while connecting with others.
Take care!
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One thing that I've instituted is taking down a list of chores, then letting folks pick three that they really really hate. I cross post those, and *generally* find that someone is willing to do things that someone else hates. For example, I hate changing the cat litter, taking out the trash and vacuuming. On the other hand, I don't mind folding laundry, doing dishes, cleaning the bathrooms, dusting etc. H. hates folding laundry with a passion, and isn't much happier with dishes, but she doesn't mind doing cat litter, bathrooms, general straightening or making beds. I set up times for us all to clean together, and we negotiate breaks as needed.
Then we do something fun as a reward.
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The kids have chores that they do routinely, such as dish-washing, recycling, table-clearing, litter-box, and taking out the trash. The other adults also contribute to house upkeep, most often with laundry, tidying, grocery-shopping, and corralling the kids into extra tidying ;-)
One of the troubles we've recently identified is that not all of the house regions are assigned as chores... and so it's been nobody's job to tidy the living room (where everyone's clutter gets left) or to wipe the kitchen counters (where food prep items get left). That leads to big weekend tidying crunches, which takes away from the fun stuff. So, we're working on a new list of additional chores for the kids, that they can earn some more allowance money on, and that will hopefully keep the house in steadier good shape.
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People who think poly is a nonstop orgy should really sit in on a family meeting about determining an acceptable level of neatness and cleanliness in a kitchen.