Saturday, April 26
Apr. 27th, 2025 01:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gottawonderToday I am grateful for:
Good sleep. I have been waking naturally a little earlier than I used to, though I am not really going to bed earlier. I seem to be okay with the amount of sleep I'm getting, so I'm not going to over think this.
It makes our trips to the city easier, in terms of stores being open.
We were supposed to meet our friend "I" in the city, and bring her some big ground anchors we have that we don't need. They're for small buildings, and she is getting a greenhouse. Literally it was central to going to the city today, and my husband forgot them at home. I didn't give him a hard time about it, but we were even talking about where we were going to meet with I to give them to her.
Oh well. He can make a point of getting them to her in the next few days after work. It's up to him. He was the one who wanted to give them to her.
Our other main goal was to go pick out paint for the kitchen, after far too much dithering on my part. The kitchen WAS grey, and though I've been painting a lot of the house a nice creamy color, it didn't feel right in the kitchen.
We settled on a nice, cheery blue, almost a light teal. Very unusual for me, when I generally go for a yellow kitchen. This blue isn't a cold, sad color though, it's got energy.
We had other goals today too, to hopefully get things to make prop "lamp posts" for the freestyle. We got some garden lanterns, and plastic plumbing pipe, and we'll see if we can make it work.
We also went to Micheal's for more ribbon, since the stuff I bought at the fabric store still isn't the right color. Sigh. Picked up some Titanium White watercolor, I'm nearly out of it.
Then we went to the dollar store and got some surprisingly nice fake flowers as decorations for the "lamp posts". I think they're pretty, and can use them afterwards for either another freestyle down the road, or in the house somewhere.
Then we checked out a thrift store, and I found some cute booties for cheap.
My husband wanted to have supper with a couple he knows from the climbing gym, and I wanted to make sure we got our errands done before committing, but we had time, I wasn't already stressed out, so I agreed.
"I" still wanted to meet for supper too, and I asked if she still wanted to come, given that my husband's friends were coming, and she said it was fine.
I felt like it was a lot of juggling, trying to make sure people were happy. That feeling drains me. I was trying to make my husband happy by meeting his friends, trying to make his friends happy, trying to make "I" happy.
Supper was fine. The couple is a fair bit younger than us, but we still had common ground. They're vegan, are kind of "active lifestyle" folks, and seem really nice.
"I" wasn't treating this like a group experience, she was probably missing the more intimate kind of interaction we have with just us, but I want to know my husband's new friends too.
This supper did make me feel again like "I" is just an older person than we are, even though I think she's a year or two younger than me. Her health issues have made things rough for her, but in some ways they define her too. She kept having conversations with just me, instead of engaging in conversation with the whole table, which made it tough for me because I wanted to listen to what my husband's friends were saying.
She kept bringing up our "vast history", even though we were friends in a fairly casual way 25 years ago, and I hadn't seen her for the last 20 years. She talked about her health issues.
Sometimes she joined in the general conversation, and I think it was good for her to try. I know that it isn't always easy to connect with younger people, but these two were very nice and social.
I do think it was good for "I" to meet some different people, and to try to remember what it's like to meet new people, where you have to be polite and take turns and hear EVERYONE's stories.
Over all, it was a struggle for me to navigate between trying to get my friend "I" to participate, to treat our table as a group, not separate factions of "she and I", and "my husband and his friends". I want to be friends with my husband's friends.
So, maybe if we do this again, we'll try it with this new couple separately so that it's not so chaotic.
We did spend a bit of time walking back to our cars with just the new couple, and going to our favorite book store. They knew of it, and had been there before at some point. Today I was pleased that they found several items, and maybe it will spark a renewal in books for them.
I think the store owner was happy we brought our friends, and that our friends found things there.
After that we headed home. I was actually pretty wiped after mentally struggling with picking out paint (I find that very hard, knowing that you might have to live with a "not quite right" paint for quite some time before you manage to try again), trying to figure out what might work to make "lamp posts", and dealing with "I's" lack of social grace.
We watched an episode of "Fringe".
Good sleep. I have been waking naturally a little earlier than I used to, though I am not really going to bed earlier. I seem to be okay with the amount of sleep I'm getting, so I'm not going to over think this.
It makes our trips to the city easier, in terms of stores being open.
We were supposed to meet our friend "I" in the city, and bring her some big ground anchors we have that we don't need. They're for small buildings, and she is getting a greenhouse. Literally it was central to going to the city today, and my husband forgot them at home. I didn't give him a hard time about it, but we were even talking about where we were going to meet with I to give them to her.
Oh well. He can make a point of getting them to her in the next few days after work. It's up to him. He was the one who wanted to give them to her.
Our other main goal was to go pick out paint for the kitchen, after far too much dithering on my part. The kitchen WAS grey, and though I've been painting a lot of the house a nice creamy color, it didn't feel right in the kitchen.
We settled on a nice, cheery blue, almost a light teal. Very unusual for me, when I generally go for a yellow kitchen. This blue isn't a cold, sad color though, it's got energy.
We had other goals today too, to hopefully get things to make prop "lamp posts" for the freestyle. We got some garden lanterns, and plastic plumbing pipe, and we'll see if we can make it work.
We also went to Micheal's for more ribbon, since the stuff I bought at the fabric store still isn't the right color. Sigh. Picked up some Titanium White watercolor, I'm nearly out of it.
Then we went to the dollar store and got some surprisingly nice fake flowers as decorations for the "lamp posts". I think they're pretty, and can use them afterwards for either another freestyle down the road, or in the house somewhere.
Then we checked out a thrift store, and I found some cute booties for cheap.
My husband wanted to have supper with a couple he knows from the climbing gym, and I wanted to make sure we got our errands done before committing, but we had time, I wasn't already stressed out, so I agreed.
"I" still wanted to meet for supper too, and I asked if she still wanted to come, given that my husband's friends were coming, and she said it was fine.
I felt like it was a lot of juggling, trying to make sure people were happy. That feeling drains me. I was trying to make my husband happy by meeting his friends, trying to make his friends happy, trying to make "I" happy.
Supper was fine. The couple is a fair bit younger than us, but we still had common ground. They're vegan, are kind of "active lifestyle" folks, and seem really nice.
"I" wasn't treating this like a group experience, she was probably missing the more intimate kind of interaction we have with just us, but I want to know my husband's new friends too.
This supper did make me feel again like "I" is just an older person than we are, even though I think she's a year or two younger than me. Her health issues have made things rough for her, but in some ways they define her too. She kept having conversations with just me, instead of engaging in conversation with the whole table, which made it tough for me because I wanted to listen to what my husband's friends were saying.
She kept bringing up our "vast history", even though we were friends in a fairly casual way 25 years ago, and I hadn't seen her for the last 20 years. She talked about her health issues.
Sometimes she joined in the general conversation, and I think it was good for her to try. I know that it isn't always easy to connect with younger people, but these two were very nice and social.
I do think it was good for "I" to meet some different people, and to try to remember what it's like to meet new people, where you have to be polite and take turns and hear EVERYONE's stories.
Over all, it was a struggle for me to navigate between trying to get my friend "I" to participate, to treat our table as a group, not separate factions of "she and I", and "my husband and his friends". I want to be friends with my husband's friends.
So, maybe if we do this again, we'll try it with this new couple separately so that it's not so chaotic.
We did spend a bit of time walking back to our cars with just the new couple, and going to our favorite book store. They knew of it, and had been there before at some point. Today I was pleased that they found several items, and maybe it will spark a renewal in books for them.
I think the store owner was happy we brought our friends, and that our friends found things there.
After that we headed home. I was actually pretty wiped after mentally struggling with picking out paint (I find that very hard, knowing that you might have to live with a "not quite right" paint for quite some time before you manage to try again), trying to figure out what might work to make "lamp posts", and dealing with "I's" lack of social grace.
We watched an episode of "Fringe".
no subject
Date: 2025-04-30 02:13 am (UTC)