Mostly I’m grateful today.

I got tired of sitting alone in my house trying to get work done whilst constantly being tempted to take naps (a very real threat to the productivity of any self-employed work-from-home person) so I put on pants and rented a desk at a gorgeous little office downtown. It’s got everything a Millennial designer-type person could want: exposed brick, raw wood beams, pour-over coffee, vintage lightbulbs…. the complete package. Parking is a pain in the ass, because the cool part of downtown is like that. But I solved that problem by parking ten blocks away and skateboarding to work and that makes me feel very cool, like a cartoon character that would have tried to sell fast-food to kids or talk them into not using heroin back in the 90’s. I even have a backward baseball cap.

Getting out of the house like this has been good for me, especially being around some people who aren’t in the “Daddy can we watch Paw Patrol on Netflix” demographic.

I love the kids in Paw Patrol on Netflix demographic too. Those two boys of mine are such a gift. Sometimes I get really burned out and frustrated with their constant impulse to punch the shit out of each other over dumb stuff like who gets to drink out of the orange cup. Sometimes I don’t understand why they can’t put on their own pants, or why the wrong socks can render them inconsolable on the floor. I’ve wracked my brain trying to comprehend what evolutionary purpose these tendencies could serve, but so far have had no luck coming up with a good answer. But also my heart is full of love for them, and I don’t understand that sometimes either, because I guess its true what they say that the way you love your kids is something that you really can’t explain.

I’m still trying to keep my head above the grey here in Minnesota, and there’s a lot of grey. I made three gallons of chili on Sunday, from raw beans, and I felt very much like a good homesteading mother. I also put a houseplant on my desk, and eat all the salads and can find, and I hope that this will be enough to keep my morale up. But also I’ve been eating a lot of McDonald’s food, which isn’t great for my health but is great for morale.

Pro-tip: if you promise to stop by the McDonald’s drive through and buy McGriddles and ice-cream after school, sometimes you can bribe your kids into taking a nap.

This blog post is part of #write31days. This year I’m skipping out on a theme and going with ten minutes of unedited free-writing every day (unless I don’t feel like it, let’s be honest). You can read more posts from my #write31days by clicking here.