Whimsical Wednesday

It’s amazing to me how delicate and intricate and rather poetic a single snowflake can be, compared to how powerful they become collectively during a snowstorm. There’s a metaphor in there somewhere, maybe about community.

I just reached out to the person I was supposed to meet tomorrow morning. Hopefully they see the message, and we’re able to reschedule easily.

I definitely have enough groceries now to see me through, even if I don’t want to go anywhere today (but the winter storm watch doesn’t go into effect until midnight).

I still feel some apprehension about the weather nonetheless, maybe worrying about what kind of shape the roads will be in come Friday, when I would have to travel for sure.

I’m also worried about my daughter. She got her new hours for when she exits training with the account she’ll be working with for her remote customer service job, and they seem fairly grueling.

She’s been doing almost all of the cooking for the household and a fair amount of the cleaning, if I understand correctly. With her new hours, she won’t have time to make dinner anymore– at least not unless she spends a day or two days of time off meal prepping or something.

It’s unfortunate because she had planned to work on eating healthier and getting more exercise. Now, she doesn’t know if it will be practical to do anything for dinner that isn’t literally just a pop it in the oven/air fryer situation.

Most of all, I’m worried that she might wind up very stressed and unhappy. There’s not a whole lot I can do from several states away, other than offer some support. Maybe that isn’t such a minor thing. Still, it’s hard to know she might be struggling.

I offered some suggestions like spaghetti or tacos or chili that are relatively easy to put together (brown meat, add stuff, boom), in the hopes everyone could chip in toward meal-making. The internet is probably full of easy dinner recipes, too, many of them on the healthier side. But we will see.

The actual work activity for this new account so far seems a lot less complex. It’s just the chunk of her day it will eat through is sizable and less convenient for planning around.

BUT… what can I do from here to refocus on the positive?

I can keep up the work I’m doing to increase my independence and functionality of my home space and overall health and well-being.

I can offer gentle encouragement and support to her and be ready to be here in case she needs to vent. I can remind myself sometimes it’s more than enough to just listen and be present and be there.

And from time to time, I can help them pay for inexpensive restaurant food or something, when she requests it. She calls me her Pizza Angel, after a beloved Veggie Tales song. We used to watch it together now and then when she was little.

She also calls me her Unstable Unicorn, as a reference to the party game of similar name, and a tongue-in-cheek poke at my mental health issues. I also just genuinely really love unicorns.

In 2020, I pulled kind of a diva move and insisted on a unicorn birthday party. In years past, I have made my own elaborate birthday cakes, and put together themes and things for her parties. That year, she did it all. Here’s the cake she made. Pink cake with vanilla confetti frosting. The unicorn horn was even a working candle. And she got me unicorn presents and multiple unicorn cards. A lot of love went into all that planning and preparation.

I’m very thankful for her and all she does, for her kindness and compassion. She makes me want to be a better person.

The following year, 2021, I dressed as a unicorn for one of my Halloween looks, finally using a wig I had bought at a post-Halloween, staff-only discount price when I worked for a Halloween store one season. Unicorn pride!

Do you have any worries heading into your Wednesday? I hope you don’t. If you do, I wish you some unicorn magic to help power through them.

I know reflecting back on all the unicorn awesomeness and the strength of my bond with kiddo has reassured me that all is well, all will be well.

Make it a Whimsical Wednesday, my peeps. Maybe I’ll do some story editing today. That could be fun.