Friday I worked from home, which meant cute coworkers, washing out the fruit and veggie bins at lunch, and doing laundry.
Friday night was the Covenant House Sleep Out, our last year doing the young professionals version because alas we are no longer young professionals. We are now older professionals. Gladys was there for the workshops, and again my favorite part was hearing stories from staff and kids. I only teared up once. More on this Wednesday. We fell asleep in our cardboard boxes on the ground around 12 and slept, uh, lightly until 4:30, when we cleaned up our area and took off at 5. My hands were irritated, red, raw meat after ONE night sleeping outside. Note to self: more gloves for the homeless next winter.
After going home and getting the dogs, I was at the shore by 7. As I am wont to do, I cried coming over the bridge because I was so happy to be back. So, opening the house the day after a night of no deep sleep was probably not one of my best decisions to date. I struggled through some outdoor cleanup and put the efficiency back together and took 507 couch breaks sitting among tons of crap while MFD scrubbed the siding on the top and bottom decks and put together new porch furniture (disregard the hideous mess on the ground, the downstairs porch is one of two big spring projects this year including a lot of paint scraping).
We raised the tired white flag and took the dogs down to the beach to wear them out. We had lunch outside at Sunrise Cafe before taking a bike ride on the boardwalk. Things you should not do on no sleep: ride a bike that needs air in its tires on a crowded boardwalk. I almost mowed down many and definitely crashed directly into MFD. Sorry, everyone. We retreated to the beach where we basically just laid the fuck down and assed out. Thriving despite no sleep is not something I do well at this age.
As you can see my bike did not fare well over the winter with the rust, so MFD got a lot of it off with a wire brush drill attachment. It was like magic.
I literally never even went into the main part of the house until 6 pm when I dropped a bag off up there and went right back downstairs. MFD went fishing, I took a bike ride back to the bay, then painted my nails, hung out with the tired dogs, and watched the Godfather saga for hours before falling into a deep, dreamless sleep that was amazing until the dogs got me up at 6 to go for a dark, cold, windy walk. That'll get you going.
Sunday I changed the sheets, cleaned up, and was home by 9:30. We went to a Bucks County Democratic Woman of the Year brunch for Helene, who is the hugest doer and advocate for women and involvement in the democratic process. She is a force. MFD's dad was in the hospital on Election Day, and MFD got in touch with her from Ireland and she arranged for a lawyer to visit him in the hospital so he could vote, which was really important to him. It was nice to see her honored. I love the doers. That's just one small personal story out of so many, and it was nice to hear them in speeches in her honor.
Other Sunday things: I went to Sam's where I encountered an angry crowd waiting for rotisserie chicken so that came right off of my list, work worked from 3-9, did three loads of shore laundry, picked up some trash in the yard from the winter, and just sat around at night. I was tired. I am out of shore shape - we are much more active down there than we are at home!
Weekly food prep: breakfast is breakfast burritos from the freezer and a banana; lunch is chicken salad and tomatoes over spinach; snacks are mango, and celery and PB; and dinners are pick & peel shrimp with macaroni salad (made with some Christmas tree pasta, eh), and baked chicken breasts with roasted sweet potatoes, parsnips, and red onions. I also made a batch of power breakfast muffins to freeze.
March recommendations tomorrow. See you then, homies.
