Sunday Brunch

If you’re following me you know I’ve missed a few Sunday posts.  I spend my week days in front of a computer and lately I’m spending my weekends at my laptop at home.  I’m desperately trying to finish the 2013 Calendars I used to make for Christmas, and the Christmas/Valentine’s Day photo cards.

My mother says I have too much on my plate, I’m trying to do too much.  OK.  But what exactly do I give up?  Sure I could stop making the calendars, but the truth is I enjoy creating them.  I use photos I’ve taken during the year, and each person’s calendar has the birthday’s that are important to them.

I just gave my sister her calendar, it was the first.  Turns out Good Friday landed on Monday and Easter is on a Wednesday.  Oops.  Anyway, the point was, I know I’m trying to do too much, but I don’t know what to stop doing.  Of course I’d love to just stop working.  Stay home, finish the calendars, the cards, clean the house, make healthy meals for my family, exercise 2 hours a day, finish my novel…but that’s not possible at this stage of my life.

So I’ve given up house cleaning (no great tragedy there), bookkeeping (I hired my sister to do it) skiing (not happy about that one – at all!), and writing (not forever, just for now).

This morning we woke up and took the dog for a walk on the river road.  The snow was falling and we were the only ones out there (until the very end).  It was lovely.  Stephen and I are doing a class at the Montana Athletic Club at 5:30am. Stephen is participating in a Spartan Race in May so this is a Spartan Training Class.

I pretty much hurt all over.  My abs (yes it’s true I still have some), my thighs, my upper chest muscles all hurt from the planks, push-ups, pull-ups, squats, etc. etc. we do in class and at home (Gigi gives us HOMEWORK!).  But it felt good to just walk for four miles.  On the way back we started talking about breakfast and what we would order if we were at Echo Lake Cafe, one of our favorite Sunday Brunch places.

When we got home I went straight to the kitchen and started working on our orders.  I put the water to boil and cut-up red potatoes, they boil for 10 minutes.  Meanwhile I started chopping the brussel sprouts, onions, mushrooms, and yellow pepper.  Stephen cut-up an avocado, tomato, and spinach leaves.

I threw the potatoes, and my mixture into the saute pan with olive oil, garlic, pepper and a dash of salt.  Stephen threw the English muffins into the toaster and poached a few eggs.

It was a great Brunch and we were satisfied for the rest of the day.  Not how we usually eat, but it worked for a Sunday.

I talked to my sister, I asked her to stop by to get her calendar.  As usual the conversation covered the rest of the family.  It seems it was a hard week for all of us.  For me, I had a day when something triggered my heart and I said “Oh my God, my dad’s dead!”  You’d think that after 3 months I would already know this.

I said to Stephen, “I want to say, this isn’t fair!  but my father’s voice rings in my head.  No one ever said that life was Fair.”

I always hated it when he said that.

But it isn’t and I’m well aware of that fact.  It still doesn’t mean I have to like it.  I think it helps me that my father lived in Oregon and I live in Montana.  I only got to see him 2-3 times a year.  He wasn’t a part of my daily routine.

My body, my mind, the cells that make-up Jana, they haven’t had to accept that my daddy is gone.  I just keep pretending he’s in Oregon.  Until I need to ask him a question, and then I’m reminded that he is gone, not just out of state, but gone from the planet.  

Completely.

Forever.

But today when I talked to my sister, she said my brother was thinking about talking to a therapist, because he just can’t accept that dad’s gone and I knew exactly what he meant.  But the truth is (for me anyway), this is okay.  We’ll deal with it someday.  But I don’t want to KNOW it, I’m not ready to accept it, it’s so much better to ease into the knowledge that he is, in fact, gone.  We have years to deal with it, there’s no time limit on grief.

I’ve dealt with death before and this is how I handled that one too.  The tears come at random-odd moments, not entirely expected, but for some reason ALWAYS welcome.  It feels really good to cry and mourn his passing.

But in the meantime, I’m busy with work, calendars, letters, class, meals, bills, books, family, email, etc. LIFE.  And tonight I’m going to take a few hours off and watch a movie with Sadie and Stephen. We’re going to watch Skyfall.  We love James Bond.  But it was the movie I was watching in the theatre when I got the phone call from Janet that my dad had two days to live.

Damn.

For those of you who have read this far – I realize this post is completely rambling…I usually write it in Microsoft Word and then post it here.  This one was written live without editing or structure.  I’ll get back to the recipes eventually, but for now it feels good to write.

See you next Sunday!  Jana