I have noticed, and HA commented a couple of days ago when things seemed especially chaotic, that we’re lacking a lot of the routines we had before we moved to the island. Routines were necessary and important: we each had children who needed to be fed on a somewhat predictable schedule, who needed laundry done, who needed structure in which to do schoolwork. We had a relatively straightforward suburban home to keep maintained, we had the usual predictable bills to pay, we had work schedules up until our retirement. All that changed with the move.
We are starting to fall into some rhythms again, though it’s slow. Most mornings we wake with daylight. One of us will make our favorite coffee drinks (essentially a quad-shot cappuccino) and bring them to the bed. Lately, I’ve been starting a fire in the wood stove most mornings.
We get up, get dressed, and take Luna the Big Dog™ (aka Pig Eater) for a walk up, down, or around the mountain. When we get home, HA makes breakfast and we start work on our various projects around the property.
I’m usually going to be working out of the garage, so I open the garage door and if the weather is “dry” (relative humidity in the low 90’s) then I open the loft windows to try to keep the loft from getting moldy.
A couple of mornings a week, HA does swimming and water aerobics in town, though that schedule has itself been somewhat chaotic. Lately, my fatigue has driven me to nap in the afternoons. We have dinner, then read, write, or watch an episode of something, then go to bed. During all of it, I have to keep an eye on the solar plant to make sure that Joulee the Free Salvage Tesla gets some charge. HA feeds and grooms the dog. Often the day will involve a trip into the local town for the Post Office or into the bigger town for medical appointments, pharmacies, larger hardware items, and groceries. Toward the end of the day, I need to close up the garage. Each day, I look for space to write a column, I take a lovely outdoor shower in the evening and we go to bed.
Still, there is far more exception than predictability, and it seems as though we have more to do to get the place in order than will can possibly accomplish. This month, we have a number of out-of-town visitors and several big projects. HA is volunteering with hospice which carries its own kind of unpredictability. We might join the local chorus which could add routine or chaos (probably a bit of both). We’re getting to know neighbors and doing events with them. So it’s hard to know how it will all settle in the end, but I suspect our lives will become more comfortably predictable over the coming months.
—2p
addendum 2025-01-04
Lately I’ve taken to laying the fire the evening before. It’s typically only “cold” (mid-50’s) early in the morning, so it’s nice to be able to strike the fire with minimal time and effort and get back under the covers while the stove warms up.
