Still negative

The boys are still testing negative at school, thank goodness. Every week is a gift. I’m even newly inspired to cook dinner, now that I have days to myself. In many ways, things are so much better than last year - for the most part things are open, schools are open, I’m back to doing the shopping...while big events are mostly off limits and travel is scary, I still can’t run my event and our band still can’t play, at least we have some small semblance of normalcy. I guess it’s good to be grateful for the small things right now, even though this summer has been a huge bummer for everyone. 

In the absence of anything else to do, I’ve been having fun doing wedding stuff, which is the next event I get to plan. After months of searching for a dress I finally broke down and asked a friend for help. We were going to go next week. She asked me to check the online inventory of various stores - and I came to the conclusion that most wedding dresses are stupid and I hate them. Even the more “unique bride” shops had dresses that completely lacked any imagination, and they tended to be $1500 and up. That’s a big no. It’s just such a different story when you have two kids and are 49. Had I been twenty years younger I’m sure I would have gone for a sweet 1940’s satin dress and it would have been lovely. But none of those tiny dresses will fit me, and I also am afraid of a “mutton dressed as lamb” effect. Long story short, I came upon a delightful ethereal “boudoir dress” made in Russia for $178 and ordered it. It’s got a sort of greenish/grey tinge with grey appliqués and it’s just beautiful and perfect. And best of all if I hate it it’s only $178 so I can just toss it and start over. Today I ordered a pair of lucite 1950’s shoes from eBay to go with. I’ll also get a tulle underskirt for the dress since it’s pretty much see through. I’m trying to get all these things out of the way now when I have the mental energy so I can forget about it for a while. After all we have the great holiday trifecta coming up - Halloween - Thanksgiving - Christmas, and that’ll take a lot of my emotional labor right there.

I also have offered to accompany a friend for Spanish lessons and am restoring my recently acquired 1920s saxophone and may start lessons with that. I may also not follow through with any of this. I’ve learned it’s ok to make plans to start projects and then not actually start them. Today I threw out rotten cucumbers and dill I bought weeks ago to make into pickles and never did. And so it goes. 

The boys’ homework officially begins next week, so school starts in earnest now. We have a four day week followed by a three day week and then it’s mid-September already. I don’t think we’re ever going to have a Big Bake this year - we’ve made it almost to Labor Day with never a triple digit day; I think the Pacific Northwest took one for the team this summer. 

How do I feel going into what would have been the final week before my event? Nothing but relief, really. Normally this is a terrible stressful time for me - and this year would have been far, far worse. Instead I’m just chilling. I’m a little sad, of course, and a little afraid for the future, as we all are. Can I recover from two years off? Will people still remember us a whole year from now? Will we have to cancel a third time? Will we all survive this and subsequent surges? How bad will it get this winter? Will next summer be the same? Nobody has any answers. For now I’m just going to bury myself in Pinterest “messy bun wedding hair” and try not to worry about it too much.