Switching In

Every other week, Monday is the best day of the week.  The odd weeks, it is the worst day of the week.  Right now, Jack is working one week on, one week off and Monday is switch day.  Today he is  switching home.

I would love to say I already have dinner in the crockpot, but I don't - but it is already planned.  Pancakes and sausage don't work well in the crockpot and Bella asked that tonight be breakfast night.

I do have a clean house, a bed with clean sheets, and a reasonably stocked fridge for him to come home to. This is a thing with me.  I do not keep a messy house, but I will admit that by Friday night things are a bit cluttered.  By then there is laundry waiting, there is detritus on my desk from our home work of the week, the regular dust, sweep, mop routine is due.  But we always start the new week with a freshly cleaned house.  It makes me feel calmer going into Monday and I need all the help I can get dealing with Mondays.

 Sunday nights are my bad nights.  Last night my brain was fizzing with the new stuff I was going to do with my regular juniors as they start Gatsby this week and the new stuff I will be doing with Of Mice and Men with the sophomores next week. New stuff is exciting, fun, and re-energizes me, but it means I have to plan more, things will be in flux as I see that one chapter is suddenly an extra day longer or 15 min shorter with the new approach.  Mid OMAM planning, my brain abruptly switched to plotting a mini- AP lit and rhetoric term boot camp I want to do with the Comp and Lang class.  I have a whole week to stew on that, though I plan to devote some serious brain power to the idea during today's staff development meetings.  There is also a sense of dread knowing that by mid week I will have 75ish essays to grade.  So anyway, a clean house provides a sense of calm and being in control while I seem to be riding a run away train at school.

I also have this idea that while Jack has never once criticized my house keeping abilities, he might not feel welcomed at coming home to a wreck.  I feel like after a week away, living in a camper trailer, being out in the cold and wind much of the day, home should be a haven.  As it is, he is coming home to a big chore list.  Cats to be hauled away to get their bits snipped, mailboxes to fix, tires for the car . . .

I don't melt down when he leaves, but there is a little wrenching in my heart.  I worry.  A lot.  Oil fields are dangerous places.  Big trucks are dangerous.  We do fine during the week, but there is always of sense of waiting for him to come home.  We FaceTime almost every night, Bell in my lap, telling him about her day.  But sometimes, it isn't the conversation, it is the hand in mine that I crave. Tonight, I can have that.