For context, I penned this post on Monday morning.

To my surprise, today is a snow day. Meaning that instead of organizing my little food bank, answering phone calls and emails, and serving my senior clients, I am at home.

I don’t know what to make of this. I’m uncomfortable. I feel guilty, like someone who called in sick to work who wasn’t actually sick but really just wanted a day off to, I don’t know, binge-watch The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, or bake a cheesecake, or shop online for things they don’t need.

True confession: I have never called in sick when I wasn’t actually, truly, sick. Because guilt has been instilled in my soul since childhood. Because I know that if I did call in sick to work when I was in perfect health, that yucky, uneasy, unpleasant feeling of guilt would creep in and render me physically ill for real.

And I am a bonafide terrible liar. Here’s a recent example: I was at a work orientation with 4 new employees and 4 others (management/human resources/training folk). It was time for an ice breaker: “Two Truths and a Lie”. Of course, my neurotic brain is doing somersaults whilst the others are sharing their responses, so fortheloveofgod don’t ask me what any of them said. When it came to be my turn, I spouted out three things: I am a grandmother. I worked as a social worker for several years in Wisconsin. I was born and raised in Minnesota. Ha! The relief I felt after the words were spewn out of my mouth was glorious!

Then came the responses from my new colleagues: Well, you can’t possibly be a grandmother! I can tell from your accent that you are probably from Minnesota. Or maybe Wisconsin? You probably were a social worker.

Then it dawned on me: Every single thing I said was the actual freaking truth. Not one single lie. Uh-oh! Guess I didn’t understand the instructions? Nope, that wasn’t the case. I then had to admit two things to these people: 1) That I was so nervous trying to quickly come up with my responses that I forgot one was supposed to be a lie and 2) I apparently cannot tell a lie.

Hubs has been known to tell me that my work ethic is, essentially, unreasonable. He figured this out years ago, when I was pregnant with our first bundle of joy and the only spouse working full time (he was still a college student), and I insisted that despite the blizzard outside I. Was. Going. To. Work. Hubs reluctantly obliged and drove me in, but nearly got in an accident on the way due to the nasty road conditions.

It’s not like I didn’t try going to work today. The tires on our Honda CRV are not in good shape. They didn’t perform well on the snow packed roadways when Hubs was just trying to get me a few blocks away to meet my Uber driver (let’s just say there’s a very good chance that I will opt for Uber X going forward as opposed to Uber Pool), who didn’t show up (though understandable, given the road conditions).

I may go into work later, depending on if/when the snow stops and if/when the roads improve.

So in the meantime, what to do? Obviously, I’ve chosen to write. Perhaps if I get lost in this, my favorite all time activity, the guilt will subside and then I’ll have a fresh new post to publish come Wednesday morning.

At least then I can feel like I accomplished something today. That I used my time wisely.

In other news, things are really quite swell in my life at this moment. I’m doing my best to savor it. Hubs is no longer furloughed (he’s upstairs working in our home office as I type this on the new Chromebook he got me for my birthday-more on that later), thanks to Speaker Pelosi.

Spawn #1’s life is going better for her these days. She’s joined a church, is making new friends, and her first husband is currently MIA. Little guy is doing well in Pre-K and soon I will have the pleasure of reading “Wonky Donky” to him via video-chat (bought it online, shipped it to him and then copied the story down for myself in a notebook).

Spawn #2 is busying themselves in Indianapolis creating wearable art to sell online. And enjoying the single life amongst other creatives in the big city.

Later this week I will turn 52. I plan on celebrating with Hubs by going out to dinner, eating birthday cake guilt free (guilt is not invited to my party), drinking tasty adult beverages, and playing trivia (which I have been wanting to do since like forever) at a favorite local brew pub.

Over the weekend, Hubs and I will be flying out to Kansas City to visit our friends (AKA, Couple #1) and their kiddos. We got a sweet deal on airfare and figured we would massively enjoy the Super Bowl festivities with them. And word is, we’ll be attending a Roller Derby event (game, match, duel? not sure which noun to go with here), so I’m likely to acquire some blogging fodder while there.

Let me leave you with this, which for years now I believed was the #1 song on the day I was born (turns out the #1 song on that cold day in 1967 was the Monkee’s “I’m a Believer”) because well…I’m happy (with a little guilt mixed in for good measure of course)! This version is done by one of my favorite current bands, Weezer- who, I just so happened to recently learn, came out with a new album of covers-and ohmygoshimsoexcited-I just checked YouTube and found out this was one of them!

Happy Birthday to me!