I enjoyed 8 hours of alone time at home!!! It needs to be emphasized that while being alone is easy (just go to the office or somewhere), being alone at home feels luxurious. Even hubby was kind of jealous. Before he left for his golf tournament, he said: enjoy! 🙂
What did i do? I spent no rushing time to exercise. I did lower body work and abs for an hour as I didn’t run. Then I took a long shower, did skin care routine (that I rarely do in the AM anymore), then put out my journal to make a to-do list and intention for the day (again, haven’t done it for a long time). Everything felt slower. Then I worked until 10am and had breakfast. Still my favorite combo: avocado toast (with keto bun) and cappuccino. This breakfast combo scored 10/10 per blood sugar.
Then I worked few hours before I felt hungry and had leftovers for lunch. When kids are not home, i rarely ask the helper to cook for me.
Before I could take a nap, family returned, after few stressful minutes. Hubby tournament ran late and i wasn’t sure he’d make it to pick up the girls and was on stand by to go myself. Then I went out for a walk and to buy birthday card for hubby. On the way home, I even bought a gift, hope he likes it.
Overall, I enjoyed the solitude time. I realized that it’s the balanced of solitude and the family company what I need. If I am alone for too long, such when I was traveling for work, I often entered into semi-depression for missing the family. But when I am with them 24/7 like during the early pandemic, they drove me crazy, the constant noise, interruption, asks resulted in yelling. Not good for anyone.
One of the questions I like from interviewers is what things have you changed your mind in the last 5-10 years, so I thought sharing some from me:
- I thought friendship can last forever if the foundation is solid, and it doesn’t matter how divergent the life paths of the two friends are. I have a childhood friend (we met when we were 18 months old) that I thought would be one of my BFF forever. I know that our life circumstances are very different but it has been for decades, and we still kept close friendship. However, recently I noticed some distance. I won’t go into details of how I realized it. But it made me realize that it was not a sustainable relationship for the long term and it is fine. Maybe we will converge again in the future.
- I thought I’d only pay for things that I can see/touch. With the changes in the digital world, I am now paying for online entertainment such as Netflix, e-books, and premium subscription. I realized that as long as they bring value to me, even if it’s just information, I am willing to pay to reward the effort/thoughtfulness of the creator.
- I thought influencers are not real jobs and will never allow my girls to make a living out of it. Related to #2, I now see the value of their work and willing to pay for it. They might not have a Ph.D on the subject they are working on. As long as they bring value to me, I am willing to pay for their work. This doesn’t mean if Sofia tells me today that she will stop school and go to become a youtuber I’ll support her. I am still very traditional in that sense. Yet, my own change of behavior is making me wonder what’s the future of job world for my girls.
Have you changed your mind about things lately?
Our New Journey 
Sounds like such a nice day. I also LOVE having time alone at home, and I feel the same way you do. I like a balance of it.
LOL about the girls becoming you tubers. 🙂 It is a strange new world, isn’t it. It is hard to figure out how we are supposed to adapt to some of these things- embracing change while still maintaining our personal values/ beliefs. I like your thoughts on paying for things we can’t see/touch but that bring us value. I used to pay for monthly gym strength training workouts and I feel like this is one of those things- I didn’t even have a trainer in real life, in fact, I never had even met her. But the workouts were great and taught me so much. I still use them today. It definitely felt worth the money to me.
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