Family, Kids, Nature, The Future, Uncategorized

The Doldrums

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It is a slow time of year right now. Clients are waiting until school begins to resume therapy The garden is in a “wait and watch” stage, with beans developing, the third crop of spinach growing, and tomatoes slowly reddening.  Who knows what is happening beneath the potato plants. They just keep flowering.

This is the first time since 1991 that we haven’t had a child in school or college. I feel as though I am in the doldrums, just waiting for something to happen.  The wait isn’t necessarily refreshing or pleasant. Husband’s father goes to a Memory Care Center this week. We are sort of waiting for things to happen with him, too. Who knows how he will adjust. This time of year is usually busy and forward looking. Not this year.  Send in the clowns!

How do you handle the doldrums?

 

29 thoughts on “The Doldrums”

  3. For a retired person, every day is equally inconsequential (unless you find medical appointments thrilling!). But if I begin to think of being in the doldrums, I have a talk with myself. Each day is precious for me, even if most are inconsequential, and I thrill to the freedom I have to do whatever I choose. For someone in my circumstances, “doldrums” exist mostly as an attitude, an attitude I reject.

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  4. Interestingly, I was in a similar mood when I woke up this morning. Nothing on today’s calendar but visiting my mom, some research that needs doing that I’m not excited about, a gray morning, Husband’s chores (since he’s on crutches) to do in addition to mine…

    Then I stepped outside to replace the trash bin after pick-up – and I started to putter in the “yard” (what’s left is mostly concrete and bricks). I found a rearrange project to do, then realized there’s a table whose top needs to be sanded down, and maybe that’s a project Husband could do while he’s slowed down. There’s carrots that need thinning, and I our potatoes are farther along than Renee’s – I dug up a few yesterday…
    I find that getting outdoors can really get me out of the doldrums, at least temporarily.

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  5. I’ve reached an age when time passes so quickly that I know for sure whatever is happening now, will be over before I can blink. The phrase “I can’t wait!” is no longer in my vocabulary, because I never have to wait. If I do have time on my hands, I always have something good to read. So, for me, a “doldrummy” day is rare. I remember the feeling, but I don’t feel it much any more. An actual plus for old age?

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  6. I have the to do list from the gods to keep me occupied and for the doldrums with a nothing day on my calendar never to be an issue

    sometimes when I feel like vegging out I simply bedroom but most often I use that same trick that we talked about last week where I say what if

    what if whatever I chose to do was successful beyond my wildest dream

    what would I do

    Martha Stewart has a Calendar one year in advance as to what it is that she has time for in her life and the ability to get stuff done is unbelievable when you have a charted out

    look at the stuff that she does to get ready for October or Thanksgiving or Christmas in advance

    Renee do you do garlic I think there’s a fall garlic that can be planted about now

    I am so ready to start an art project I am so ready to start my woodshop

    thanks for inspiring me with your doldrums I got stuff to do see y’all later

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    1. We tried garlic once. Our soil was too heavy or something and it didn’t work. I bet you could grow great garlic where you live.

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  8. i was in las vegas last week and the head shop section of the store had some non drugs for people who need it. st johns wort is supposed to be uplifting for the depressions or pot is always an option. wouldnt it be groovy to sit and smoke one and hum some old donavon tunes

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  9. maybe thats part of it for me. i dont need to be brightened i need to be interested. i am so swirly in my thoughts that off i go and im good for 20 or 30 minutes and if i were a betting man i would give odds that the first thought would lead to another.

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  10. The list of things that need doing around here is long and getting longer. If I had the energy and ambition to do them, I’d have a full-time job for months. As it is, each day zooms by without me accomplishing much of anything. Although I admittedly sit around a lot, I don’t ever have the feeling that I’m in the doldrums. I consider it a luxury to be able to do whatever I feel like – or not, all day, every day.

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  11. OT – I’m a Facebook friend of Kate DiCamillo. I don’t know her personally, but her intermittent posts of FB tell me that I’d love her in person as well. This is what she posted earlier today:

    ” ‘August “hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn.’
    –Natalie Babbit, Tuck Everlasting.

    Every year around this time, I post Natalie Babbit’s beautiful words about August.
    To me, they are the perfect description of this month—its feeling of suspension, its melancholy and its beauty.
    And so here we are again, at the very top of summer, in the highest seat of the Ferris wheel, looking down at the world, at the months that have come before.
    I wanted to say that I’m glad for August.
    I wanted to say that I’m glad I’m here.
    I wanted to say that I’m glad you’re here, too.”

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    1. the highest seat of the ferris wheel in north dakota looks out over the same thing as the one on the ground.

      (i agree 100% about augustand about kate. i met her at a signing and got to chat for a bit and she is delightful )
      my guitar teacher is the one who stated that there are only 10 perfect days a year and april may is where you should pay attentiion because the heat humidity and bugs are no issues… if you couple that with kates repost of august you have 25% of the year in the primo real estate mode…
      thanks for that

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      1. The highest seat on the Ferris wheel looks out over the same things as the one at the bottom everywhere. In North Dakota, the difference in terms of how much of it you see may be smaller than elsewhere, depending on where elsewhere is.

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    2. Kate is so cool. I can’t say how much I miss seeing Almanac with Cathy Wurzer interviewing Kate, Kate wrinkling her nose in that special laugh. I was pleased to hear yesterday that Liam just finished reading several books, one of which was a book of Kate’s.

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  12. the highest seat of the ferris wheel in north dakota looks out over the same thing as the one on the ground.

    (i agree 100% about augustand about kate. i met her at a signing and got to chat for a bit and she is delightful )
    my guitar teacher is the one who stated that there are only 10 perfect days a year and april may is where you should pay attentiion because the heat humidity and bugs are no issues… if you couple that with kates repost of august you have 25% of the year in the primo real estate mode…
    thanks for that

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