Demerits and Gold Stars: June 2024

For the first time since I started this little accountability exercise several years ago on the blog, I didn’t deliberately track demerits or gold stars. In fact, I thought I might just skip demerits and gold stars over the summer.

But then I remembered how frequently these lists spur me on to action. It didn’t take more than a few minutes to pull together a sizeable list on both sides of the spectrum. (Well, in reality, things are heavily skewed to the demerit side).

First up, demerits.

DEMERITS

• Bathrooms. The ideal is for me to fall into a routine of regular maintenance, punctuated by a deep clean at least once a month. I’m doing so-so on the regular maintenance but I know the bathrooms need more frequent deep cleaning and it’s just not happening. I feel more on top of house chaos in general when the bathrooms are clean. Sigh. Where are the self-cleaning toilets when one needs them…? I have the time to fit this in, but zero desire (fair enough).
• My summer wardrobe. Or lack thereof. I haven’t done a great job of pulling together a summer wardrobe and feel like I’m floundering a bit each time I head to my closet. Some things from last year don’t fit properly and I have a few good staple pieces but not necessarily in the right combinations (e.g. nice shorts and nice shirts, but not good short/shirt combos).
• Exercise. Yes I’ve done a few bikes rides and a few walks and one morning exercise class, but in general I am not exercising much lately. Perhaps the bigger demerit in this is that I don’t have a plan for moving forward (other than the fact I’m bringing back the Cool Bloggers Walking Club in October!). I really mind direct sun and oppressive heat so mid-day exercise is not ideal for me all summer. But when L is at his morning sports camps, I don’t want to use those precious three hours of solo time to exercise. I did 10 minutes of self-led yoga on the beach this week, so I’ll give myself a sliver of a gold star for that!
• Buying pickled eggs. Even writing this demerit makes the issue seem obvious. I had never had a pickled egg in my life but I enjoy hard-boiled eggs and I enjoy pickles. So when I saw a GIANT bottle of pickled eggs at a bulk store recently, I decided to go for it. Bad call. They are awful. So gross. And they are just sitting in my fridge taunting me with their tough, mouth-puckering presence. We produce so little food waste that the thought of composting them is disheartening, but I also have zero desire to eat another pickled egg. I looked up ideas online for what to do with excess pickled eggs when you don’t like pickled eggs. My favourite solution: find a friend who loves pickled eggs and give the eggs to them.
• Parenting. There have been a few situations lately where I haven’t been patient or understanding in the way that I should; a double demerit because I’ve recognized in the moment that I’m not parenting the way I’d like…but then felt powerless to stop my current trajectory. It doesn’t involve yelling, more a subtle lack of compassion in several situations where I should have been more compassionate. Onward and upward, I hope.
• Torching weeds. Based on suggestions from a previous blog post, we bought a propane torch for weeds and it does work very well! (Not on grasses, but it’s great for weeds.) The problem? When I really need weed control is in the summer months. And guess what we now have almost all summer? Burn bans. So I can’t be walking around with an open propane flame burning weeds right next to a dry lawn. The demerit is more my failure to consider the timing of it all. (The weeds shrivel and die after being torched but they DO come back, so I can’t treat an area in the spring and have it last for months.)
• Bible reading. Oof. This had been going so well but now I’ve hit Isaiah and the other Old Testament prophets and it has started to feel like a slog. There are many hidden gems that pop out but some days I just can’t summon the enthusiasm to start. This is okay. I’m on pace to read through the Bible in a little over a year, but there is no pressure for me to finish this by the end of a calendar year (I started last November). Still, when I do skip a day of reading, I feel less inclined to pick it up the next day. There is definitely momentum involved in this habit!
• Screen time. When A was sick with pneumonia and I was feeling very glum about life, I started scrolling. A lot. My screen time – iPhone only, this doesn’t include time on a computer – that week was almost 2.5 hours PER DAY…which doesn’t leaving me feeling very good. It involved a loop of checks on Feedly, WordPress, e-mail, and BBC news. I would have been much better off picking up a book, but phones give such a nice little hit of dopamine and can be picked up so easily. Sigh.

GOLD STARS

• The bigger life. For saying Yes to a 6 am exercise class. For saying Yes to swimming in a cold pond. These feel like votes cast for the sort of person I want to be in terms of energy and zest for life.
• A’s fortitude. A sheet of gold stars to A for handling her health carefully and staying within her limits while recovering from pneumonia and attending leadership training.
• Playdates for L. We’ve done a great job of arranging a host of playdates since school finished, most of which fall outside the “normal” range of friends.
• Summer plans. More generally – and I know I’ve patted myself on the back for this before – I’m so happy with the level of planning I did ahead of this summer. As A’s pneumonia put in to sharp relief…there is no guarantee these plans won’t disintegrate, but having the framework in place is comforting.
• Cottage cheese. For years I thought I hated cottage cheese, but I found a lactose-free version that is delicious and it really does satiate me! I love mixing in a dollop of drippy peanut butter, some fresh raspberries, and a handful of pumpkin seeds.

Any recent demerits or gold stars you’d like to share? Does anyone like pickled eggs? How are you feeling about your summer wardrobe options?