I’m a recluse. A paranoid recluse and a hermit.

Even though it’s not been a typical January around here (no snow…what?), I think I’ve gotten the typical January blahs. Really. I don’t really want to go anywhere, I’d rather stay home.
Shopping? Na, I’ve got enough STUFF here already.
Groceries? We don’t really need bread and milk, do we? Can’t we just make dinner from the stuff we have?
Pick up the kids from school? Oh, all right, if I have to.
Exercise? I’ve got a treadmill here in the basement I can use if I feel the urge.
Take the kids to a friend’s house? Couldn’t they just come and play here?
Go to work as a substitute teacher? I do have a job for tomorrow that I’ll have to GEAR UP for, but I don’t really want to work much, especially if hubby’s out of town. And that’s good because people with smart phones must snatch up the available jobs so quickly, that it’s actually not that easy to get subbing jobs unless you are requested.
Go to a Jazz game? I gave away tickets to a Jazz game last week. I had won them and actually gone to pick them up myself, with plans to take one of the kids for a fun night out. But then I kind of changed my mind and didn’t really want to leave the kids alone two nights in a row, and drive up to Salt Lake two nights in a row (I always have bells rehearsal in SLC on Wed nights), so I offered them up to friends and got a taker pretty quick.

And when I do venture out, I try to make sure I can do more than one errand on each trip. Save gas, less pollution, right? If I’m going to Costco, let’s make sure to pick up whatever I need at Walgreens on the same trip. Or better yet, I order things online. My kids mocked me and laughed when a big package arrived from Staples, and when we opened it, it contained 12 rolls of paper towels. What? We needed paper towels, and there was a sale and a coupon and free delivery. Same thing when a shipment of toilet paper and cheez-its arrived from Amazon. Hey! Free shipping, sale, what’s the problem? I see no problem with having the groceries come to me. In Manhattan, everyone does grocery delivery! Of course, they do it because they don’t have cars, not because they don’t feel like going to the store for paper towels. Same diff.

Because I’d really rather stay home. I have a lot of purging, cleaning, and organizing to do. Books to read, kids to clean up after, bills to pay, chickens to feed, dinner to cook, sharing time to plan, laundry to fold, etc. Is there anything wrong with just wanting to stay home? I mentioned to my hubby that I felt like I was turning into a hermit and didn’t want to go out anywhere lately, and he said, “Are you kidding me? Compared to MY mom, you’re still a social butterfly! You go to bells at least once a week, you go to church things, you take the kids to piano lessons and school things, you go to book club.” Oh, that’s right. I guess I do.

And should we get to the paranoid part? My nephew was recently hospitalized for gall stones, but when they were in there to remove his gall bladder, they found out that he had pancreatitis, and it’s changed his life forever. He’s been on a feeding tube for almost two months, can’t eat solid food, and now has to manage his insulin. And all this started with heartburn, then stomach pains. Scary. So, when I had heartburn a couple of nights in a row, then had unexplained stomach and back pain, where do my thoughts go? Oh, my gosh, do I have pancreatic inflammation? I went to bed last night with not one heated wheat bag, but two. One for my back and one for my tummy. Paranoid? Maybe. Hypochondriac? Maybe just a little. Concerned citizen? Yes. The good news is, I don’t feel any of that pain this morning. Maybe that ‘strenuous’ 30 minutes on the treadmill pulled something. Maybe it was something I ate that was giving me gas. Who knows. If it comes back, though, I’m calling the doctor.

So, for today, I will just stay home and enjoy my day at home. I do have about 100 pages of my book club book to read, so I’d better work on that.