Keeping busy

With this, the first week of Shane's new job and all of the long, lonely evenings, I did my best to keep busy. My friends helped out a lot, knowing that I'd need something. Monday night we had our final vet visit for the eye problem (at least, for now), and since I didn't have a vehicle Fiona (the vet's daughter and my next-door neighbor) gave us a lift. After the appointment I visited with her family for a bit (her parents are going to Peru for several weeks) and we got to catch up. It was lovely.
I also had my first softball game of the summer that night. Yes, I have a face mask this year! I told the team captain that I wouldn't be playing catcher without a mask and he pulled one out of the bag. Apparently, he didn't want any more hospital trips this summer either. :) It's going to take a lot of getting used to, because as it is I can't see anything down low, like my glove or the ball when I'm trying to catch it. I joked that I'm having to try to catch by echolocation. Good thing there's no stealing in coed softball!
Tuesday the dog and I jogged over to J&L's house to go for a walk with L and the baby, who were leaving on Thursday for Seattle and Oregon. When I saw them, Baby had been super fussy that day and was driving her dad nuts when I showed up. He was trying to strap her into the jogger but she was leaning forward, grunting, refusing to let him actually snap the harness. He finally gave up in exasperation. (I've met stronger-willed babies before, but she's near the top of that list. That kid is stubborn!) Thankfully, when the walk started, she was so charmed by having the dog along that she forgot to be cranky for a while. She was watching the dog and just giggling for about five minutes. It was awesome. She got fussy again by the end of the walk, though. Poor baby. Sounds like she might be teething again or something. :(
Wednesday Fiona came over for dinner. I just made spaghetti, nothing fancy. But it was fun to share a meal with her, and to be able to say "thank you" for having such a great friend.
I thought that with Shane gone so much I'd have lots of free time to fill with reading, "Mad Men" (which Shane finds "boring"), sewing, knitting, crocheting, gardening, and exercise. But no. I'm sure I probably will as the summer goes on and I get into more of a routine, but it was nice to stay busy this week. Also, it's amazing how much of an evening an hour or so on Skype takes up. (Yes, it works!...sort of.) We've been on there pretty much every evening, saying hi. We have to type, but we do have video. I showed him the pets, so he was able to see how they're doing. He said, "What a lazy household!" as I swept the webcam around so he could see our lounging pets.
There are some really, really good parts to Shane's new job and some really, really bad parts. Oh, the bad parts are not about the job itself. That sounds pretty great. He likes the people he works with, and the job itself is pretty much what he'd been hoping for. They've even been talking about training him to advance within the company. Shane's excited about the prospect of having not just a job, but a career. It's hard for me because I don't want to get in the way of that, but I also don't want a two on/one off or even two on/two off schedule forever. What about when we have kids? I imagine that would be rough when they're little. So there are plenty of future unknowns that we'll have to work out at some point.
The good thing is that we're going to be saving a lot of money on household bills. Shane's fed at the work site, and I'll probably be eating cheaper foods (hello, lentils!) while he's gone, since they're easier to make for just one person. Also, electricity. I'll use far less of it than we do together, and I tend to use less than Shane does anyway.
The thing I don't really like is what they're feeding him up there. The water is fine for showering, according to the company, but has concentrations of lead and arsenic which make it undrinkable. So it's all bottled waters, Vitamin Water, and soda. (Alcohol at camp means immediate firing, so he can't even bring up a bottle or two of his beer.) Packaged foods, like granola and energy bars, candy bars, etc, are laid out all the time for people to take at will. (For a snacker like Shane, that can be a horrible thing.) And everything else has meat in it. He was actually happy last night to eat some of the leftover (vegetarian) marinara sauce, which normally he doesn't like, because he was feeling a little bit of meat overload. The coffee they're serving is not, of course, cold-pressed so it's been bothering his stomach a bit.
The amount of trash produced between the two of us is going to go way up, even with my trash amount going way down. *Sigh* Shane can't ride his motorcycle up there (the roads are too awful) so for now it'll be more gasoline. (He's going to find a carpool soon.) I did expect some big changes, and some things that I wouldn't like. But being confronted with the reality of them is totally different. Now I'm putting my mind toward thinking of how else I can change things to make up for these new not-so-good changes. Any ideas?
Shane will be gone too much this summer to be able to play softball, but after he got home last night we went to go watch the second game. I love watching them play, it's always fun and funny. Another of our friends had to quit the team because he got a job in New York state for the summer, so he'll be leaving just before Shane gets home next time. It was nice to chat with him and make plans to hang out this weekend. The guys lost their game (10-11), but it was a great game to watch.
This weekend is going to be such a whirlwind of activity that I might actually enjoy the peace and quiet after Shane leaves on Monday. :)