The Week America Ran Out of Toilet Paper

I am not doing well. And not because I can’t buy toilet paper. I have plenty, and thank goodness I do, because America really does seem to be out of toilet paper right now. Not a package to be found, not at Costco or Schnucks or Walmart or Home Depot or even on Amazon.

Disclaimer:  This is not my usual “Dancing in the Rain” kind of post.

In the past, I always tried to keep the things I share here as happy and positive as possible, even when I was not feeling particularly happy or positive. That was the whole point when I started this blog almost 11 years ago. (Wow, it’s hard to believe it has been that long). Even though I haven’t written anything here for over two years, I do come and read what I have written in the past from time to time. It always makes me feel better when I do. And it makes me miss it, too.

I have done a considerable amount of writing and journaling over the past year. At times, I have wished I was posting it all, but I didn’t let myself because I have felt especially vulnerable and protective of myself this past year and only shared with a few people what was going on in my life. 

Now feels different. Now, I feel driven to write about and document this troublesome and scary time we are living through.

I am not doing well because the anxiety I have poured my mind, heart and focus into dealing with for the past year is sky high right now. Outer space high. The worst it has been in many months. I cannot stop thinking of all the “what ifs?”

*What are my kid’s lives going to be like when this is over?

*What if Share runs out of money?

*What if Tony can’t work? What if his company, a small business, can’t survive this?

*What if one of us gets this virus? What if all of us do?? What if my loved ones do?

*What if Brandon, who lives so far away, gets sick and is all alone?

*What if my parents and Tony’s mom, who all are already in poor health and have all the risk factors, get sick and die?

*What if this goes on for months?

*What if we run out of food and don’t have the money to buy more?

*What if we can’t make our house payment?

*What if the country ends up worse than during the Great Depression?

UGH. All the what ifs are getting to me.

I know, I know, I tell myself all the time, “Rose, take one day at a time. Do not think so far ahead.”

But I am finding it so very difficult to do that. I find myself on the verge of a panic attack at least once each day. My chest often feels heavy. I have hives somewhere on my body every day. I have a hard time concentrating, even to read a book. I can’t go out for walks because it has been raining every day and I don’t want to go to the gym.

Realistically, even when I am not in panic attack mode, I wonder, how can an entire country, the entire WORLD, survive with every business completely shut down for possibly months. I wonder how we will ever be able to recover from this. And what will happen if we can’t?

While my anxiety is sky high, my concentration is lower than low. I’ve been working from home all week, and while I have always joked that I would love to have a work from home job, turns out it is harder than I thought it would be. When I work a day here and there from home, I always feel so productive. While I have gotten a great deal accomplished this week, I have not enjoyed working from home like I thought I would. Maybe that is because I must work from home, I don’t know. But I realized yesterday that I really miss my coworkers. We have a lot of fun at work, even though our jobs can be sad and stressful and heavy. We laugh a lot and enjoy each other’s company, and I miss that. And it has only been a week. Not even a full week yet. And who knows how long we have left.

I have so many things I could be doing during my down time at home, yet I can’t find the gumption to do any of it. It takes a real effort for me to even calm down and read, which is so unlike me. Reading is typically my escape from reality.

This first week of people taking the Covid-19 virus seriously has been challenging; all the doom and gloom this week is getting to me in a huge way. I have plenty of food, yet when I go to the stores and see all the empty shelves, it makes me feel panicky. I suppose this must be how those who live in hurricane zones and blizzards must feel when a big storm is heading their way, but I have never seen anything like this before.

*I have never seen grocery stores where you can’t buy a box of pasta or a gallon of milk or a carton of eggs. Or toilet paper. Or a chicken when you really want to make a big pot of chicken soup.

*I have never wondered how long 31 ½ rolls of toilet paper will last. I’ve never before counted how many rolls of toilet paper I have. 


This is what the store shelves looked like yesterday:

*I have never wondered if I have enough Clorox wipes or Kleenex or laundry soap. 

It is all surreal. I am trying to give myself grace because this settling in period is likely hard for everyone, not just me. I want to give myself grace for struggling this week, but I don’t want to let myself stay and wallow in this place, either. I know I need to get my shit together. I have forced myself to take a bit of time each day to turn off the television and sit outside, even if it is cold and raining and I have to wrap up in a blanket. I spent last night and this morning coming up with a few ideas for ways to make this time as easy on myself and my family as I can.

In the meantime, I am going to be happy that I haven’t put on a bra since Sunday. There is always a silver lining.

Merry Grinch-Mas!

I have such a lot I can write about this Christmas season, but that title up there is a good summation of it. Don’t gasp in horror at what I am about to say because I am going to be brutally honest. This is not starting out to be a “dance in the rain” kind of post, but it will turn into one, I promise.

Here goes…

Deep in my heart, I am sort of a Grinch. 

Okay, I'll try again, because brutally honest that was NOT.

I’m not “sort of” a Grinch.

I AM a Grinch.

I do know why I feel Grinchy this time of year, but that is not the point of this post. Don’t get me wrong, I typically go all out to give my kids and everyone else a fun Christmas, and no one here in the Carlson house has any idea of the Grinchy-ness that settles over me like a cold mound of dirty, wet snow before it is even Thanksgiving.  

Every single Christmas season, I dig deep into my Santa bag of tricks and do whatever I possibly can to transform 4040 CC Drive into a winter wonderland of decked out halls and everything jolly. I string lights and greenery and bows. I bedeck the tree with every ornament I have bought for the kids in 27 years along with every goofy ornament they ever created in elementary school. I untangle thousands (or what seems like thousands) of strands of messed up, knotted up, tangled up lights (thanks to the way my husband packs them away), and I weave them through fake green garlands on my staircase and around door frames and mirrors. I wrap them around bushes with frozen fingers while Christmas music blasts from the boom box plugged in on the porch. I ignore my fear of heights and climb onto the roof to hang wreaths tied with big red velvet bows to the windows of my house on giant suction cups.

 I listen to Christmas music on my way to work and watch oodles of cheesy Hallmark movies. I always look for ways to do a few kind acts. I brave the checkout lines at Walmart multiple times to replace burned out strands of lights. I spend more money than I even really know stocking up on butter and sugar and baking chips and Chex cereal and so many other necessities so that I can whip up everyone’s favorite treats.

I don’t ever want my Grinchy self to dampen anyone else’s holiday spirit, so I do fa la la la la la to the maximum. I exhaust myself trying to make Christmas magic. And it usually works. I may force myself to decorate and have myself a merry little Christmas, but once I am finished, the warmth of glowing lights do eventually end up bringing Christmas cheer to my heart.

This season, I was feeling especially gloomy and Grinchy. I’ve had a difficult year with my job and a few other things, and I really gave some thought to only putting up the tree and stockings and not unpacking any other decorations. I just did not have the energy to do anything more. I changed my mind when I thought about the kids all coming home; I know there will soon be a time when they won’t all be able to be here for Christmas, so I decided to put my grouchy-ness aside and at least pretend that I was feeling some Christmas joy. I thought about my kids sometime in the future saying, “Remember that year that mom was a crab and didn’t decorate?” I even did something I’ve not done before—I decorated before Thanksgiving since we were going to be away for Thanksgiving weekend. But, my heart wasn’t really in it, and I wasn’t very successful at shaking off my surly mood like I typically am. Sadly, the Grinchy feelings lingered on. 

One weekend morning three weeks before Christmas, something I saw on Pinterest inspired me, and I decided to embrace my inner furry green guy and have a Grinch-theme dinner on Christmas Eve. Within an hour, I had an entire Grinch party planned. After talking it over with the kids and finding out their work schedules, I set a date of Thursday the 21^st for our Grinch themed dinner. As I dealt with all the craziness that my job is in December, planning this Grinch dinner became the highlight of my days. I spent much of my spare time searching for new ideas on Pinterest, and I am pretty sure my co workers grew tired of hearing me talking about it and showing them photos of what I found.

But, planning this crazy party kept me going, lifted my spirits, and grew my heart. Then, two weeks before Christmas, we got some awful and upsetting financial news, and I wanted to scrap the whole thing. I wondered how I could keep planning a fun party, and I truly felt like the Grinch, more than ever. I wanted to rip down my decorations, stuff them back into their boxes and bags and tell the kids, “NO presents this year!” I wanted to cry boo hoo and cancel Christmas.

But, I didn’t.

I kept on planning my shindig. Because what better time to plan a Grinch party than when you are feeling super-duper sour and growly??

I had a vacation day the second week in December, and I spent it shopping for everything I needed for our Grinch feast at the grocery store. I went to Michael's and Joann’s and bought supplies to decorate and make photo props. I named the food and made little table tents using Grinch digital clip art I purchased from an Etsy shop. The kids arrived home from college, and they were excited about our Grinch party. I was too. I finally started to feel the niggling beginnings of Christmas spirit, even if it was inspired by my gloomy grouchy mood. 

As if I wasn’t dealing with enough already, the weekend before Christmas, I started coughing my lungs out. I plowed on, went to work for two days, felt like total crap and finally, I went to the doctor and was diagnosed with bronchitis two days before my Grinch party. That night, Justin asked me if I was going to cancel the Grinch party, and I told him, “Hell, NO!” By that point, the only way I would have cancelled it would be if I were dead or in the hospital because that is how much I was looking forward to it. 

Thankfully, (and completely unlike me!) for once, I had been extremely organized, and most everything was finished except the actual making of the food. 

Thankfully, the only Grinch party guests were my husband, kids and Justin’s girlfriend, so it was easier to pull off than it would have been if it had been a real party with a bunch of people. It meant I didn’t have to worry about the messy state of my house. 

And thankfully, the day of the Grinch dinner, I was feeling pretty good. 

The party was a huge success. The kids were all impressed, and to be honest, I was pretty darn impressed with myself for pulling it off. We ate a bunch of delicious food with names like Who Hash, Roast Beast, Garlic in Your Soul Rolls and Grinch Nipples. I made red and green striped Jello shots for the kids. After dinner, we watched the Jim Carey version of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” (I wanted to watch the original version I loved as a kid, but the Jim Carey movie was free on Netflix).

I’m thrilled it was a hit, and I am already planning for a bigger and better party next year. I am pretty sure a Grinch party will be our new treasured family tradition. Everyone that I told about it and shared photos with afterwards told me they want to be invited next year. 😊

Now comes a dump of a bunch of photos from our Grinch-mas party. 

This silly party truly saved my Christmas this year, and I realized something important that night after everyone was in bed. The mess was cleaned up, and I was unwinding in the quiet of my house, the only lights coming from the Christmas tree. In a crazy season of high expectations for perfection and happiness, I was reminded that it really is the simple things after all that make Christmas, or any other time of the year, joyous and fun. Did focusing on my Grinch celebration make the crappy things I have been dealing with go away? No! It most definitely did not. 

Was it worth the effort it took for me to force myself to make the best of life as it is at this very moment? Yes! 

This Christmas season was not what I expected back in November when I had to force myself to haul the boxes of decorations out of the basement. I ended up feeling an abundance of Christmas spirit and joy when I was expecting to feel nothing even close to that. 

 I’m glad that on that Sunday morning a few weeks ago that I decided that instead of fighting my inner Grinch, I would embrace him. And now that it is time to take the lights and garland and bows down and pack them away for another year, I know that I am going to miss them when they are gone.

And I know I am really going to miss this guy.