I'm finding it hard to do much today...part of me wants to get outside and sort out my vegetable beds in the garden ready for my potatoes that are chitting, early sowings of carrots and possibly a row of cauliflowers; but the other part wants to stay in and tidy my house. The kitchen and dining room especially, as these are the rooms that suffer most from 'I'll just put it there for now' syndrome.
The trouble is that although outside the sun is shining, it is very blustery and so is interspaced with sudden very cold grey moments, and as I'm feeling a little fragile today (possibly keeping a sickness bug at bay) it isn't really happening.
But neither is the tidying! The trouble there is it just seems such a gargantuous task (is that a word?) and I know full well that even if I do achieve something anywhere near tidy, it will only take a couple of days to return to it's untidy state.
So what am I doing instead? As Big Mamma Frog would put it, a displacement activity. I'm reading other peoples blogs and wondering if others suffer from the same affliction.
I mean, how come there is a whole heap of William's clothes on a chair by the computer desk? Just the worn once kind of pile. But no matter how many times I pick it up, I just can't seem to decide what to do with them!!!
And the floors need washing, desperately, but the demoralisation I experience when one of the boys walks in the door in his muddy shoes and leaves muddy marks where he has taken them off, just doesn't inspire me to get up and fetch the mop.
Ho hum.
There is a plastic, small animal carrier ON my kitchen table that was returned, I think by our HE friends about a month ago...and it is still there!!!!! Where does it live? I have no idea!!! Maybe in the loft? In the outside store? The workshop? The thing is, it has never really had a home, proper. It kind of just gets moved from one place to another but had remained in use for the best part of last summer for one reason or another. And now, it just sits there looking sorry for itself...on MY kitchen table!!!
OK, so by now, you are all thinking that I have lost the plot completely...why am I worrying about such silly trivial things? Why don't I just get up and sort them out?
Well, it is just such a mammoth task that I don't feel that any one of these things will make a big difference to the grand scheme of things, and that while I type this the boys are all occupied happily in various activities, but you can bet your bottom dollar that as soon as I make a start, they will all suddenly appear wanting food or such like and I will have to stop mid flow.
Why is that?
Is it like the law that says toast always falls butter side down? Or the one that makes it rain as soon as you leave the house and have left your washing on the line? Or the one where you remember that you have forgotten something as soon as you are too far away from the house to go back to fetch it?
Ho hum.
I have made bread today, and hung out three loads of washing, cleaned the quails out and chatted to the chickens. But that is everyday stuff that I can do with my eyes shut...its just the bigger tasks that I can't manage!!
And another one...why is it colder in my dinig room than it is outside?!!!!!
Todays weather seems to mirror my state of mind...grey and windy with sunny spells!!!
May you all have a safe and Happy Christmas
3 weeks ago
4 comments:
Urgh... I too suffer from "I'll-just-put-it-there-for-now" syndrome. You have my sympathies...
Apparently my Grandmother (who had 4 children of her own, adopted 2 and had HUNDREDS of foster children) used to say that as long as you manage to make your bed in the morning, everything else is OKAY. Or words to that effect. I can't imagine Grandma using the word Okay.
Oh, and the reason toast always seems to fall butter side down, is that it only has a chance to do a half turn in the distance from your plate to the floor... and we tend to have it butter up on the plate... now if we put it butter down on the plate... or we were all 7-8ft tall.... it would be a different matter :D
You're doing a great job dude... Try this for making you feel better -- Write a list of everything you do in the day. I did this the other day and it was incredible what I had accomplished by 10am and not even realised I'd done much. It's like when someone asks you "What have you been up to?" and you physically can't remember, you know you've done *something* but you can't remember what.
I've also started making goals for the day the night before (if I try to do it in the morning it doesn't work as my poor brain doesn't want to think) and as long as I get that ONE thing (sometimes 2) done, everything else can wait. Yes, my kitchen is a mess, and there's junk upstairs waiting to be sorted so we can actually have some sort of a family room, but it WILL get sorted at some point, when it becomes high enough of a priority. First things first.
And I completely understand the frustration of starting a job only to be asked (or screamed at) by a child to do something for them. It sucks.
You won't find how I was feeling last night on my blog... it's not something I'd generally share to the world in general... but just know you're not alone. To every thing there is a time and a season.
Right. I'm going to post this, then sit and read it again, and try to take in my own advice. Ha.
Love you dude!
My mood is similar, so I have completed ignored the house, apart from putting the washing out, and spent most of the morning writing while Stu and the kids are out. And eaten a whole packet of mini-eggs accidentally. Oops.
Thank you, Han.You always seem to know the right thing to say.
Maybe I should write down lists of what I have actually done instead of just reeling them off to a seemingly deaf audience when I'm having a stressy moment!
And Liz, if I had a bag of mini eggs, I would eat the whole lot too!!! Except I am on a mission to lose some weight...I have gained a stone since spraining my ankle last June and feeling very sorry for myself. It wouldn't be so bad if I hadn't already been more than a stone over before that!!!!
But I think some small chocolate treat is in order today!
Yep, can relate to everything you've said in your post. Got the t-shirt, in fact got several, probably all those ones in the wash basket right now lol. Sometimes things seem so insurmountable that even starting them is daunting, isn't it? I once read a v.good book (so good I can't remember the name of it ha ha) which suggested tackling one *small* thing every day, e.g. clearing one shelf, tidying one corner etc. I like to think of home ed in the same terms; ie. I try and do one 'thing' with the kids each day - mostly it's something small - but a week of small things adds up, doesn't it? There was also another book I read, that said instead of thinking in terms of 'I have to' or 'I ought to' or 'I should' , reframe it in your mind as 'I wish to' or 'I choose to'. By reframing everything as something you 'choose to do' then you can let go of some of the reluctance and resentment about these apparently huge tasks. If you choose not to do it, then it just means you choose to accept the consequences of not doing it IYKWIM. Ok, easier said than done, but I've found that bit of advice really helps; I have a habit of grinding my teeth through the daily chores feeling like some hard-done-by martyr and growling at everyone around me! However if I'm making a choice to do the chores, or choosing to accept the consequences of not doing them, then it somehow becomes more manageable...Anyway, I'm rambling now.
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