By morning, I have come to my senses and realize I can only do about twenty things on my list and am raring to go. I grab my scribbled note and notice it is just that--a scribble. I can comprehend about three things off of it and vaguely remember one other. So I have four things to do. Not bad really, for a Domestic Goddess.
Note on the name: My hubby, Rick, has always given me pet names in the 21+ years we have been married. He loves me and builds up my ego. Thanks, dear! To him, I am his Goddess. When I become a stay-at-home-mom, he just added Domestic to the front of that. At one time, he even slipped it into the signature line of my email page, and I didn't notice it until about a week after sending out many emails to friends and colleagues. Most embarrassing. There was once he even found me a pair of pj's with the name printed on the front. I guess I am not the only Domestic Goddess in the world.
Anyway, back to the story: I start off doing the normal household jobs any D.G. does during the day. Immediately, my energy goes from 100% to 60%. That is even with following my rule of You Can Do Anything in 15 Minutes. So my list of four items becomes a list of two.
I decide to start on the most important one. Energy goes from 60-0 in no time flat. Kind of like they say a car goes from 0 to 60 in no time flat. Just backwards for me.
Let me give you some examples of past projects:
Gardening--
Go buy all the plants, come home, put them in the right rows (which I know I shouldn't be done right away but I want to), water them so they don't go into shock, label them all so they look neat, cage the tomatoes, put away all the tools you took out, clean up any other mess including yourself, and walk happily back into the house proud of yourself because you have been self-sufficient and will have fresh produce in the fall.
Reality:
1st scenario--
Day 1--Buy Plants, fighting crowds at nursery and through town. Drag yourself home, barely get plants out of hot car before they die. Trip over eager dog coming into the house. Crash and burn in A/C house.
Day 2--Get up at 6 am to beat heat. Go out to garden to find son didn't build rows so you could plant your plants. Drag self back into house after watering plants so they don't die in heat. Trip over dog as he runs out of the house thinking you want to play. Lay low in A/C house for rest of day stewing because project not getting done.
Day 3--Get up at 7 am to work in the now warming up day. Dog follows you out of the house this time. Plant half your plants in the rows your son angrily made. Label half. Crawl back to house because it got too hot. Done in for rest of the day. Nothing else gets done. Dog whines because you can't play. Husband and son finish up rest of garden.
Day 4--Get up at 6:30 am and go out and fix the garden because it is not perfect and make men of the house angry because you fixed their job.
Another scenario--
Later in the gardening season--
Weeds are out of control and I ignore my 15 min advice. I decide to spend 30 minutes out there. Feeling great and it is a cool morning. BUT when I see a weed, it leads to another weed and so forth. So about an hour later, I realize I am done in and have no strength left to get back to the house. And no one is home. So I just sit there among my tomatoes and wait for my legs to start working again. The dog, hoping I will play, is prancing back and forth. About 30-40 minutes of watching spiders and ants and drawing designs in the soil, I am able to pull myself up on my cane and hobble back to the house. The dog, excited, is weaving around me trying to make me fall and break a leg.
Ok, those are ideas I am able to finish--sort of. But there are great ideas I am not able to finish like the refinishing the upstairs bathroom or pruning the apple tree my husband or son have had to finish up. There are craft projects in my sewing room undone--not because of lack of energy but because of loss of other things-- hand or eye coordination to name a few.
But with all the frustrations with this disease and all the projects I dream up and leave for others, I do keep plugging away. If I stop, my brain and body will stop. I can't let it happen. I have seen what happens to those that give up. As long as there are tomatoes to plant and weed, walls that need to be torn down and refinished, or a new afghan to be crocheted, I will keep trying to find a way around my MS to do it.
A Poinsettia Tree Skirt--started by me but finished by my dear friend Edel Erickson. When she found out I couldn't finish it because of my hands, she offered to do it for me. I did 15 of the red poinsettias and 4 of the white squares. What a great friend! Thanks, Edel! I get to use it this year under my tree.
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