I’m not even sure where to start. The end of July blew up my world and August was less about putting it back together than just trying to tread water and doing it unsuccessfully. September? Hmm… I’m so far behind that I just can’t tell.
So, let’s start with where I am. Currently, there’s about 300 square feet of hardwood floors piled up in my dining room and another 200 square feet of shiplap in my television room. The garden is slowly getting away from me. The yard got away from me last week when Mother Nature decided to provide ample sun and rain to let it just grow wild again. I’m behind on my canning; I’ve still got two work trips in the next five weeks; and I’m doing a load of laundry at 6 p.m. (which means it will go into the dryer and not be hung out) because it’s either that or stop wearing underwear for a few days. Yes, that’s oversharing and yes, that’s true.
But how? I ask myself. For goodness’ sake, I work part-time from home. How did it get totally out of control? Oh, there are many answers. We had a serious family health issue, I travelled twice in August, we both ended up getting Covid, I’ve been working more than just part-time, the end of the planting season has brought more rain than usual… . The explanations are plentiful but it doesn’t stop me from feeling like a failure.
Last weekend, I started the weekend with 18 items on my to-do list. Seven got done, one got cancelled (for lack of interest) and 10 – 10! – got bumped. So what happened this weekend? I started the list a little more modestly with just 17 items. The 10 carryovers and seven new items. This was a better week: 10 got done – including nearly all of last week’s. But you get the picture, right? It’s like all week long, the water of work slowly rises until it’s up to my chin. Then the weekend comes and I work my backside off to get the water down to thigh-high. Then the next week’s tide rolls in.
It’s times like these when the negative self-talk creeps in. I should be doing more. I’m not making enough progress. I’ve got to manage my days better so I’m not working all day and not getting anything done at home. How can I do this better? I’m failing.
But today, I made a conscious decision to stop the negative self-talk. August was a flat out disaster. We survived it; we’re lucky and life is slowly returning to normal. But, we had mountains to move before August blew up and while we’re making progress, there is no way we could ever expect to be where I wanted to be in mid-September. That’s that. It’s not some personal failure of mine; it’s the game we were in.
And I will make progress. Candidly, just getting rid of packing boxes now that we have our new bedframe, mattress, pillows, and spin trimmer (how’s that for a random addition) are unpacked will get rid of a lot of the “noise” downstairs. The leftover white trim boards can go to the basement tomorrow and while I can’t magically lay the floors upstairs in a few days, we will make progress on those this weekend. Next up? I’ll do some canning this weekend with a friend as well and get another batch off my plate. And sometime over the next few days, I’ll make time to mow. Then, I’ll travel again. When I get back, I’ll likely need to mow again. But at that point, I just may have my – ahem – stuff together.
That’s the message here. Not that life won’t throw me curveballs or get out of control again. Not that I won’t find myself in shoulder-deep water and a little bit afraid of drowning. Instead, it’s practicing that relentless incrementalism that I’ve become so fond of to get myself out of the hole. Yesterday, my goal was to pick up 100 things and I did that (items in the dishwasher account for about 40 things). Today, it was about 25 and that’s done, too. Laundry is in and there is a pork roast with mashed potatoes and corn on the cob for dinner tonight. Tomatoes are squeezed and frozen. We ARE making progress. Would I want my mother to see my house right now? Good Lord, no! but, we will fight our way out of this mess and get it back together. Hopefully, in time for me to enjoy a little fall season.
The Yuppie Homesteader 