Pacing yourself?

[Kay/NC]

Stopped for an early lunch after TKD this morning. I took off a week to let my knees rest, after training up to the recent test.

We had a very disparate group of students show up today...young adult and teenaged ones with some hogher ranks, and five tiny, new white belts. I offered to take the little ones to the rear mat, and work on their form and some basics, so the others could rock and roll. It was a good way to get moving again, and several of the parents and grandparents thanked me or taking time with them.

I actually think it is good to go back to the very basics of sonething every once in a while, especially when I might be tempted to think that I am all that and a bagof chips, as the kids say. This was the first time for tying on the new belt, so maybe a good time to be reminded.

While I was having my salad, a lady at the next table struck up a conversation. We got joking about having to pace ourselves...she had started back to college this winter, gotten very sick, and had to drop out. We had a good talk, about not just taking enough time to make our moves these days, but in stuff like lifting less weighty objects, hiring people where we needed to, etc. it reminded me of our "feed sack" discussion here a while back.

I drove on from town to Jenna's, to check on progress on the bathroom remodel, and to water and weed. Grabbed a half-dozen Veronica at Lowe's, for a bed that still has plenty of room in it, and have been dragging a water nozzle and hoe for a couple of hours. Time for a tall, cool tea, and a handful of dried fruit.

I did weeding in three beds today. Had done some Thursday, so am about halfay for this pass. Of course, we grab a handful of grass or a pushy pokeberry plant henever we see one; but, every bed needs a thorough going-over every so often. I expect to be back in a few days, and to get the rest then, or the trip after.

This was what we agreed on today, in our chat...when I was thirty-something, or even forty-something, I would not or could not stop a chore like this partway. It was all or nothing.

Now, doing three or four parts, and leaving three for next time seems like giving myself something to look forward to another day. I guess it is like switchng from a sprinter's mindset to a marathon runner's one. If not done today, there's always tomorrow....

As you mature, do you find yourself more patient with yourself?

.

[turkey feather]

I am not sure that is the word I would use. I think it is a lowering of the expectations. I just cannot do all that I want to do. DH has not accepted that yet and still over does when gets going while stop when I not I should stop.

[Suey73]

One way to lessen your list of things to do... is to just decide it doesn't need to be done.  

The list of things that are broken next door is growing.   Thursday afternoon the power was out so we hooked up the PTO generator and settled in next door.   Supper time so I knew there was frozen pizza that needed to be eaten.   Tried to preheat the oven and NOTHING!  The top worked.   But it seemed like the oven was getting no gas.   DH  turned off the gas to whole range.   Family is due to visit in July.   I want an electric range when we remodel.   So,  we will call a repairman to check out the dishwasher and range.   Just need temporary repairs for up to 20 people visiting.     In the past month the unoccupied house has:  broken dishwasher,  broken range and tiles coming loose in the kitchen ceiling.    Need to get family here so we can empty this house and get started.   Neighbor lost the shed that held his combine when the power went out.   We'd be fine if a wind would just take that old house.  

Pacing... I now pace myself when Powerwashing.   About 1 1/2 hours at a time is all I want to do.   Arms and hands need a rest. 

Time to quit pacing myself with housework.  Those dirty dishes are calling, before leaving for church. 

[Kay/NC]

Suey, the pressure washing is tough on anyone, much less someone with arthritis.  Our employee who does that has given notice, and everyone is scrambling to find a replacement for him. 

First interview was a no-go, second referral a dead end.  Third lead is supposed to show up to interview tomorrow.  I am hoping he is a keeper. 

We still have a couple of weeks; but, Mike is just irritable as Hades, and will be, until we get someone in and they work out.  We do have a fourth possiblility in mind, but it is a longshot, with some potential issues of maturity to me.   

I tell Mike I would sometimes rather wash the buildings myself, but NO ONE wants to do the vaccinating.  That chore is right now one shot per pig, has been as many as three (which is well over a quarter million shots per year here...can you say "carpal tunnel"?)

I know how you feel about that other house.  We have one rental we wish would blow away, too...that one just across the yard from Jenna's.   It earns nine grand a year, or I would have already dozed it down...and still might. 

Actually, I have thought it could stand as a guest house for us; but, I don't  want to have a third house to keep up...with this office it is really like four.  (In fact, I am hoping the new hire comes with a good housekeeping wife...I am about stove in with this crowd trashing this place with dirty boots and neverending crud.) 

Mike's mom had planted a row of spirea, as a screen between her and her in-laws, I am sure.  Somewhere along the way in the past dozen or so years, they got destroyed...I am considering a row of something in the edge of the other yard, since mine there is full enough for now.  I am thinking Weeping Willows, which grow faster than most trees. 

Honestly, will the extended family really come and stay, with your MIL in a retirement home now?  Is it worth the trouble and expense?  I have found that when you start on a house, a whole list of immediate needs arises.  After that, the second round starts...making it meet your family's sensibilities.  It is a kind of vicious cycle...fix one thing, everything else looks bad beside it....

We could have turned out rentals in a lot worse shape than we rehabbed to; but, that was not up to our standards.  I could live in any one of our properties, and have lived in far worse, as you can see below. 

I have promised to scan a couple of photos of our house, as we found it in 1994.  Finally got these two done today...a shot of the west side (that green "lawn" is poison ivy), and the front, after the thicket that had swallowed it up had been cleared.  This is the GOOD end of the house....

It takes a lot of imagination to see a home in a pile of sticks like this one was.  Mike gets that credit (or blame).  I know you are starting with a home, not a wreck like this one...and, ours does look a LOT better now. 

If you ever find yourself playing that Pistol Annies song, "I"ve been thinking about setting this house on fire...", step away from the gas can and matches, and have a drink of something calming. 

 

[turkey feather]

You really turned that into a home? Maybe we can fix up the rental. At least the outside is okay. Nothing new there, paid up until the 3rd.

You are one tough lady I know but to agree to move into that house?

[turkey feather]

I forgot for a moment what this house looked like when we moved in. It needed lots of work and repairs and a total make over. It can be done. I just don't have photos.

[lawinkle]

Is this the home you live in now?  Or one of the rentals?  I think I missed something.

[Kay/NC]

This is the house we live in here in NC.  The photos are from about October 1994, right after we closed on the place in mid-September of that year. 

We had agreed that it was going to be the hog farm office; and, as that,.  we only needed a bathroom, small kitchen, laundry and a place to crash for a nap and do some paperwork, or so we thought.  The rear wing provided enough rooms and divisions for that , essentially.  In spring of 1995, the girls agreed to move here with us, and the real residential fixing up began. 

Our skills are only so good, so it has never gotten but so fancy.  Picture leaving a modern 4-bedroom, three bathroom brick rancher, with many amenities, to move in here. When I say we were dragging it from Mother Nature's grip, I mean that literally. 

One story about this era of our family's history will tell you a lot about Jenna.  At age 12, she figured out how to build a staircase in the house, so we could steal a couple of small bedrooms and our only closet out of the attic of the front section of the house.  I never once heard that this house embarrased our girls. 

We had been paying an elderly lady to come and meet the kids off the bus during the year we built the farm.  She cooked supper for all of us at home in Virginia, and stayed with them until I could get back from Carolina, 80 miles away.  

When we mentioned either continuing to do that, or relocating them here for their eighth and tenth grade years on out, respectively, Jenna's response was, "Well, we either have to leave behind our friends, or not see you very much.  I make new friends easily, but I only have one Mama and Daddy...." 

That was that.  She came here as a total outsider in a very clique-ish small private academy in eighth grade, and graduated as senior class president and student government president, in the same year, five years later.  

[Kay/NC]

Honestly, we had to have photos, becasue no one would believe what we started with otherwise.  On top of this move, Mike gave up his railroad career of 23 years, which had the best union benefits package in America, to help me run this place. 

We were nuts, but it has worked out....

[Kay/NC]

...the "and I borrowed a million dollars, to buy the land and build the farm" part.  Truly nuts....