Weekly recap: 1/7/2019

Welcome to 2019!!!

Boy, that holiday season flew by so fast. I think I say that every year, but this year it seemed particularly true, what with my daughter and I being sick from basically right after Thanksgiving until right before Christmas. Feeling so crummy left little time to prepare (we were still gathering the last gifts on the 23rd, which is SO not like me), but we managed, and we had some really lovely times with family. That's what counts right?

So here's what I've been up to this week!


MONDAY

New Year's Eve! We never have any plans to go out- I think I've been to one single New Year's Eve party in my entire life- so I was looking forward to a relaxing day at home.

In the morning, my husband and daughter and I ran to the grocery store, where we purchased a bunch of stuff for my husband to make sushi. He usually does this once or twice a year or so, and it's always delicious. My daughter really enjoyed helping him make it this year, and her squeals of delight coming from the kitchen were adorable (she's SUCH a Papa's girl!). I tidied the kitchen when we got home so that my husband would have plenty of workspace, swept the living room floor, did my basement chores of cleaning the litterbox and refilling our Air Washer, and put away two loads of laundry that had been hanging out downstairs, waiting for me to get around to it.

And then it was time to say goodbye to the Christmas tree.

I love having our tree up. It's so cheerful and the lights make me so happy (and provided for a great nightlight when my daughter and I slept downstairs when she was sick), but I do enjoy a calm living room, and thus it was time. My daughter started taking down ornaments from the bottom, I began at the top, and we met at the highest space a four year-old's hand can reach. ;)

Until next year, ornaments!!!

After the tree and accompanying ornaments were packed away, I tidied and swept the living room (even fake trees shed!), then dropped my son off at a friend's house for a short New Year's celebration. At home, I cleaned up the remaining mess from my husband's sushi making (he had cleaned up after himself, but I needed a few more things tidied up, you know?). I finished a library book, and when my daughter woke up, she and I snuggled and read Linnea in Monet's Garden. My grandmother had given me a copy of this book, along with a cloth Linnea doll, when I was younger, and I've always loved it. I found a copy of the book at a library book sale last year and grabbed it for my daughter, and today was the first day we got around to reading it. It's as charming as I remember, and it's a great introduction to Monet and art in general for kids. 

I picked my son up when he let me know it was time, and at home, we all watched Pixies (a cartoon movie. It, um, wasn't very good). During the movie, I finally finished the third hat I had been knitting and gave all three to my son, who seemed happy that they were for him- I hadn't had a chance to finish them before Christmas, so they were a late gift. :)

Hurray for leftover yarn that becomes Other Things!

My husband and I watched three episodes of Supernatural (we're on Season 9 now!) before going to bed well before midnight, because we're too old for that. ;)

Daily pain recap: Not a terrible day. I had a strong spasm on my lower right side that persisted throughout the day, and a sharp grinding in my SI joint right before bed. Ouch!)

TUESDAY

In the morning, I unloaded the dishwasher and cleaned the kitchen, swept and tidied the living room (it still looks so empty without the tree!), mopped the living room floor, and did some writing research. After that, my husband and daughter and I took another trip to the grocery store; he had found an old Chinese cookbook he'd bought a long time ago and wanted to make a soup from the back of the book, so he needed just a few things that I didn't have around, like green onions. 

When we returned, I tidied up the kitchen again (with four people at home and limited counterspace, it's a never ending job!), and during my daughter's naptime, I did 41 minutes of yoga (the new fitness tracker watch my mother gave me for Christmas makes it really easy to track just how much I'm doing, which is fantastic!). 

I took my son out to pick up a few late Christmas presents for a friend. It was so nice to spend time with him, just the two of us; he's so busy that it's a rare treat for him to be home these days! At home, we ate the soup my husband and daughter had made (which was delicious!) and watched the My Little Pony movie. I filled and ran the dishwasher before hopping into the shower.

My husband and I watched three episodes of Supernatural before going to bed.

WEDNESDAY

My daughter and I headed out for groceries and WHEW, were the roads icy!!! It wasn't terrible going to our first stop (although the parking lot was icy), but heading to our second stop, we slipped and slid on the road several times, and I was barely able to stop a few times despite going ridiculously slow. I slipped in the parking lot on the way out of the store, but thanks to having a tight grip on the cart, I didn't fall. Going home was a little scary, and I was ridiculously happy to be safe indoors! We didn't need much, and I only spent about $30, mainly on stuff we were absolutely out of, like cheese.

Safe at home, I put away the groceries and weeded out some old stuff from the fridge (mostly my daughter's leftovers), unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher. During naptime, I did 59 minutes of yoga, trying to get the spasmy muscle in my right side to calm down, but it didn't, and by about 3:30, that muscle was putting me in a decent amount of pain. I went to go find the lacrosse ball that I use to help with muscle spasms, which I leave under the piano bench with my other back stuff, only to find it was missing. Having warned my daughter several times in the past to leave it alone, I immediately asked her if she knew where it was. She looked guilty and said, "Oh. Sorry. No, I don't remember where I put it."

Thus began the several hours-long, painful hunt for the ball. I searched all over our downstairs, poked around my daughter's room, checked in the closet. Nothing. We picked my husband up, and he helped to look for it when we got back home. I organized my daughter's room, hoping that it had accidentally gotten tossed somewhere in there; my husband checked the basement to see if the cats had chased it down there. Nothing. We finally just threw our hands up, assuming that our daughter had managed to toss it into another dimension, and I went to take a shower. In the shower, I had an epiphany, and when I got downstairs, I checked one of the few places we hadn't checked: a bag of knitting I hadn't used for a few weeks.

At the bottom of the bag lay the lacrosse ball...along with a Mr. PotatoHead mustache.

Kids, amirite??? The ball did help that muscle spasm a lot. It hurts like CRAZY when I use it, to the point of tears, but at least this time, it helped to disrupt the spasm.

I put dinner away and cleaned up the kitchen, filled and ran the dishwasher, and brought in the trash cans. The husband and I watched three episodes of Supernatural before bed.


THURSDAY

I read my library book during breakfast time, and after I got ready, I did my basement chores, unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, and cleaned the kitchen, including an impromptu spray-down of the disgusting, removable parts of the dishwasher (I just cleaned those in September! How did they get so nasty so fast???). I read a little more of my library book, swept and tidied the living room, and then it was off to our errands- the post office, and Walmart for cat food.

One of the beneficiaries of said cat food. They are SO patient with my daughter.

At home, after lunch but before naptime, I cut out a few squares of fabric and sewed a set of handheld-sized microwaveable rice bags. My husband's birthday is on Saturday. He walks to the train every work day (unless the weather is terrible). It's a decent walk, 1.8 miles from our front door, and he enjoys it because it gives him some exercise, but I worry about him when it's super cold out, so hopefully these will help a little to keep him warm. They're nothing fancy, but I'm hoping he'll like them. The fabric is old scrap fabric that I originally used to make a hanging bag with Velcro straps for my son's old metal bunkbed; he needed somewhere to put his glasses after he climbed up into bed, so I had sewed him a little bag that strapped to the bars of his bunkbed, one that had a side pocket for his glasses, but that also had a big enough body pocket to fit a library book. :)

Fish fabric! Maybe the thought of warm ocean water will keep the husband toasty. ;)

I dozed for just a little bit during naptime, lightly enough that my activity tracker watch didn't even register it as sleep, then got up and stitched the bags fully closed. I managed to read a little bit of my library book, then my daughter woke up from her nap, distressed that her stuffed bear had a rip in his ear. Mama to the rescue! I stitched it up and she was much happier. :)

I helped my son decide on some classes to take for his senior year (Digital photography? Forensics? I want to go back to high school, they have some really fascinating classes these days!), and then it was time to pick up my husband, whose train was late. After dinner, I read my library book, and my husband and I watched two episodes of Supernatural before bed.

FRIDAY

In the morning, I stripped the bedding, including the comforter, in the hopes that putting on our lighter comforter would help my husband and I stop waking up at night sweating like crazy (spoiler alert: it didn't. Hmph. It's warm under the covers, but we turn the heater down to...I don't know if it's 62 or 65 these days, so it's cool out there. Neither of us is overdressed, so we can't figure out why we've suddenly turned into our own personal rainforests at night!). I gathered our laundry, threw that all in the wash, then refilled the Air Washer in the basement. I cleaned the kitchen, took out the recycling and compost, and swept and mopped the living room. When the wash was done, I tossed the bedding into the dryer and hung the clothing to dry on my drying racks.

My daughter and I sat and read the copy of Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein that I had grabbed from the basement bookshelves the day before. This was one of my favorites as a kid, and she enjoyed it as well. When we finished, I pulled the sheets out of the dryer and tossed the cotton blanket back in, that always takes at least two rounds to dry. I sprayed the stovetop and let it sit, and vacuumed (with the Dust Buster!) my counters and sprayed them down, including underneath the microwave, which I'd been meaning to do for a while. I filled and ran the dishwasher, and after lunch, I prepared our dinner- quiche with spinach, carrots and peas, and steamed sweet potatoes. I took out the recycling, composted the eggshells, then put the dry blanket back on the bed, and because my daughter had asked me to the day before, I pulled out my guitar and played for a while. It was the first time I'd played in a long time (because the last time I'd played, my daughter, who was two at the time, threw an enormous fit, telling me I was doing it wrong, and had a tantrum that lasted about an hour, so I just gave up!), and I really enjoyed it. :)

Then it was time for my son's orthodontist appointment. He'd chewed through his retainer in his sleep, so while he got a new one made, my daughter and I did two pages of a learn-to-write-letters book and read an Olivia story. We dropped my son off at home, and my daughter and I went to the library; she played with some other kids, and I read my library book. After dinner, I cleaned up the kitchen and read some more of my book, and my husband and I watched two episodes of Supernatural before bed.

SATURDAY

I read my library book on and off throughout the morning (I haven't had a TON of time to sit and read consistently lately and it's driving me a little nuts! I was really enjoying this book I'm and would really have liked to just inhale it instead of taking tiny sips). I scooped the litterbox, cleaned the kitchen, filled and ran the dishwasher, and swept the basement, and then my husband and daughter and I went to a science surplus store. He purchased a glass rod for work, and then he and my daughter took advantage of the nice weather and went off to the park. I came home and started work on patching two pair of my daughter's pants.

She's eyebrow-deep in the whole "I can pick out my own clothes!" phase, and so she's been wanting to wear dresses all the time, everywhere. Which is fine, but it's been cold and so I make her wear something underneath the dress, usually a pair of stretch pants that kind of look like tights. Two of her pants had holes in the knees and she was NOT going to stand for that ;) so I told her I'd patch them up for her. After stabbing myself half to death about a dozen times and uttering a few choice words about the crappy scissors that do NOT cut fabric well, I think I did an okay job.

Done!

You might have to enlarge the picture to see the patches well. My daughter loves hearts, so I cut the patches into heart shapes, along with a patch of a stretch knit scrap for the back in order to make the patch stronger, and I hand-sewed them on while listening to a few episodes of the What Should I Read Next podcast (highly recommended!). Closeups:

This took almost all of her nap, which was fairly short as naps go, so when I heard her awake in her room, I took the pants up to show her. "Ohhhhh, I like these!" she said, so I'll count that as a win. :)

Since it was so nice out, we took a walk down to the new Little Free Library a few blocks away (this was the only part of the day where I really felt pain; walking hurt my SI joint a lot), dropping off an old book my daughter no longer reads, and bringing home a flap book she picked out, and a copy of The Adventures of a South Pole Pig: A Novel of Snow and Courage by Chris Kurtz. At home, I read the first four chapters out loud, and my daughter seemed to enjoy it. I used to read to my son out loud ALL the time, both kid books and grown-up books (for example, we tackled A Tale of Two Cities when he was three, and Frankenstein when he was either five or six- that last one was his choice!). My daughter has a more wild personality and hasn't much been one for sitting and playing quietly while listening like my son was, but maybe we can make this work...

My husband decided he'd rather stay in for dinner than go out (it was his birthday; he DID enjoy those handwarmers, and it looks like he'll need them this week!), so I fixed up the pierogies I'd made and froze a few months ago, along with a batch of Velvety Vegan Alfredo Sauce, and some garlic sesame green beans. It was a delicious dinner!

I cleaned the kitchen and filled and ran the dishwasher, and after my daughter was in bed, I finally finished that library book! My husband and I only had time for a single episode of Supernatural before bed.


SUNDAY

In the morning, I unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, cleaned the bathroom, cleaned the kitchen and took out the compost. I put a batch of white beans in the Instant Pot, then read 50 pages of a new library book. For lunch, we went out to a local Chinese restaurant, my husband's choice, as a day-late birthday lunch, as he didn't want to go the day before. On the way there, my husband and I discussed future gardening and landscaping plans, including- FINALLY- talking about taking out the bushes in front of our house. I'm not a fan of them, and as soon as my husband learned that my neighbor keeps her herb garden in the same space right in front of her house (getting the same amount of light as we do and always having enough herbs to share), he thought taking the bushes out and replacing them with an herb garden was a great idea. We have a nice space in between windows as well that would be perfect for a trellis and climbing plants, so we discussed that, too. I'm excited!

At home, I dozed for a little bit, and then my mother-in-law and sister-in-law came over for a visit, so while we chatted, I worked on my grandmother's cross stitch table runner. I threw together a meal of Creamy Lemon Ziti (no asparagus, add spinach and nutritional yeast) for dinner and cleaned up the kitchen afterwards. My husband and I watched three episodes of Supernatural before bed.


And that was my week! I thought my son went back to school on Monday, but it turns out they don't start again until Tuesday, so things will really start to get back to normal then. If I'm feeling up to it, there's a family birthday party on Saturday. It's about a 2.5 hour drive away (one way!), so the trip can be a little hard for me- sitting in the car for long periods of time is painful on my crabby SI joints. I'll play it by ear and see how I feel this week when it comes to traveling that far. Otherwise, hopefully it'll be a productive week at home. I definitely need to get back into doing my PT exercises at night; I fell away from that when I was sick. I've been decently about keeping up with the yoga (even when I was sick, I tried to keep up with that!), so that's at least good. :)

How was your week???

Weekly recap: 10/22/2018

Oof.

(That's not a good way to start a post, is it?)

This has been a week of ups and downs here, ending with the downs, for reasons I'll get to in a bit. Hopefully your week has been a little less painful than mine!

Let's get started in recapping the week, shall we? :)


MONDAY

I started the day with my basement chores (dumping out/refilling the Air Washer and scooping the litterbox. Always a fun time). I started a load of dishes and a load of laundry (which my mother generously folded for me while I was gone later on!), took the garbage out, and put a batch of white beans in the Instant Pot. I cleaned the kitchen, made a batch of guacamole from last Wednesday's on-sale avocados, and threw my daughter in the tub. While she splashed and soaked, I swept the upstairs hallway and wiped down the bathroom sink and mirror (my husband most often bathes her at night, but when I do it on non-school days during the morning, it's always a really convenient time to get cleaning done!).

Thanks, Mom!

After she was all bathed, I swept and mopped the living room floor, then did a brief piano practice before it was off to physical therapy.

Where I got yelled at for doing too much.

Oops.

What do I do, though? With the exception of direct care of my daughter (like bathing), no one else is going to do all the rest of this stuff for me. I promised I'd try to take it a little easier (even though I knew that that wouldn't happen until at least the next day), then went home and made an Instant Pot full of vegetable soup for dinner (sweet potatoes, peas, carrots, onion, garlic, tomatoes, white beans, spinach, noodles. My daughter's second favorite soup!). 

Halloween decorations on my way home. My physical therapist would definitely approve of the zombies planking!

After my daughter woke up from her nap, we did her reading lesson, I read a little of a book from my Goodreads Want to Read list, then we picked my husband up. 

And after dinner, I almost fell in the shower.

*sigh* This is not the first time this has happened, but it was the worst. I came dangerously close to a bad, bad fall. I managed to catch myself (tweaking some muscles on my right side, and possibly more, as you'll see later on, in the process), but it really shook me up and I cried. I asked my husband to order a non-skid mat for the tub immediately after, which he did.

Despite that, I still took the garbage to the curb, then spent the rest of the evening icing my back while we watched two episodes of Supernatural.



TUESDAY

I was pretty sore waking up; that near-fall in the shower did me absolutely no favors. I cleaned the kitchen, ran the dishwasher, then took my daughter to school. From there, I drove to GFS (a bulk food store, if you're not familiar), where I purchased a 50lb sack of bread flour (oof), a large jar of peanut butter (for baking), and a huge bottle of imitation vanilla- the real stuff is so expensive right now due to crop failure that I'm just going with the fake. Then I stopped by Mariano's (our local Kroger affiliate) to pick up what I'd downloaded a coupon for for free on Friday, a packet of Uncle Ben's pre-cooked, pre-seasoned rice (not something we normally eat, but it was free) and some frozen pizza for dinner, in an attempt to actually take it a little easier on this day. I had about twenty minutes to kill before picking my daughter up, so I ended up just reading my Goodreads book in the parking lot before getting her from school. 

At home, I unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, then did a lovely, slow yoga video. I really enjoyed this one, despite my being as flexible as a cement post. Afterwards, I read a bit from my Goodreads book, then napped a little on the couch until my son got home.

My son needed a ride back to school for a French club field trip, so my daughter and I dropped him off, then waited for my husband at the library, where she played, and I read my book and had a lovely conversation about it with a dad who was there with his daughter. After dinner, I did my PT exercises, read more of my book, and watched an episode of Supernatural with my husband.

My PT assistant. He thinks exercises time is Free Petting Time.

 And then it was time to pick my son up, but of course, the second I pulled into the parking lot, I got the message that they wouldn't be back for another half an hour! Good thing I had my book with me. It was after 11 pm when they finally got back, so we all went to bed as soon as we got home.

That was kind of busy for a supposed-to-be-taking-it-easy day, huh?


WEDNESDAY

First thing, I browsed the ads and made out a grocery list, then did my basement chores. My daughter and I got through most of her reading lesson- she's supposed to read through the story twice, but we didn't get through the second run due to time. I dropped her off at school, then drove to Aldi to pick up what I needed there. After that, it was home to put the groceries away (and I usually do a quick clean-out of the fridge as I'm doing this as well, getting rid of anything that isn't good to eat anymore. Fortunately, most of what we eat is compostable, so in the event that leftovers get away from us, they'll eventually be feeding our garden, so yay for that). That left me with just a few minutes to spare, so then it was off to pick my daughter up again, and from there, we ran to a second grocery store. I was thrilled to find three packages of Field Roast meatless hot dogs for $1.19 each in their refrigerated markdown section. I snatched those up right away (and tossed them in the freezer to enjoy at a later date); they're not cheap, so it's awesome to find them at a great price!

At home, I put the groceries away and put a batch of black beans in the Instant Pot and started the dishwasher. While the beans cooked, I sauteed some mushrooms and garlic, and then when the beans were ready, I used all those items to prepare a batch of black bean burgers (I didn't have any bread crumbs, so I subbed ground up dry oatmeal, which worked just fine). After dinner was cooked, I unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, did the same yoga video I did the day before, then dozed off in my chair for a bit!

My daughter and I picked my husband up, and after dinner, I mowed the front half of the lawn. It was pretty dark by the time I finished. I did my PT exercises and watched a bit of Supernatural with my husband before bed.


THURSDAY

Oof. 

This was the day things started going wrong.

I dropped my daughter off at school, then drove home and did a bit of piano practice before my mom arrived, and then I was off to physical therapy.

Since I was doing a lot better, we started changing things up this day, working a little more on different kinds of strengthening so that I can do things like more comfortably lift 50 pound bags of flour and 35 pound boxes of cat litter (which I'd done- not comfortably at all- earlier in the week). Unfortunately, my back did NOT like switching things up.

AT ALL.

I was okay driving home, but as the day went on, it became more and more obvious that this was Really. Not. Good.

I iced my back as much as I could, but it wasn't doing anything. Wasn't even touching it. And I was starting to have trouble walking. If you've ever seen a slow, shuffling elderly person creeping along, walking with a cane- that's what I look like when I'm in this kind of pain. I move at a sloth-like pace, and every step hurts. 

That doesn't mean I get out of doing stuff though, especially since my son's girlfriend was coming over for dinner on this night, so I threw together a veggie-filled breakfast casserole (she's a lovely girl, just not an adventurous eater, and I was worried this was even pushing it, but she ate it!), with frozen shredded potatoes, onion, orange pepper, sliced portabella mushrooms, broccoli, spinach, and eggs and cheese. It turned out really good, for something I just kind of winged because it was easy and guest-acceptable! Afterwards, I cleaned the kitchen and ran the dishwasher.

When my son and his girlfriend arrived home, I helped her with her French homework (one of the purposes of her visit, and I'm ALWAYS happy to help!!!), then hung out with them and my daughter until it was time to go pick up my husband. I was in too much pain to do my exercises that night. :(


FRIDAY

Oof.

Again.

Not any better today. I slowly did my basement chores (is it comfortable doing these when I'm in that much pain? No, no it is not), and then my daughter and I ran a ton of errands. We first went to Joann's so I could buy fabric and materials for her Halloween costume, and then we swung by the Dollar Tree for toothpaste for her. On our way there, I got a phone call from my medical group, whom I'd called the day before about getting some records for a new doctor I'm supposed to go to. They're pretty backed up right now and suggested it would just be easier if I could come by and pick the records up myself. Cool, two more errands to run, so we did medical record pick up and drop off, too. My daughter was NOT happy about any of these and let me know it. Oy.

At home, after a very quick lunch, I got started on the costume. She wanted to be Nature Cat, from the PBS Kids cartoon (a fantastic show; if you have little kids, I highly recommend it. It's both funny and educational and provides us with some great conversation topics here). He wears a kind of Robin Hood-style tunic and hat, and I wanted the tunic to be able to fit over my daughter's coat, so I grabbed a shirt of hers that's still a little too big (my son used to wear this; now she wears it as pajamas) and used that as a pattern (since I had no other pattern!).

Here goes nothing...

I have no formal sewing training, so this was all winging it and hoping that it worked out. More than a bit nerve wracking! (And all the bending over and chalking and pinning and constant ups and downs did my back zero favors, either.) But after about an hour and fifteen minutes, I had most of it cut and pinned.

It's a start! Those collar pieces were THE WORST.

What took me the longest was winding bobbins and threading the machine (and picking up the bobbin thread). I'm SO terrible at those things; something always seems to go wrong. But I finally got everything set up...

Here goes nothing...

This?

Took all afternoon. It's not a hugely involved costume, but there were quite a few pieces of it, and they needed to go on in a specific order, and again, I have no clue what I'm doing.

But it all seemed to work out in the end.

Tada!

By far, not my best work- there's a LOT I'm not happy with, but I was pressed for time and I had no pattern, so it was all guesswork. It'll do, though, and she's happy with it, so that's all that matters. :)

We picked my husband up from the train (which was late), ran home, scarfed down some leftovers for dinner, then ran back to the library for the Halloween balloon show for kids. After my daughter went to bed, my husband and I watched a few episodes of Supernatural (no PT exercises, I was in too much pain and was worried about making things worse).

SATURDAY

My husband took my daughter to gymnastics; I stayed home sewing her a tail (which we safety-pinned onto the costume, in case she ever wants to NOT have a tail for this, or we give it to someone else when she outgrows it and they don't want a tail), sewing the brown cuffs onto the sleeves, and making a few other minor improvements. When I finished, I cleaned the kitchen, and after lunch, it was time for our town's annual trick-or-treating at the downtown businesses (and now you see why I was pressed for time!).

Action shot! :)

Not long after we got home, it actually SNOWED where I'm at! So early for snow this year. It's going to be a long winter if it's starting this early!

And okay, I'm not gonna lie, I was pretty jazzed that whoever runs the Nature Cat Twitter account retweeted my costume-photo-tweet. Doesn't take a whole lot to make me happy. ;)

During my daughter's naptime, I finished a book from my Goodreads Want to Read list, then did some research and notetaking for my writing. When my daughter woke up, her choice of activity for the rest of the day was...to go to Ikea?

Totally normal thing for a four year old, right?

So we went (I went very slowly) and we had a delicious dinner in their cafe. 

I had the veggie ball plate. SO SO SO good!!!

I was still in a lot of pain that night, like hard-to-switch-positions-on-the-couch kind of pain. My husband and I watched several episodes of Supernatural before going to bed (where I didn't sleep very well thanks to my stupid back).


SUNDAY

So, I woke up on this day feeling *marginally* better. Still not great, but the slicing pain in my SI joint and the feeling that my pelvis was entirely made of lead had diminished, so that was my cue to get stuff done- otherwise, the entire house was going to descend into madness, because there were so many things that I needed to do (and honestly, I would've done them today even if I'd been in terrible pain, because they just needed to get done). So don't think I felt great doing any of this- I was still very slow, and absolutely none of this felt good whatsoever.

Ready?

I started off doing my basement chores. I ran the dishwasher, started a load of my laundry, then finally put away that load of laundry my mother had so nicely folded for me. I unloaded the dishwasher, reloaded it, switched the laundry, refilled my giant flour container, then made a double batch of chocolate chip cookies for my son's lunches and family snacks (I used canned pumpkin instead of applesauce; if I don't throw the pumpkin in something else this week, I'll freeze it for later use) and put the dough in the fridge to cool. And then I gathered up all the bread ends that I'd been saving (mostly in the freezer, some in my bread holder on my kitchen island) and made a huge batch of breadcrumbs.

Only part of what I made.

I'd needed to make these for a while, but just hadn't had the time. In between toasting batches of bread in the oven and grinding up what came out, I swept and tidied the living room and stairs, and flipped a shelf from the bookshelf- it was so warped that the brackets couldn't quite keep it up anymore. It's holding fine now, but I'm going to be on the lookout for an entire new-to-us shelf, I think. After that, I baked tray after tray of chocolate chip cookies.

Yum! Not pictured: the cookies I took out to freeze for my son's lunches.

In between baking the cookies, I took the garbage out, then took everything out of the tiny, windowless storage room in the basement where we keep the litterbox (including the three, very full almost 5 gallon containers of driveway sealant left here by the previous inhabitant. Were they extremely heavy? YES. Should I have been lifting them? ABSOLUTELY NOT. Ow), swept the room out, then sprayed it with Rocco & Roxie enzyme spray (affiliate link. The cats are perfectly fine about using the box, but it occasionally needs a deep cleaning, because cats). The spray smells oddly like whatever they used to clean the locker rooms at my hometown's public pool when I was a kid, so that brought back memories. 

I restarted the dryer, then wiped down the litterbox room and moved everything back (ow), tidied up the kitchen, put the cooled breadcrumbs and lunch cookies in the freezer, started a load of my son's laundry, then folded my laundry and put it away. 

I then deep-cleaned the entire bathroom, taking everything out and scrubbing it down hardcore. My husband started some work on the shower in July and just finished it last week (at least I think he's finished. He, uh, doesn't quite feel my urgency in getting things done around the house; his tools are still lingering in the hallway, where they've been sitting since July; there's been at least one bandage-necessary tripping incident involving them), and there were a lot of dried grout bits and dust in all the corners of the bathroom (which I hadn't wanted to deep clean until he was finished, because why bother if he was just going to dump stuff all over it again? I've done little cleans- scrubbing out the tub and toilet, wiping the sink, etc., but not a take-everything-out-of-the-room-and-go-to-town like this). After that, I switched my son's laundry and started another load, then unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher (AGAIN). I wiped down our stairway railing (which gets grimy and gross with disgusting regularity), then sat down to start work on this post. ;)

After my daughter woke up, I took my son's laundry out of the dryer, emptied my steeping orange peel vinegar cleaner into the appropriate containers (vinegar into the vinegar cleaner container- I now have an entire gallon of the stuff- and orange peels into the compost), then deep cleaned the kitchen, getting into all the nooks and crannies and scrubbing off the stovetop. And then, everyone's favorite: Mowing the Lawn, Part 2. Should I have been mowing the lawn? Probably not. Would the lawn otherwise peek out at least three inches over the deepest winter snow and wave embarrassingly in the wind at knee length all season long if I didn't? If the past three years are anything to go on, absolutely. So onward I mowed.

After I finished with that, my son and I went out for dinner at Noodles & Company, and then I came home, showered, and folded more laundry. And then I checked out the disc the medical people sent home with me on Friday.

When I stopped by the office to drop it off, despite asking for MRI images, they only wanted the paper report, so I kept the CD. My MRI images are weirdly not as clear as the ones I had in 2012, but the x-rays they took in the office show the narrowed disc space in my lower back. (My apologies; it's a picture of the picture on my computer screen.)

Ow.

The report says that's mild disc space narrowing and disc dessication; I'd hate to feel what anything more than mild would feel like, because this really stinks.

After putting my daughter to bed, my husband and I watched an episode of Supernatural, and that was it for the week. :)

The weird thing is, I'm actually feeling pretty good this morning. Super strange, considering I was finding it difficult to get around at all on Friday and Saturday. I don't understand my back; it makes no sense whatsoever.

It's a busy week coming up- I visit a new pain doctor on Wednesday, I have physical therapy twice, a possible school thing with my son tonight, and who knows what else. Hopefully I'll be able to sneak a nap in there somewhere. ;) And I hope you have a great week, too!


How did you do this week?

Friday Thoughts: Psyching Myself Out

Would you believe I have no links this week?

It's been that kind of week. But I do have something else I want to talk about, and I'd love to hear what you think. Maybe you do the same thing and can commiserate, or maybe you've worked through this and can give me some advice.

So I have this problem.

It's stupid, but it's something that's been really bothering me for a while now. There are certain things that I do, that I actually love doing, but when it comes time to sitting down and doing them...I psych myself out.

It doesn't matter how many times I've done it before, or even if the finished product was great. My brain still goes, "You're not going to be any good at it this time. It's too big of a task. It's been too long since you did this the last time. Why bother? You're going to screw it all up."

Sewing is one of those things. I'm not a professional sewer; my mom gave me her old sewing machine years ago and, with a LOT of swearing and a not-insignificant amount of tears, I sat down and figured out how to sew my son a cloak for his Paul Revere Halloween costume. It wasn't perfect, but it was definitely acceptable and not a bad first project. So I sewed him some shorts and a pair of pajama pants as well.

My daughter wears those pants now!

After that, it took me a while to get back into sewing, but with the help of Pinterest, I picked up a few more projects. I still swore a LOT while sewing, though, because I worked mostly through trial and error. It's how we learn, right?

I made a few aprons out of men's dress shirts.

My old house. We never once used that gas fireplace!

I still use these all the time.

And then I turned a thrift store bedsheet into a skirt.

Not bad, considering I had no pattern and just kind of winged it.

When I got pregnant with my daughter, I wanted a wrap-style carrier, but they were all too expensive, so thanks to Pinterest, I found a pattern and got to sewing.

8 months pregnant. That's my son's stuffed monkey in the wrap! 

And there. Wrap in action. :)

I've only pulled the sewing machine out once since my daughter was born 4.5 years ago. The sewing machine was in the Basement of Doom, it wasn't pleasant down there, and I wasn't sleeping at all. But I did get it together enough to sew my daughter a superhero cape for her second birthday.

Kind of an action shot!

Wearing it to the store with Papa. :)

And since then...nothing. At first, it was the basement. I didn't want to be down there, with as messy as it was (and I don't think anyone could blame me for that!), but as time went by, my brain started whispering, "You have no clue what you're doing. You'll screw it up, you'll waste fabric, you'll end up having to throw out perfectly good fabric because you have no clue what you're doing with that sewing machine, so why bother? Just forget about it." And so I've been putting off pulling out my sewing machine again, out of fear.

It's not just sewing that I psych myself out about, because my brain can't just be a jerk about one thing. It's writing, too.

I love to write. I always have. As an adult, I've actually completed two novels. The first was...not good. The second was better, I think. It got some attention from literary agents. No takers, and for some good reasons, I think, but it was a huge win for me simply to get requests, and looking back, I'm pretty happy that I even finished those two novels. It's a lot of work, but I persevered. If I did it two times, I can do it again, right?

But lately, my brain has been chattering away at me. "You'll screw it all up," it tells me. "It's going to be terrible. You have no idea what you're doing; why are you even bothering?" And so I've been procrastinating on writing. I open my Word document, edit a few things, maybe make some notes in my file I use to keep notes about my story, and then I basically just run away out of fear. It makes no sense, because I know where the backspace button is, and if something I write stinks, I can get rid of it and start over. But instead, I sit, paralyzed, unable to write a single word.

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately on how to move past this paralysis. I'm going to have to get over the sewing fear soon; Halloween is coming and my daughter wants to be Nature Cat (a cartoon character from a PBS show, if you're not familiar. It's a fantastic show, well-written, hilarious and educational at the same time). I have a pattern for the hat. Patterns tend to freak me out a bit, but this looks ridiculously simple, so I'm not too worried. The tunic, I'm just going to wing it based on a bigger-sized shirt, because where we live, Halloween could be 80 degrees, or it could be 30, and I need a costume that can be worn over a coat, just in case. The little sash/belt thing, I'll just cut out and stitch on, no problem, and she's got a pair of brown pants and brown boots she can wear. It'll be a super cute costume. I'm on a deadline here, so that'll definitely help motivate me to get the job done, but I'm thinking more about the other things I want to sew, and the story I'm wanting to write.

How do I push past this fear of screwing it all up? How do I metaphorically punch my brain in the face and get it to shut up with its constant negativity? I know that the only way through it is through it...but it's hard just to get the engines going. It's scary, especially when there's a constant background chanting of, "Nothing will be as good as the things you've already done, so don't bother."

Do you struggle with this? I don't think it's uncommon, based on what I've seen from other people (including other writers). I'd REALLY love to hear your take on this. Are you putting things off out of fear? Do you psych yourself out of starting new projects, even if you've successfully completed similar projects in the past? If you've figured out a way to silence the negativity that your brain likes to throw at you, let me know, because this? Is driving me a little crazy.