o0o
I feel like I have a million irons in the fire right now – and I’m going to need to be super-diligent of how I schedule my Life and time over the next couple of weeks, otherwise I know that I am going to seriously deplete my already low energy reserves, and end up being a gibbering, anxiety-ridden mess – who cant get anything accomplished!
Its definitely going to be a exercise in walking-the-walk of the slow-living ethos I so strongly believe in…
I am still recovering somewhat from the infection that came after the whole dental dramas that I had a fortnight ago, and in just over two weeks we are due to leave for a 3 week overseas tight-budget holiday, for which we are totally unprepared.
Its been two years since we last went away for a proper holiday, and a lot has happened in that time – but one of the main things that has happened is that we’re both really tired…
Tired to the bone kinda tired!
So – of course – this weekend just gone – we started a few quite major jobs around the Farmhouse.
The first one was that we got all the clothes that have been stored in the shed for the last 18 months out, and went through them all, deciding what to keep, what to donate and what to toss.
We then had to work out what needed laundering from the things that we decided to keep – as they were a bit funky-smelling from having been stored for so long – which thus created a whole mound of extra laundry that needed doing.
The other big ticket chore we started, was putting in another bench along the back wall in the kitchen.
On friday I had finally settled on a design that i was happy with, for the layout for the rest of the kitchen (luckily my Love also liked the design lol) – so promptly sketched it out, took a photo and sent it to my Love – along with a text that whatever was needed had to be purchased, as this was a task we were going to attack this weekend.
While my Love was at work on Saturday morning, in between sorting clothes and doing loads of laundry, I moved things about in the kitchen so that the back wall would be clean, clutter-free and accessible.
Which of course made the rest of our little home resemble something akin to a tornado having passed through – as there is very little ‘spare space’ to put things – and almost everything currently has a place, and when things aren’t in their place, the interior quickly looks like a war-zone!
So after lunch on Saturday, the real work of measuring, cutting timber, dry-run laying out of benches etc commenced in earnest.
Somewhere quite late in the day though – we realised that I had somehow managed to conveniently forget to include the stovetop in the design, and that we had both missed that not-so-small exclusion! 😐
Eeeeek!
It was time to down tools for the day.
Sunday it was back to planning mode.
Well – replanning actually!
We both like really high bench-tops, because it is soooo much better for your back, but that meant that we couldn’t just stick the gas hob on top of the bench, because it would then be too high (for shortasss me) to be able to see safely into pots, especially when using the big canning pots.
So with that forefront in our minds, we decided to make a part of the bench a cut-away, and then mount the hob on a lower shelf.
My Love did all of the hard work of measuring and rejigging our plan, and putting it all into motion, and I’ve gotta say – it works perfectly!
Now – here we are at Monday, and I’m still trying to get the last of the laundry finished before I have to go back to work tomorrow, and our little house is a veritable disaster zone.
Add to that the fact that with only just over two weeks to go until we leave the country, I also need to get a wriggle on with working out what we are both taking with us, and get said stuff sorted and pre-packed.
Thats a whollllllle other ball of pressure… lol
And let me tell you this – one of the big lessons I have learnt since hitting my fifties is that – for me – external order equates to better internal calm, and the reverse is even more true!
When my surroundings are a mess – *I* am a mess!
I get fractious, antsy, overwhelmed and anxious.
At least these days I now know that I need to get some order to my surrounding to help with those feelings – but then there is the ‘overwhelm’ part of the equation that makes actually getting down to it quite difficult!
This is where lists come in handy for me.
I break every.single.thing down in to bite-sized pieces, of no particular order – and each ‘bite’ takes only about 10 minutes or less.
With this list, and the knowledge that I don’t have to commit any huge chunks of time to any given task, I am able to make headway with getting some order to my space, my emotions – and my brain!
How do you tackle overwhelm?
I’d love to hear your tips and tricks!
