Why is adulating so hard?
Today, I wanted to spray the grass
between our stones. It looks like this.
It's because we installed
them wrong (there is supposed to be sand below them) but we did it
all ourselves and didn't know any better, so grass grows under them.
One day we will move them all, put sand down like you are supposed
to, and place them back, but that day is not this day. Last summer we
sprayed them with a mixture of salt, water, and soap so the weeds
died. This summer between my miscarriages and chronic fatigue, we
have done nothing to keep them from growing, and thus...the problem.
The problem that we caused in the first place by doing it ourselves.
Self sabotage is the theme of 2020. Or
is it just my 30s? Besides the stones, our garden also needs help. It
is completely overgrown with weeds. We need to rototiller and cover
it. In one corner of the garden a tree is growing, I kid you not. And
why is it so overgrown and unmanageable? Why, you ask, has it become
a massive job instead of an easy one? Well, we didn't take care of it
because of the thousands of other things in our life crowded “fix
garden” out of our heads causing the afterthought and thus also the
aforementioned problem.
After feeling sorry for myself for
thirty minutes, I sat down to make a list of all the big chores that
need to get done this year. My list was an thinly veiled attempt to
micromanage my anxiety at the growing number of problems that need
our attention. (This is not the order we should do them in. I am not
that fancy.)
new siding for house
paint bathroom
buy/ assemble bunk-bed for kids
room
buy/ assemble 2 closets for living
room
paint main room
fix garden (remove walls,
rototiller, new dirt, cover)
finish shed
replace carpet in spare room
hang window cover
rocks to driveway?
 |
| our house walls are still two colors of white. |
After compiling said list, I then had a
panic attack followed by a mid-life crisis. Why does something
always need to be done??? And why is is a bazillion dollars to
hire someone to do it for you?!
Also, do you know how many of the
things I know how to do on this list? Possibly three of them, maybe
four of them. Poor Brian always is saddled with a disproportionate
amount of the heavy labor. For one, I never did anything with my
hands growing up while he knows how to do all these things? For two,
I also never learned it in school. (Brian did learn some of this in
school) They should teach painting and carpentry in sixth form
because most people will own a home one day and need to know how to
hang a shelf. And, I could use manual labor-type skills a lot more
than trying to figure out “how many apples Clarence has in his
truck in Africa while going 40 kilometers a mile down a dirt road
with a Cheetah chasing him” skills. Poor Brian also has the least
amount of free time in our family due to working 50 hours a week yet
has to do 90% of the manual labor.
When I try to think about myself
“finishing a shed” I literally don't even know where to begin
so...it's not like I can add a lifetimes worth of DIY with my
non-existent dad (I was raised by a single mom for most of my life)
in one afternoon. I envy Brian his knowledge sometime.
Even if I lack many skills, I can
learn. I learned how to hang a shelf last weekend only to find out
the shelf we had was not made correctly and would not work. Back to
goodwill it goes. What a waste of my time, I guess. But I did learn
how to find studs. It is just so frustrating to try and do something
only to have it not work, like the weed-spraying story I was telling
you about above that I never finished. I made the mixture (Two parts
water, one part salt, and soap) but THE SPRAYER WOULDN'T WORK. So I
dumped it all out on the weeds in frustration. Husband came down
stairs to tell me I put too much salt, that the sprayer I was using
needed four parts water to one part salt. Ugh. I felt like giving up
but instead I am complaining on the internet so people can laugh with
me. Or at me. I won't know, so go ahead. I spent an hour of my life
making that stuff (you have to boil the water so the salt will mix)
all to have it not work.
I cried.
Is life a joke?
Sometimes I feel like I really am a
hamster running on my little wheel inside my cage going nowhere,
fast.
Anyway I'm going to take a break and
pray we get something done this year. I know I have a lot to be grateful for and I love our home, but there is so much to be done and I don't know how to do it.
I need to pray for my attitude
because it's in a frustrated place today.
Why did we have to buy a fixer-upper? I
need a time machine. Or maybe why did we buy a fixer upper and 8 years later STILL NOT HAVE IT FIXED?? omg.
Is adulating just a
painstaking roulette wheel of fixing problems you yourself caused in
the first place??
Unfortunately there isn't a cure
for stupidity. Help.
