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?
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| 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.
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