Stockpiling is not from fear

 

This is another post on the way of caring for your home and family in lean or hard times.

Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come. Proverbs 31:25

Caring for your household

 

So as you know, I believe in being prepared for food shortages and other distribution problems. 

I have been buying extras of staples when they are on special and my pantry is shaping up really well.

Likewise, I have been refurbishing my first aid supplies and updating our medications. I also have bought home cleaning supplies when on special and extra cat food for Xena and Milo.

I checked up on what foods were rationed here in Australia during WW2 and I have used that as a base guide for buying foods... plus I am adding foods that I know we particularly enjoy.

Also, I have purchased some extra diabetic supplies and monitoring machines to ensure we have the means to keep our diabetes under control.

In case of power outages we have purchased a generator and we still have our camp stoves with gas cylinders for cooking. We have an aluminium kettle and saucepans in case we need to use our camping stuff. I have bought different strength batteries when they were half price too.

This may seem all time consuming and energy intensive, but with no spoons due to ongoing fibromyalgia, I can tell you that it isn't. It just takes some planning and then buying a few extra things on your list each week.

Not wanting to keep our storage foodstuffs in the pantry with our usual edibles, I cleared off some shelves in my linen press and these have made a wonderful storage larder. Likewise my fridge/freezer in the garage is just loaded with storage edibles.

I know that hard times will come. Jesus has warned us in the Word. So it really makes sense to gather and store food in these times of plenty for when the times are lean.

There is no fear, just a quiet confidence that you can laugh at the times to come because you and your household are well cared for.

Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come. Proverbs 31:25

Putting insomnia to good use!

Fibromyalgia, angina, spinal problems, muscle pain and neuropathy often vie for first place in keeping me awake at night.

It often starts with a trip to the bathroom and ends with insomnia raising its ugly head. You know the noises of bird calls in the night, a train tooting in the distance or the barking of a dog, you hear them all and they are the loneliest sounds...

I have found a way of replacing that lonely feeling with making my mind bring to remembrance prayer requests and anxieties of the past and coming new day. 

Laying in bed, I meditate on the LORD and force my body to lay in a restful position as I often eventually fall asleep mid prayer.

Where once I would stress out because I thought it rude to zone out on God, but I now have come to see that He blesses us with sleep and is therefore pleased when I succumb to my tiredness.

What can be a lonely time can be redeemed by praying blanket prayers. It's comforting to know that we can put insomnia to good use! 

Better than running from bombs!

 

Well, my fibromyalgia flare has abated, and I have been doing a lot of knitting as watching TV bores me to tears.  

I have been a bit depressed lately and I think it's because I have been watching too much news on world events. So I decided to turn it off and bring my attention to something positive.

I often listen to the Bible on YouTube read by David Suchet. It tends to put my mind at rest and gives me pleasure.

Most mornings I do breakfast and medications and go on the computer to check emails, answer any comments in my blogs and check out groceries specials and organise our medications and get the scripts that are due, refilled.  Then I tidy my home.

I have a lot of joy in watching the birds that come into our back garden and one of my morning chores is to feed them after I have fed Xena our little white cat... and now Milo, separately of course lol

As I am often low on spoons, I need to pace myself in the afternoon and often take a nana nap in order to be able to cook dinner.

We don't leave the house much at all, and to be honest I prefer it that way. But with my motorised scooter coming soon, I may find I quite like shopping again....

Life is pretty simple- almost boring, but with all that's happening in parts of the world, I am glad for the boring life. I don't think I would cope very well running for my life away from bombs!

Acceptance brings peace and patience

 

Over the past 30 years that I have been chronically ill, I find my tolerance for drama and fighting is almost zero.

It's not that I don't like people, it's just that the more you are surrounded by them, the more involved you become in their problems and their dramas unfolding. These days, I prefer solitude and sharing my life with Chris and our cats.. as for people's dramas etc, I pray for them.

These days, I am so grateful for our home which is a haven to Chris and I.  On the days that I don't have to leave my home, you will find me enjoying the peace of homelife. Our cats, Milo and Xena give us  not only joy, but peace. I love their purring near me. It's particularly soothing.

Throughout the day you will find worship music playing low accompanied by the noise of the kettle as it boils the water for a cup of tea. It's going almost constantly.

Because of lympedema and peripheral neuropathy in my feet, coupled with severe fibromyalgia, Chris will often massage the fluid from my legs and rub my feet which feel like they are burning. He has done this for years and it is so soothing that I will usually be asleep within minutes.

Chronic fatigue coupled with aging has given me extreme sleepiness and I seem to be unable to function properly without a daily nana nap.  I no longer whip myself with false guilt, but have accepted that this is out of my control. It is what it is.

Part of living a peaceful life when chronically ill is to accept that some things will have to go to the wayside, but I try and do as much as spoons allow.

Along with quiet enjoyment of your home, and acceptance comes peace and patience with oneself.. 

I love being a sacrificial home keeper!

 

I am nearly 73 and I find that there is true contentment in staying home.

Keeping the home clean and attractive is time and energy well spent and I find that it gives me a great sense of peace.

Housework is spiritual and for me keeping my home in order is good for my sense of accomplishment and peace. A messy or dirty home depresses me no end.

I have been blessed to be able to stay home for twenty years as my many illnesses saw me needing rest. But for me it has been no hardship.

After my first marriage ended, I felt lost. I missed being a wife who could stay at home but life dictated that I provide for myself and so I went to work until I met and married Chris 29 years ago.

He was happy to look after me and as illness came to stay he encouraged me to stay home. He also was happy to come home to a nice meal after the work day ended.

I believe that chosing to be a stay at home wife is God ordained and is still a goal that can be achieved with careful planning and management.

This is one definition of what a housewife is:

Housewife:

A married woman who stays home.

This is a lifelong vocation.
It is an old-fashioned term,
and something to be proud of.

Not a "domestic engineer."
Not a "home manager."

An old fashioned housewife,
who keeps the home,
and abides there.

 

I don't know how I managed to work with all my illnesses and I daily praise God for making it possible for me to stay home.

May He do so for you too if that is what you seek... as for me, I love being a Sacrificial home keeper! 

When your bed is calling your name.

Over the decades that I have lived with chronic illness, especially heart problems and fibromyalgia, I have found that having a routine helps me keep focussed and feel in control of my home.

I am not saying that I don't ever have days where I cannot rise to the occasion and follow them, but on the days that I have a small amount of spoons and motivation, knowing my priorities helps me know where to start in the overwhelm...

My priorities on days when I have enough energy to make an effort in doing housework, are cooking, dishes and washing. Everything else can wait.

So instead of being a slave to my routines and house, I allow myself to let a lot slide on bad days. I refuse to feel guilty for something I have no control over.

Instead of hating my routines, I have come to welcome them for they give me peace and direction, especially during a fibromyalgia flare with brain fog.

I have learned a lot in the three decades I have been a fibromyalgia sufferer, and I can honestly say that sticking to the basic routines will help you cope with it all. 

If I (however loosely), can follow the basic routines on a bad day, at least we will have been fed and have clean sheets to slip into when fatigue kicks in and our bed is calling our name.

Are you a sacrificial home keeper?

     

                               

Anyone who manages a home whilst battling chronic pain, illness and disability will know that there is a sacrificial element: we are the most selfless and courageous of women. We Sacrificial Home Keepers sacrifice our comfort and exert ourselves beyond limit for those we love.

As a chronically ill woman, I can identify with women who are sacrificing themselves in trying to maintain normality in their home and family. I believe I am well qualified to write about chronic illness as I suffer from a myriad of health problems.

These posts are written as a diary of thoughts and articles through my days as a sufferer of chronic pain and illness. If you share that journey, please feel free to read this and perhaps comment, for illness can be a very lonely and isolating experience.  

Are you a Sacrificial Home Keeper? 

Housework is spiritual

 

As a Clean Freak and author of the e-book secret confessions of a clean freak - I can tell you - it's the results of housecleaning that are spiritual.  A clean home feels better.  Plus, you have the pride in a job well done. It's all positive - calming.

Housework left undone is very negative. A constant reminder of things you haven't done. I feel good when my bathroom walls or my stove is shiny. It makes me feel like I have control. And sometimes, that's all I have control over.

And, like all things spiritual, it takes discipline until it becomes habit. Housecleaning is a breeze once you have it under control and you have a routine. Really! I'm a single mom and I get picked on all the time for being too clean - like I have some disease! Guess I'm just a freak! author unknown.

Well, I wouldn't call this author a freak. I know from my own experience that a messy house makes me feel worse than usual and irritable. The trouble for me with never ending fibromyalgia, is getting the energy to do it. But the results of housework certainly are spiritual!

I have known a Christian woman who was part of our home bible group many years ago. Her place looked like a hurricane had struck it. Ants marched along the floor to dine and pillage her overflowing trash container in the kitchen. There wasn't a clean cup or spoon for after the study's fellowship cuppa.

We all cleaned it up so that the ladies who came would be more comfortable, but by the next week it was just the same. Instinctively, we knew that housework is spiritual and that we would not be able to focus on the Word sitting in filth. Filth is not conducive to worshiping God.

These days I am limited in how much I can clean and it often is a source of dismay to me that I can't do as much as I would like. When I do have the spoons (energy) to clean, the results lift my spirits so much that I have to conclude that housework is spiritual. Blessings as you sacrificially set the spiritual tone in cleaning your home.

 

Perhaps I am

 

So over the Christmas/New Year break, I have had a few disappointments. Once again fibromyalgia flares, lymphoedema and angina have plagued me when I particularly wanted to be well, and they've ruined my joy in life.

This year we weren't even invited anywhere for Christmas Day or New Year. When I asked about it, my children responded with "well you never come anyway!" It hurt because it's true, but I smiled and said "that's OK!" But it would have been nice to have been invited anyway.

Chris's children came to visit us a few days before Christmas and I was nearly demented with pain and fatigue, but I kept smiling and tried to be cheerful. I don't think they realised how much pain killers and determination went behind that smile.

I know some people think I am a malingerer because I don't look sick most of the time. And I think they believe that I am putting it on when I say how painful my life is- they have no idea the effort it takes to appear well. 

Not allowing illness to define me, I try very hard to overcome my pain, tiredness, depression and lethargy. Often it is overwhelming and I succumb to the feelings of loneliness and inferiority that drown me. 

But no one really knows that depth of suffering, and I do believe no one cares. So I will discipline myself and take control of what few spoons I have, for not many know how heavy the cloak of illness gets.

So when I occasionally do succumb to it, and mention it to others, I can see them looking doubtfully at me and judging me as a malingerer. They think I am acting and putting it on.

I do act a lot, really. Strong when I am weak. Energetic and able when I am clearly not. Smiling in spite of it all. Bearing my load stoically.

If they did know the depth of my pain they would know that I do act- I act out feeling normal. An actor who could win an Oscar to avoid being labelled as a fake. 

A good actor can bring to life a fictitious person and for me, that person is myself enjoying good health.

They say I am an actor- perhaps I am...

They weren't forthcoming!

 

So Christmas has come and gone and I am totally down and out with a severe fibromyalgia flare.

Our festivities weren't grand and we stayed home. We had family come on Sunday and then on Tuesday and it was fun but exhausting.

Come Christmas Day, we just stayed home by ourselves. I was so fatigued and in pain that we decided that leftover ham sandwiches were good enough for lunch and dinner.

By 9 o'clock Christmas Night I was in bed and stayed there all Boxing Day. I was so tired and stiff in the muscles that I could barely move. Painkillers didn't help at all...

Saturday saw me cook dinner and lay on the couch and that was all I could manage.

Lucky that I don't believe in Santa any more or else I would be sorely disappointed... all I wanted was some spoons for Christmas... and they weren't forthcoming.

Christmas is for you!

Merry Christmas to all... may you accept the greatest Gift- the gift of salvation through Jesus' Blood shed for you for your pardon.

Coming as a Babe, He will return as the Victorious King... be ready. Get saved. Today is the day to receive the greatest Gift- eternal life...

© Glenys Robyn Hicks

Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:  John 1:25

And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. Luke 2:7

Time to go bye bye

 

Life has been a challenge lately with more housework than I can handle.

Last month Chris was in hospital, we acquired a new cat owing to a family emergency, my fibromyalgia flared due to the stress and Chris was/is too ill to help me.

Last week we both had some type of stomach bug and cancelled our home help visit, so that put the house cleaning back by a fortnight.

Plus as it's almost Christmas, I am expecting to have family visit and I just don't feel ready.

This year we decided to give the grand children under 18 some money as we are too ill to go shopping. Chris still can't see properly so he cannot drive. Due to broken knees, I no longer drive either.

I have purchased some ham and other Christmas goodies as it will just be Chris and I this year. We are simply too ill and tired to bother.

Depending on how I feel, I may get my son to pick me up and go to see my sister and he to take Communion together and give them a small gift each. And that's a wrap!

So this week I am trying to catch up on my neglected home and get my kitchen in order. Particularly the dishes.

Like I have vowed every year to do, I am going to try and clean it before I go to bed for the night. I know that lovely feeling of waking up to a clean kitchen and I want to feel it again.

So that will be the plan for the next week and hopefully will become a habit for the New Year. It's time to tuck my kitchen in at night and tell it to go bye bye! 

Dwelling in acceptance and peace

 

So over and over again lately, I have had to have a nana nap in the afternoon. I simply can't stay awake all day.

In the past, I have tried to push through the daze and thick fog of sleep deprivation, only to find the fibromyalgia flare, angina pain, neuropathy and endless pills to keep me functioning put an end to it.

After 25 years of fibromyalgia and other chronic illnesses, I have decided that the spoons win. I have given in to their control. I now plan an hour or two hours sleep in the day.

After the daytime sleep, I find I can function enough to cook dinner and feed the cats.

I think being nearly 73 years old doesn't help either. I talk to my friends who suffer no chronic illness but are the same age as me, and they are finding a nana nap is indispensible. 

Another strange thing I have noticed is that I seem to have a better quality of sleep in the daytime. As a result there is more restorative benefit from giving in to the fatigue.

I have decided to once and for all accept that my body needs extra sleep and learn to live with it.

By taking a nana nap, I find that the spoons don't win entirely. Sleep truly is a gift from God...

Psalm 4:8 In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, LORD, make me dwell in safety.

I know at this season of my life that I can take that nana nap when I need to or leave the clothes to be folded another day. Likewise I can go to bed as early as I want... there are no schedules to keep.

Each day brings its challenges but even so, I am glad to be here...life is still sweet!

Even in this quiet season of my life it is very comforting to know that I am just where God wants me to be-quietly dwelling in the simplicity of acceptance and peace.

Our newest family member

So we have just adopted our new sibling for our white cat, Xena. Like most new additions to a family, there is an immediate reaction of rejection, forcing our new male cat Milo to hide in fear.

Most times Milo will venture out from behind the couch when we call him. He comes to sniff our hand and stays long enough for a quick pat on the head, but that's it.

We are hoping that he and Xena will eventually get on and we console ourselves that it is early days yet.

Not particularly wanting another cat, we couldn't resist taking him off family member's hands as they no longer wanted a cat. We couldn't bear the thought that he would be taken to the pound and maybe euthanised.

Chris and I love cats and with both of us being chronically ill, we find they help us relax and increase our enjoyment of life.

We both agree that the joyful company of two felines will be worth any initial trouble between Milo and Xena and the extra fibro pain as I clean up after them.

If it doesn't settle, down we figure that Milo needs us as much as she does. 

So far today I have made an apple pie with Hermesetas for sweetening. On the stove a Dutch oven holds my pumpkin soup.

I am hoping the enticing smells will make Milo hungrier as he hasnt touched any food since he got here.

Xena has eaten but is now on the guest bed chasing the sun... obviously keeping her distance from our newest family member.

I can dream, can't I?

 

So I was visiting Chris at the hospital after his stroke, and was making painful slow steps with my walker along the miles of corridors to the lift.

Suddenly I was met by a rather large robotic sweeper cleaning the floors. He was almost as tall as me, and moved at about the same speed.

I knew that after I got off the lift that there would be a lot more walking to do until I got to my husband's room. And I was already feeling breathless and exhausted.

My fibro was flaring, my knees were hurting and my heart was paining me. Breathing was an effort, so much so that I almost felt the need to hang my arms around its neck and hitch a ride...

I smiled wryly to myself as I pushed the button in the lift to the Avon floor where Chris's room was. It will only be a matter of time before we have automated wheelchairs ready to whisk us to wherever we need to go in these places.

I could just see it in my mind's eye, gladly sitting in one whilst holding onto Chris's sportsbag of freshly laundered pajamas and toiletries for his stay.. 

These robotic AI directed chairs will have to have a name... and then a direction... yes, I can see it now, "Morning, Jeeves! I am glad you are here! Take me to Avon, and don't spare the horses!"... 

As I limped along, I thought how wonderful these chairs would be, but they won't probably be available in my life time... but meanwhile, I can dream, can't I?

                                       

Advice put into action

 

I have had a perfectionist streak all my life, but in the last twenty or so years of fibromyalgia and other ill health, I have had to learn to be content with a more relaxed approach to my home making.

Where once I would be consumed with (false) guilt because I made our bed without four corner tucks or I had the blankets bumpy on the bed, I have had to make do with a more lenient approach. I simply don't have the energy to do four corner tucks. However, even the bed made up quickly and sporting a lump here or there, is extremely satisfying to me now that I've gotten past the perfectionism.

Mornings are no longer the time for house keeping. I have to fit in what I can over however long it takes me... and be content at the end of the day that I actually got it done...

I no longer allow cleaning schedules to dictate to me what I must achieve in any given day or time frame: it gets done more or less within the schedule but on a time of my choosing. It's the only way a Sacrificial Home Keeper can manage..

In saying that I am no longer a perfectionist, I still like to live in a clean home. For me, there are basic things that are not negotiable. I cannot live my life happily unless these things are clean:

I must be clean.

My clothes must be clean.

My bed must be fresh and clean.

My dishes and cooking utensils must be clean.

I can't stand smelly toilets and these and my bathroom must be clean.

These days I need help to maintain this list of essentials.  I do not go into a spin if a fly has died on my window ledge or there is some dust on my furniture. I have learned to accept white cat fur as a part of being a mother to a white cat. The floors can be in need of a vacuum, but I now have Roombas to do them.  It has been years since I ironed something that only I will see... and I learned years ago that one can sleep on unironed pillowcases... it can be done!

I find cooking, shopping, menu and social planning, washing and folding of clothes, managing finances and being a loving wife to my sick husband is enough for me to cope with. I know from experience over the years that by not pacing myself, I will crash and burn and my recovery time will need more than an occasional nana nap...

Accepting our limitations is an important part of staying calm in a world that has become anything but. And for most of us Sacrificial Home Keepers, our world is our home. 

One final thought that helped me was remembering what our family doctor once said to me when my children were young: "A home should be clean enough to be healthy, but untidy enough to be happy!"  I am trusting that I have at last put his advice into action.

I have never been so embarrassed!

 

So as you know, my husband Chris has recently been a week in hospital. We saw many different doctors in the lead up to his diagnosis of Cranial Sixth Nerve Palsy caused by a stroke.

As Chris was not aware of all the medicines he was on, he left it up to me to discuss all medical matters and medications.

I was already stressed and feeling the effects of a fibromyalgia flare. Truthfully, I was exhausted and hurt all over. 

It was an effort to stay awake every day as I sat by his bedside but I wanted to know what was ailing him.

Eventually the doctor in charge of his case came in to update us. I had an important question to ask him and I knew I would forget it if I didn't ask him immediately while it was fresh in my mind. Fibromyalgia does that...

So jumping straight into his conversation with Chris, I told him that my fibromyalgia was flaring and that I had to ask him something important before I forgot.... and I apologised for interrupting yada yada...

Then I forgot. Silence. Expectation. Pregnant pause.

I was so busy explaining my fibro fog and flare and apologising, that the reason for the interruption was over. The question hung in swirling mists of fibro brain fog and I sat red faced and embarrassed.

The doctor looked at me and waited, allowing me time to gather my thoughts and when they weren't forthcoming, he resumed his conversation.

I hate fibro. It rules my life and ruins my credibility as an intelligent woman. It pains me and weakens me, enveloping me in a cloak of weariness that no amount of rest can cure. And it embarrasses me.

I have never been so embarrassed! 

So very grateful

So we were watching TV together when I noticed Chris was shutting one eye and then the other. Then he told me he had a really bad headache.

I gave him some paracetamol and he fell asleep on the couch after taking it.

A day or two afterward, he was looking at me and I noticed his left eye was turning in. That's when the double vision came into play...

After putting up with it for a week, Chris decided it wasn't getting better, so we went to the ED.

They noticed his right eye stares straight ahead, making the left eye turn like it should, but causing double vision which made him feel nauseous.

They noticed his blood pressure was quite high and started him on more medication for it. They ordered a Cat Scan on his head and admitted him.

The CT scan showed no abnormalities, so they followed up with a MRI which did. Chris had had a stroke in his cerebellum.

It was not a bleed but rather a blockage, and they believe this caused his double vision known as Cranial sixth nerve palsy. They don't know if it will be permanent or not.

They are treating his blood pressure,  upping his insulin for the diabetes and putting him on aspirin as a blood thinner, as well as giving him statins for his high cholesterol.

He will be treated by patching one eye to avoid double vision and taking the aforementioned medications. This will be punctuated with GP visits, physiotherapy visits for eye exercises, endocrinologist and neurologist.

My fibromyalgia has flared as I am exhausted. I stayed everyday of his week long hospital stay from 10-7pm. The weather was changing all the time as we are in our spring and I have had angina because the stress was mind numbing..

We are so very grateful that the stroke wasn't worse and we are praying believing that the eye nerve damage will sort itself out. Also we are praying that he doesn't have another stroke.

Mostly we thank the LORD for another chance at life together..

 

I think I could sleep on the freeway.

We visited the doctor today.  I have extremely high blood pressure which the doctor feels is due to my fibromyalgia pain.  It has flared since the move and I have gone grey overnight.

He is increasing my antidepressants as I am stressed to the max. He believes they may help in my fibro pain. He has not offered anything for pain as yet. 

I feel totally exhausted and I need to help Dianne for the next month as she can't drive.  My spoons are gone before I surface each day.

My exhaustion is such that my legs feel like they can't hold me up. Yet like helping my daughter and looking after my sick husband, there are things that just have to be done.

My grandson walked to our place from school today and found no clean cups for a drink. I told him he will have to wash one out for himself as I have been so unwell that I haven't been able to stack the dishwasher.  

He selected a picnic cup instead of washing one and then asked to be driven home. I felt guilty that my kitchen is a mess but Chris has fluid build up in his lungs due to living with heart failure and hasn't been able to help.

As a fellow counter of spoons, he has to save them for driving Dianne to doctors' appointments and physio, so I do not ask that he helps with the housework.

My extra antidepressants are kicking in and I am feeling tired as we speak. I must straighten my bed first as it is very uncomfortable as it is. I need a good night's sleep.

It is true that you sleep better in a tidy bed. The way I feel right now, I think I could sleep on the freeway.