Enjoying my time in the kitchen

So we have a lovely large kitchen which is a novelty for me. There's so much storage space and lots of drawers and  bench space. I love it.

It's just as well I am enjoying my kitchen because I have been doing a lot of cooking from scratch here. With the Corona Virus, and not wanting to shop too often, I am trying to rotate and use the oldest vegetables and canned stuff first.

Being at home all day, I have endeavoured to make Chris things he enjoys eating. There's nothing like the smell of a cake cooking or a soup simmering. It's important to me that I cook nourishing meals no matter whether we are isolated at home or not. 

I have some things that I haven't completed from the previous days, and hopefully my spoons will be sufficient to get the jobs done. On my to do list still are:

1. Fold clothes from yesterday and put them away
2. Mop the vinyl areas
3. Cook a shepherd's pie with mashed potato and peas for dinner

I already have cleaned the toilet and done a load of washing and sorted out our weeks' worth of medication. I also have made some pumpkin soup just to keep on the stove.

By keeping a blog like this, I can see areas that I have to still do or have fallen down on. Oh yes: and to remind myself on bluer days how much I am enjoying my time in the kitchen! lol 

Tomorrow is today

So I have put off some things from yesterday that I didn't get done.  The plan was to do it today, but unfortunately my spoons once again dictated my ability to do them. Tomorrow is today and I simply can't function.

I have had a bath and that was enough to wipe me out of spoons. I have microwaved some party pies for lunch, opened the windows up and made a cup of tea.

After lunch, I will be going back to bed for a while. After that, I will be cooking chow mein for tea. I have taken the mince out to thaw but that's it. 

Once it would worry me, but twenty plus years of living with fibromyalgia has taught me never to plan too far ahead. Until I actually wake up in the morning, I simply don't know how or even if I will be able to cope with the day.

I have found if I just accept that this is the nature of the beast aka fibromyalgia, and go with it that I can avoid false guilt and depression.

So it all will get done when I get to it, even if tomorrow is today! 

Things are getting done

So we are staying home and doing some jobs around the house that I have been wanting to get done for a while now.

My sister gave me this picture of the seaside with ladies in crinoline dresses enjoying the beach. It is really pretty in real life and looks wonderful with my pale blue curtains and pink and mint green minkie blankets and blue doona cover. I hope it's not too girly for poor Chris. I will post a pic of the complete room later.

I am very weary today but have determined to follow Wednesday's List regardless. I really want to keep up with my housework, so I will be pacing myself. 

Although today is Thursday, I have followed that list yesterday as I had a doctors' appointment and was really tired after that.

On today's list of to do's:

1. Do a load of washing and put it away
2. Hang some pictures in the lounge room
3. Change our sheets
4. Cook some chicken kievs for dinner
5. Wash the dinner dishes from last night.

I trust you are all keeping well and staying at home where possible. It's not all bad and perhaps like us, you are finding that things are getting done..

It's just the nature of the beast!

I wish I could tell you that my fibromyalgia flare is over, but I can't. This morning I woke with so much pain that I took my bath in the morning instead of at night, hoping it would unkink all my sore muscles. It didn't.

As I lay in the bath I planned my day and prayed for the energy to do it. If determination was the only way to get through, it would be a breeze! But alas, determination does not equate to spoons (energy), and at the end of the day it can actually lead to false guilt if I can't achieve what I wanted to.

In chronic illness, I find that whilst it is good to make plans, it is unlikely that all will be accomplished. Like me knowing that my diabetes is out of control (11.6) and I simply must accept that I cannot take much sugar in any form, I must accept that I can only do so much. Or so little. 

So, it's no good flogging myself like a dead horse. It is what it is. What gets done, gets done. What doesn't, doesn't. 

So today, I am just following Monday's List. And preparing a curried sausages in the slow cooker for dinner. 

If I get everything done or not, I will have to learn to be content. Chronic illness is tough, but I will have to accept it: it's just the nature of the beast.

Are there any spoons out there?

So it's morning and with it comes the stiffness, the muscle pain and tiredness that belies the fact that I actually slept for nine hours. It sure doesn't feel like I slept at all.

I have to go to the chemist this morning as I am out of blood pressure tablets. As I have been home all week, mostly in bed, I will enjoy being out of the house a bit. But I know I will be glad when I get back home as well. Fibromyalgia makes you like that.

Accepting that I will be exhausted by just going to the chemist seems laughable to people who are not ill: but to us Sacrificial Home Keepers, it's a reality and part of our new normal. So I will take this necessary trip out today with gladness that I am getting out of the house but with the knowledge that I will probably need to go to bed for a bit afterwards.

Before I go to the chemist, which is a twenty minute drive from home, I will be cooking the evening meal in my slow cooker so that it is one less thing to worry about when I need to rest later on.

So once again, my to do list will be very simple:

1. Follow Saturday's List
2. Cook some sweet curry sausages with rice in the slow cooker
3. Go to chemist
4. Fill our tablet dispenser for the week

We will have to see if I can get it all done. If not, this picture will be of me searching for any spoons out there! 

Not even on my worst day

So today is another day of pain, lethargy and lack of motivation. As soon as I finish this post, I am going to have a nana nap.

I once would have fought going back to bed, but these days I know I have to pace myself and rest or this fibromyalgia flare won't abate.

In accepting my fibromyalgia, I have had to cast my perfectionism aside and just concentrate on basic essentials like meals.

I refuse to give in to false guilt and that has been reinforced by my realising that as soon as I am able, my housework will be done. Besides, it will never ever get to look like these houses in the slideshow that I blogged about today- not even on my worst day. 

Today's to do list is:

1. Rest
2. Cook some devilled sausages, mash and veggies for dinner
3. Do the dishes

This is the least I can do to make sure that our home never looks like one of those.

Not lazy: smart

Anyone with chronic illness that makes you fatigued like fibromyalgia, will know that part of accepting the new normal is planning to do the most you can with the least amount of spoons. That applies to all housework chores and social activities. 

Lately, Chris and I have been ordering our groceries online. This has so many benefits and is worth the $15 delivery fee. It makes ordering the shopping easier by having a list of previous shops to copy from. Wonderful when concentrating is hard when one has brain fog from fibro or medications...

The delivery guy will even bring it into the kitchen and place it on the kitchen bench. It is then just a matter of putting it all away. So much better than handling it at the checkout, loading it into the boot of the car, bringing it all in.

As a Sacrificial Home Keeper, I have streamlined the inside activities, and now I have streamlined the outside activities. 

With paying for delivery, some may say shopping online for groceries is lazy: I say no: it's actually very smart. Designed with the Sacrificial Home Keeper in mind. I am very grateful for it.

Today's list is simple as I am still under the weather:

1. Do dishes
2. Fold clothes in dryer
3. Make our bed
4. Cook lamb stew in slow cooker for dinner

Home at last

When my mother passed away, I was not able to keep a lot of the things she left me. My sister took them on the understanding that if /when I wanted them, they were there to pick up.

As you know, we lived in a fifth wheeler for six months, so I didn't have room for all the things I loved such as Mum's tea pots. When we rented again, I asked for them back.

I have a few household chores to do today, then we are going to clean the fifth wheeler for sale. God willing. I still depends on how many spoons I have today.

Today's to do list looks like this:

1. Do a couple of loads of washing and dry and put away
2. Cook pork chops in the slow cooker for dinner
3. Clean the fiver if enough spoons

I was showing my friend around yesterday, and she noticed Mum's teapots. It was just a small thing, but I felt happy that the teapots that had been promised me since childhood had come home at last.

Chronic illness: it is what it is!

So the day has started off without any appreciable spoons. However, I have purposed to do some chores in the house regardless. Simply because they have to be done.

With the last two days slack on housework, there are dishes and washing and some other chores that are shouting to be done.

My sugars are still 10.4 this morning in spite of taking the new diabetes medications for a week. So I accept that I am never going to feel really well. Fibromyalgia and angina coupled with back pain also seem to do that. So I am going to just concentrate today on the most crucial homemaking tasks: having clean dishes and cups and some clean clothes and towels.. No lists today, this is all I can manage.

So today's list of to do's are:

1. Soak and wash dishes and put away after air drying
2. Catch up on the washing and put it away after the dryer has finished
3. Cook some lamb stew in the slow cooker for dinner

Granted it's not much to do, but my body feels like it's trying to climb Mt Everest. But enough procrastination: I must push on. No fairy godmother is coming- I'm it!  

It's mundane. It's frustrating. It's tiring! But it is what it is!  It's chronic illness! 

A land awash in floods

Australia is a land of bushfire terrors followed by torrential rains bringing floods. Today has been such a day with a bushfire near us and then a massive storm bringing rains that have flooded our roads and the little stream at the end of our property.

We are grateful for the rains of course, but the changing weather is playing havoc with this fibromyalgia flare. I think it's ending, but new weather changes make it return with a vengeance. Such has been today.

I haven't followed any list and have had to go back to bed this afternoon. I expect to be in bed early tonight too. It simply is too hard to keep awake. I no longer fight it but go with the flow. It is what it is. False guilt is now a thing of the past...

Today I have only really managed to cook devilled sausages with vegetables for dinner. 

As I look out the back door and see the stream overflowing and the birdfeeder full of water, I realise that that is exactly how I feel with weariness... overflowing with it. A woman awash in fatigue, and a land awash in flooding rains..

The life is in the blood!

Today we went to see our new doctor for our blood test results. Basically we are doing OK except for our diabetes. Our sugars are quite high. But I have low magnesium and vitamin D. I will have to get some supplements for those.

So we are both on new diabetes medications with strict instructions to cut out sugar and to visit the chronic illness management nurse next month for a care plan.

I have grocery shopped today with weight loss and lowering of sugars in mind. It has been a busy day and I am almost ready for bed.

Today was a wipe out as far as housework is concerned. I didn't follow any list, in fact I had enough energy to blink my eyes and breathe. Good job it is involuntary.

Hopefully tomorrow will  be easier. Tomorrow being the first day of my new resolve to lower the sugars. 

We like this new doctor and we know he would be genuinely pleased if we did as he suggested. There's no hiding from him if we don't become proactive in regaining our health: the next blood tests will tell the tale- the life is in the blood! 

Like a beetle on its' back

Today I have woken up tired. Fibromyalgia and angina are vying with back pain to see which is going to be the one to send me back to bed.

So far I have taken my medications, made some toast and tea for our breakfast and thrown some fruit bread out to our delightful birds.

I was planning on following Mondays' List but instead I will be following Thursdays which is a day of rest. God willing, I will be able to do Monday's List tomorrow..

I have a pre cooked slow cooker meal in the freezer for dinner tonight. So no need to cook. I don't like using frozen dinners, but I learned years ago to accept what is and not be a perfectionist...

We are experiencing thunder and rain and I am wondering if that is what is causing my renewed fibro flare, or if it was making the effort to go to church yesterday. Whatever it is, one thing is for sure: today I am as weak as a kitten and as helpless as a beetle on its' back!