A boring home life

It's Tuesday morning here. I have just finished putting the groceries I got online away. It's so convenient for Chris and I seeing as we both are unwell

I have done a  load of washing and am thinking about doing some lunch. Toasted cheese and tomato sangers sounds good and easy.  

My kitchen needs to be cleaned but I am out of spoons as I didn't sleep well last night. The weather is changing as it's autumn here and we can experience all seasons in one day. It plays havoc with my fibromyalgia. It's making me feel miserable.

I am thinking of taking a nana nap before I do the kitchen. But before that I will take some Panadol Osteo   to help relieve my fibro pain. Pacing and resting are not an option with fibromyalgia: it's a necessity. 

After I clean the kitchen I will cook chow mein and rice for dinner and if I have enough spoons I will fold the day's clean clothes and put them away.

It's a boring day here and I am glad. When you think of what's happening in the world, I can truly gratefully say that God has blessed me with a good but boring home life! 

Loving Australian Damper

The other day, we ran out of bread and Chris and I didn't feel like driving to the shops. 

Now I cannot make a decent loaf of bread so my  friend suggested trying damper. It is a bread that has no yeast and has been baked since the dawn of settlement in Australia. So I tried my hand at making Australian Damper.

In the past I have used bread makers and have tried endless recipes for no knead bread without success. Oh, it tastes great straight out of the oven with lashings of butter, but as soon as it cools off, it is as heavy as lead. It even breaks the birds' beaks when I throw it out for them! haha

But this method for damper was so easy and we both enjoyed it so much. Why not give it a try?

Are you a senior Aussie?

 

These days groceries have gone through the ceiling and it is very hard to be able to afford meat and fresh fruits and vegetables.

When you are chronically ill and disabled, cooking becomes a real chore and meals can become less tasty and nutritious.

I was feeling  all this when my Aged Home Care Package was reactivated and it was with sincere gratitude that I was able to access Lite N Easy Meals. 

They are created by dietitians and cooked by chefs and are very tasty. My Aged Care Package pays 70% of the cost and I can order 28 meals every two weeks- or more often if desired.

If you are a senior in Australia, check out your eligibility for you Aged Care Package. You will be glad you did.

Ordinary is good!

It's Tuesday morning here. I have just finished putting the groceries I got online away. It's so convenient for Chris and I seeing as we both are unwell

I have done a couple of loads of washing and am thinking about doing some lunch. Toasted cheese and tomato sangers sounds good and easy.  

My kitchen needs to be cleaned but I am out of spoons as I didn't sleep well last night. The weather is changing as it's autumn here and we can experience all seasons in one day. It plays havoc with my fibromyalgia. It's making me feel miserable.

I am thinking of taking a nana nap before I do the kitchen. But before that I will take some Panadol Osteo   to help relieve my fibro pain. Pacing and resting are not an option with fibromyalgia: it's a necessity. 

After I clean the kitchen I will cook chow mein and rice for dinner and if I have enough spoons I will fold the day's clean clothes and put them away.

It's an ordinary day here and I am glad. When you think of what's happening in the world, I can truly gratefully say that God has blessed me with a day that's ordinary and good! 

Just living is a physical ordeal.

 

Lately I have been finding it difficult to be joyful. My fibromyalgia doesn't get better, my knees are paining me, my angina's worse and I have had bouts of asthma.

Sitting for long periods hurts my back, and my eyes and face and general skin is dry, but I need to keep the house warm as the cold winter temperatures aggravate everything.

I have tried returning to a more realistic sleeping schedule, but I find even if I go to bed at a reasonable hour, I still wake up a couple of hours later. Then I can't get back to sleep for another 4 or so hours. 

I am tired, people. Tired of all this pain. Trying to keep it all together. Trying to live a "normal" life. I mean taking a shower without assistance or cooking a meal from scratch or hanging out some washing should all be within the bounds of normality for a homemaker. Not so for me.

I wear tiredness like a heavy saggy wet cloak, and I never wake up refreshed. My circadian rhythm is all out of whack and I can't restore it. Through no choice of my own, I have become a night owl.

With Chris being ill with his heart failure, he doesn't sleep well either and sleeps sitting up. He starts off in bed, but graduates to his recliner armchair.

The fluid in his lungs makes him feel like he is drowning, so that necessitates sitting up to sleep. It. is. what. it. is... But I watch him struggling for breath and I feel that I am losing him by degrees...

I have thought about trying to be upbeat and falsely present myself as someone who is coping with all this, but if I did it would be a lie.

So apart from a nana nap later, I am planning to spend some time in prayer and worship. Hopefully, that will give me the strength to emotionally and spiritually rise above the physical ordeal just living creates.

Today is pancake day!

 

So today I wanted to make some pancakes for Chris's breakfast. I went to my pantry confident that I had a few packets of plain flour there, waiting to be used.

Sure enough, I not only had plain flour, but self raising flour and cornflour. I always keep a spare of everything in my fridge and pantry. Just in case there's a shortage or I don't have money any pay period.

I measured the plain flour and noticed it was a little dark. So I tasted it. Bitter. So I checked the use by date. Best before July 2021. 

Flabbergasted, I checked the other flours and they all were out of date- by two years!

When covid was at its height, I remember buying extra flour and sugar so that I could at least bake something tasty when we were staying home... 

Feeling a bit guilty that I havent baked for a couple of years, I recalled that my fibromyalgia had been bad all that time, and I toasted a couple of crumpets for Chris and promised to add flour to the shopping list for next week.

He was so longing for pancakes but settled for the crumpets and tea. 

Pancakes weren't meant to be today: but next week I am sure Chris will say, "Make me some pancakes for today is pancake day!"

For me, it's spoons!

It's Sunday morning here. I have brought in the online groceries and checked them off and put them away. 

I will soon be taking Chris's bloods and doing breakfast. Breakfast will be eggs and bacon and a cup of tea. Lunch will be ham and salad sandwiches. For dinner, I am doing a vegetable intensive beef stew. Fresh fruit for desert.

There's a hamper of clean clothes to fold and then I will be up to date with washing. Later I plan to make some coleslaw, if spoons permit. 

That's about it for today, except for cooking dinner. I don't want to put myself into another fibromyalgia flare or I won't have spoons to help my daughter tomorrow. As I always say: most jugglers juggle balls, for me it's spoons! 

More spoons to enjoy life.

We have just moved and we are both quite tired still. Although the house is functional, there's still a lot of unpacking to do.

This weekend, two of our grandchildren wanted to come see us and give us their verdict of the new house. Knowing that memories are all we will have once they are grown, we agreed to have them.

Although I am suffering from a bad fibromyalgia flare, I got dressed and stayed up in order to spend time with them.

We cooked lunch together and watched family videos of when they were first born and growing up. It was fun but it was also non taxing to my sore body. 

Today I am expecting a lady to come clean for a couple of hours. She did such a good job of cleaning our old house for our bond return, that I asked her if she would like to do a regular clean for us once a fortnight. She agreed.

With my poor daughter suffering from fibromyalgia as well and now living two minutes away, she also agreed to clean her house after ours each fortnight as well.

Both my daughter and I are finding just cooking, cleaning our kitchen, doing washing, grocery shopping, running errands like going to the chemist, planning finances and feeding our pets is enough of a job. We need some extra help.

There's very little help here for chronically ill people who can't do housework. What little we did get has been stopped since a new government has taken over the reins. So we have to pay privately.

I am grateful that I can save enough each fortnight to afford a cleaner's help. It not only keeps my home clean, but gives me more spoons to enjoy life.

 

"It is what it is!"

A friend of mine posted this on her Face Book wall and it was so simple and doable that I wanted to share this with you.

My hands are deformed with arthritis and I have little strength in them. Opening these ring pull cans have always been a challenge to me. 

Those cans that need a can opener are  simply not purchased anymore. I cannot use one as the arthritis restricts movement.

My fibromyalgia is paining me today and I didn't sleep well last night, so I will be cleaning my kitchen and psyching myself up to take a shower. That and cooking meals is all I will be doing today.

Meals will be Jewish Penicillin in my slow cooker.

It's not much to show for the vast amount of spoons I will need today, but as the young ones always say, "It is what it is!"

A helpful guide

As reported on the news, there will  be food shortages in the future, so I have been building my pantry and freezer up.

I am not living in fear, but rather I am trying to emulate that wise woman in Proverbs 31. She was not afraid of winter because she was prepared. I want to be prepared too.

As you probably know, I have been cooking extra meals and doing a cookup on days I have some spoons. It's been working marvellously well for me. Especially for those days when my fibromyalgia is flaring. I simply grab and defrost a couple of meals and dinner is done.

I make sure everything is clearly marked and dated so that I can rotate the food and not have it sit there until it is out of date.

One thing that I noticed when freezing my meals is that the label came off and I couldn't identify what the meal was and how old it was. So I read that masking tape doesn't fade or come off easily and I did that. It's true.

I came across this guide of shelf life for pantry items and I posted it here for our easy reference. Goodness knows, food's too expensive to waste, so this should be a helpful guide. 

 

No mojo with fibro

So leading up to Christmas, I had my 9 year old granddaughter Taylah, stay with us until Christmas Eve, when she would be taken home in plenty of time for Santa to come.

I promised Tay that we would make Christmas cookies make cubbies, play school, go swimming and have a play date with her cousins. 

Day one started out well and we played school, office workers and shop keepers. I showed Tay how to touch type, taught her a bit of Italian and French in a fun way and then I promptly ran out of spoons.

I simply had to give in to the pain and take some Tramadol to keep going. I made some lunch and felt like I might pass out. Dizziness assailed me and I felt vomity. Probably the Tramadol.

I had to explain to Tay that I love having her here, but am not well and I need to take a nana nap. She got a crash course in fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue. 

She had lost her paternal grandmother last week and was very anxious about me so I didn't want to frighten her too much, so I said that if I don't go to rest for an hour that I would not enjoy her stay because I would be cranky. If I went to bed just for an hour, I would enjoy it so much more, and so would she.

As she accepted this fact, she immediately bombarded me with "but I thought we were making cookies, playing out side and making a cubby house?" I told her we could do all that if I took a nap. She said OK then got her ipad out. I went to bed and allowed the Tramadol to do its magic. It didn't.

No, it didn't do anything except make me nauseous, even after a 20 minute nap. That was all I got. So, I got up, made us all a cup of tea and sat down with Chris to watch a video he wanted to show me.

Taylah pouted and demanded to make cookies, as I had had a nana nap. Groaning, I got up and started taking ingredients out to make the cookies. 

After that, I was too exhausted to clean the kitchen. I cooked dinner and then it was time for Tay to have her bath. That wasn't a big deal as she's nearly ten, but she wanted me to play MacDonalds with her, so I got some wooden spoons and plastic cups for her to play with. 

I sat on my shower stool and bought some Big Macs,"no pickles, no onion and a soft serve cone for my daughter." We blew bubbles with the Imperial Leather soap and I did what Fibromites do best: I tried to hide my pain and pretended to have a good time.

By 9 o'clock I insisted that Tay go to bed and I joined her. Before we went to sleep, she told me she missed her mother and wanted to go home.

In the morning, she assured me she loved being here and she loved me but wanted her mum. I told her I understood and that it was fine. We would take her home. She was humming to herself as she played teacher and when I went to the fridge, I found a love note from her to me.

I was glad as I worried she didn't stay with us longer because I was a boring old lady. And I fear I am. Cos everyone knows there's no mojo with fibro.