There Aren't Enough Hours in the Day

My mother reminded me that I have been neglecting my blog dreadfully lately. The problem, quite simply is that there aren't enough hours in the day.

My health has been demanding that I sleep a lot. Nothing new there really but I have more things I want to do every day and it's getting harder and harder to get even a fraction of them done.

It's 10:30 now and I haven't even had breakfast yet. I have made it and had a few cups of tea. I've also managed start vacuuming that I need to do today. The vacuuming is far from finished, but I have to empty the vacuum before can do more.

Molly is in heat, so needs panties on to be allowed beyond the kitchen. She's been out twice today already, so that's multiple panty removals. Shawnee still seems to believe that she is to go out every five minutes even though she's as old as she is now. I think she's been out four times and spent some time in the crate to tried to encourage her to hold it longer.

In other things I need to do today, I am planning to make calzone for dinner, so need to make the dough and slice tomatoes and onions before DH is home from work.

Tanya and Ria are still on the pony pasture, which is without grass. They need hay twice a day so I do that in the mornings and DH does it in the afternoons.

There's a big pile of dishes that need to be done.

I am desperate to write. My struggles to write are taking a lot of my time. I also need to maintain a certain level of activity on the writer's list that I'm on. I have subbed two of my chapters already and have crits on those waiting for me to respond to and process. There also a few works by others that I need to crit. One is a complete book draft from someone who has contributed a number of useful comments to my subs so far. I offered to give her book a complete readthrough, because there are a lot of flaws in the chapter by chapter method that the group uses. By offering do this for others I have favors I can draw on later when I need my own done.

As if that weren't enough, the girls are desperate for training and attention. I really haven't been giving them enough training lately. Molly is really feeling it because she's not allowed to go anywhere when she's in heat. Since Shawnee hasn't started yet, she at least has been allowed to make some small outings with her father.

My health needs me to ride. Right now, I still can't saddle up by myself. DH has built the lift system for me, but Ria needs training before she's willing to go under the saddle. So I ought to spend at least 15 minutes working on that.

If I am going to finish my next secret leather project in time for when I plan to give it to the recipient, I need to get working on it. My drawing for the design is finished and I'm very proud of it, but I need to make a pattern for the pieces I need cut out of leather. The woman in the leather shop offered to help DH cut them out there.

I also have an order, when I eventually get around to it, for a lady's wallet for the friend down the road that ordered last one for husband. That one is finished by the way he should be getting it tomorrow. Idiot me didn't think to take any pictures of it. At least I still have copies of the drawing for the design.

Well, if I don't eat soon I'm going to pass out. Hopefully this gives you an idea why I am not updating my blog more often.

The Weekend

Our weekend was extended by a day because DH's work made him take a day of his comp time because there wasn't enough work. Luckily he is back at work today, but it was a very hectic weekend for us. We just had a lot to get done and even with the extra day, not enough time.

Friday DH came home to pick up me and the girls after work then we went to his parents for dinner. We left early enough to go get fence posts enroute and put up a fence around their main vegetable, herb, and flower garden to keep the girls out of it. DH had set a couple rows of leeks for them (he will do most of the care but it enables them to harvest when they want them without having to call us a few days ahead to arrange for a dropoff) and we didn't want the girls running through it while they play in the fenced yard. We got that done then had a nice dinner and headed back out to do some more yard stuff. We pulled some plants out of their front bed that there were too many of and some weeds. Then DH trimmed several bushes and trees for them. We put what we could onto the trailer, but left a load behind. I hope to get the video of the girls playing with the branches up on their blog one of these days.

Saturday we planted the lilac seedlings we brought home from their place. Then DH took the car up to the neighbors and walked home. You see, we needed to lead Queenie and Hopi up to the summer pasture at his place and there was NO WAY I could walk that far twice. I led Queenie, who kindly let me lean on her shoulders to rest my hip some of the time. DH took Hopi, who is much better at being led thanks to my work and the time she went with a short stiff lead rope in her halter. She wasn't easy though. He had to drag her, quite literally, across the road. We were lucky to get a small break in the heavy weekend vacation traffic, but it wasn't big enough to dilly dally and try to teach her anything. So while she put her legs forward to try to stop, he dragged her across the road. After that things settled down and she was able to nibble some clover once she realized her mother was cool with it all. The train tracks were another problem, but it helped that she'd already seen Queenie cross.

So now our little herd of shetland ponies is reunited and they sure are happy about it! Idiot me didn't realize I was supposed to take Hopi's halter off when I released her (she is growing and it can quickly become too tight), so we had to go back up yesterday morning to do it.

We went in to visit a bit with the neighbor, who is enjoying having enough time for his garden and whitewashing now that he doesn't have cows to milk twice a day. We also needed to pay him for the hay we got from him all winter.

Then when we got home, I crashed for a while in exhaustion. Once I recovered a little, it was back to work with laundry and other chores. We dug up some of our own potatoes for the first time for dinner (we didn't have enough left). They were bigger than DH expected but not huge and VERY good. So we have now eaten the first of the harvest of our own garden.

Sunday we started as early as DH could get me out of bed (it was NOT early). It took me a while to get functional. Then he decided it was time to sand and refinish the coffee table, so we took that outside and got it started. While he scrubbed it down, I got out his farrier equipment and got it set up.

Then we fetched Quintas and spent several hours trimming her hooves. She was not particularly cooperative (we think she might have had a bad experience as a foal... it wouldn't be a surprise if she had considering how neglected and undernourished she was when DH got her). It took a long time, but he did a GREAT job on her. She had problems with some of the hoof having broken off, so it was not easy for him to clean up all those rough edges and get a decent result.

After that, I got another rest and he sanded the table. At some point, I made some homemade salad dressing with sour cream, fresh parsley and chives, and salt and pepper to have with dinner (pork tenderloin medallions, readymade potato wedges we seasoned, and salad) and prepared the salad.

While the sanding equipment was out, we got out of one of the panels of the folding wooden screen we retrieved from the trash place a while ago. It must have been a very gorgeous oriental screen once with inlaid stone. But when we got it, some of the stone had come off. So we removed all of it then but it has been standing in the workshop waiting for more attention since. So we got the one panel out and I was able to sand both sides. We need to get something to fill in the holes from the stones before we can paint it and we're still discussing decoration options. But I found an online pattern for a huge horse stencil and we're thinking of spray painting that on. I also have some other smaller stencil patterns in western motives that we could use. They are smaller than we want probably, so I may need to try to copy them up larger (copy machine can't do that, so I would have to do ti manually with the grid method).

I was really beat from everything we did, so I ended up lying outside on a blanket working on the book I am editing for Edith (she wrote it in Englihs, which is not her native language, but it is quite good and a joy to edit). DH worked on repairing the stucco on the house while I did that. I have pics of the house before and will have to take some after pictures to show what we've been up to with it. It has taken a LOT of hours already and many more to go before it looks decent again.

Then we had dinner. While he was taking the potatoes out of the oven, DH's back suddenly went really bad, probably caused by having fought with Quintas in the morning. So he spent the rest of the evening in misery trying to relax. I did manage to fold some laundry, but other than that, we were donebeing productive.

Monday he had fun getting me out of bed again becase I was hurting really bad. I also had to take more pain killers than usual. But then we started running lots of errands. We got the halter off Hopi, went to the pet store for dog food, two grocery stores, and several other places. By the time we got home, both my brain and my body had shut down from the pain. So I spent most of the rest of the day resting. DH went to a local blacksmith to get a hoof jack made similar to the one he borrowed from a friend.

In the evening, we worked together to pull and trim rhubarb for his mother. He packed his lunch and played with the girls (while I continued to rest) then we went to bed.

Today he brought me a pain killer at 5am before he left for work. Then I stayed in bed 5 more hours until a friend dropped by to see how I was and got me out of bed. I was on my way up anyway. So I talked to her for a while then got the girls out and got myself dressed.

I have two main projects today beyond recovering: bathing Shawnee (she smells like a dog, which isn't normal for our girls) and doing the dishes. I already got a zinc tub out and filled it part way with water in the sun for bathing her. I want the water to warm up. I also put the hose where the sun will be on it so at least some of my rinse water is warm. And the towels are out on the picnic table to warm up too. I need to do that soon but it has been a little cloudy and the water is not as warm as I hoped yet, but the chill is off it. I also did some rinsing and sorting of the dishes, so they won't be too bad to wash.

Now I am going to rest soem more before I get to work. Hope everyone else is ahving a good week.

Housework: Doing the Dishes

Doing the dishes is probably one of the most difficult tasks for me considering my health. In fact, I spent three days struggling to do the dishes. It wasn't that we had some insane amount of dirty dishes before I started or that we dirtied a whole bunch after I got started. The problem is that I am extremely limited in how much I can stand there and do the dishes. They wouldn't even be finished now, if DH hadn't washed the rest of them this morning.

I can pretty well manage getting the dishpan out of the cabinet under the sink. I even do okay getting the detergent up, putting that in, and finding a brush and the drying rack. Our dishes aren't impossibly dirty because we always rinse them well after use, and generally keep them stacked on the counter beside the sink.

Because of my pain, I can't stand more than a very short time. I've tried taking my office chair in and put in front of the sink, but it just doesn't work very well. Sitting isn't that much more comfortable than standing. A lot of the time, DH tries to take care of the dishes because of these difficulties. But he can't be everywhere at once, so I do what I can.

We thought about a dishwasher, but we don't really have the space. It would also be overkill for a family of two that rarely has guests. Both the purchase experience and the cost of running it outweigh the benefits. And it would take us days to fill it. I also still wouldn't be able to empty it because I can't bend down. Although it may be possible to train Molly to retrieve the clean dishes out of the dishwasher, I don't think that would be very hygienic.

What I do when I do the dishes is start with as little water as possible in the dishpan. I then washed the little that I can and put it on the drying rack. Then I go rest for another half an hour or so.

By the time I come back, the water has gotten cold. I add more from the hot tap. I again wash what I can and put it on the drying rack. I rest again.

I repeat this cycle until the drying rack or the dishpan is full.

When the drying rack is full, I rest until it is dry enough to be put away. Occasionally I assist the drying with a towel, but not usually. Then I put away everything that goes above counter level. Everything goes on the counter, I stacked neatly for DH to put away later. I can't bend down to put things away.

When the dishpan is full, I empty the water out and start over. We recently got a new dishpan that is smaller, which makes life easier for me. I only need to tip it in the sink to empty it. The old one was larger, and I had to stop earlier, because I don't have the strength in my hands to lift it very well. When I tried, I often spilled water all over the place. So sometimes I just had to do the dishes until the dishes were full and leave the full dishpan for DH. So the new one is much nicer for me and I like the pretty purple color.

So I repeat like this until there aren't any dishes left.

There are some things that I don't wash. Things that are really heavy like the cast-iron pots and pans are just too much for me to manage. DH has to get those too.

Obviously, having me do the dishes is also very expensive in oil for heating the water and in the water itself. This is why DH does his best to do the most of them. I also try to get them before we have very much accumulated, because then I might be able to do with only one dishpan of water.

Housework: Vacuuming

I thought it might help people understand my condition and what my life is like if I explain how I manage some of those basic household tasks. Vacuuming is probably one of those things that most of you don't think very much about. You just get up and vacuum, vacuum, and put it away and it's not a big deal. I just wish things were that easy.

Our vacuum is a Dyson. DH had already when I moved in. When we heard about the new animal vacs, we checked them out. It turned out that the only real difference was the one mouthpiece it had that we didn't have. We asked and were able to order that mouthpiece for our current vacuum. We're really glad we did, because it is made a huge difference in how well dog hair gets cleaned up. Not that that was relevant to how I vacuum, but I thought it was an interesting fact.

Our vacuum is stored in the furnace room between the furnace and the saddles. Getting it out requires stretching, bending, and pulling all a once. That combination is a real nightmare for me, so DH has to get the vacuum out. Because he leaves for work before I get up in the morning and is gone most of the day, I have to decide to vacuum a day ahead of time and ask him the night before to get the machine out before he leaves for work. He is very agreeable to this, but occasionally forgets. If he forgets, I skip vacuuming that day.

When I do vacuum, I can only do a little bit at a time. Doing the entire house takes four or five blocks of time. I have to rest at least half an hour usually longer between blocks.

The job I do is not the job I want to do. What I want to do is really vacuum thoroughly and completely. What I can do is vacuum the easily accessible high traffic areas. I only vacuum the spots I can reach while standing upright. Nothing in the way gets moved, except things Molly can move for me and things on wheels. So I can get Molly to pick up a dog toy or pair of shoes, but she can't move the recliner or coffee-table. I also can't bend down to vacuum under the coffee table or the sofas. I only vacuum as far as the vacuum reaches when I'm standing up.

I only move the vacuum around by dragging it by the hose. Fortunately, it is able to roll over the bottoms of the baby gates.

Emptying the vacuum requires bending down. So I don't do that either, not usually anyway. Today filled up so quickly, that I did have to empty it before could finish vacuuming. But that means I'm in a bit more pain than usual.

Obviously I can't put the vacuum cleaner away. So it stays out until DH gets home and puts it away for me.

Because I am not able to do the job properly, DH has to regularly go through and do the proper job. However, we have found that if I vacuum regularly. It is much less often that he has to follow after me. It also makes the house cleaner and more comfortable for living in. Yes there are big balls of hair under my furniture. But we don't see those all the time. So in terms of the living in a messy house stress that DH gets, it is significantly reduced.