I have spent the weekend trying to do nothing.
IT IS KILLING ME.
Take it slow?? I have gardens to dig and meals to cook and THINGS to do.
I am trying. (Yes, yes, very trying, ha ha). But I sit down with a cup of tea to enjoy the sunshine and immediately spot the hole in the gazebo roof where a possum swan dived off the house roof onto it, and swiftly discovered it was a Very Bad Idea. I try to enjoy the garden, but I want to dig in the green manure, and plant the lettuces, and look at those weeds, and I need to water the peas and... and...
Breathe... Breathe...
No, its not going particularly well.
Thus far two things have helped. The first has been the complete and immediate banning of ALL multi-tasking. I am working very hard on doing one thing at one time, and that thing alone. If I am putting on a load of washing then I am not stopping or allowing myself to be interrupted until the machine is gurgling away and spilling half its water onto the floor (rotten seal).
Its much much harder than it sounds.
The second thing ground me to a halt. And it was just a trip out with the family.
You see it was a friends 40th birthday breakfast yesterday morning, and those few hours of travelling, socialising and kid-wrangling drained me to a point where I teetered once more on the edge of losing it. You see, after we got back I decided I'd go and do something in the garden (lettuces being top of the list). But as I started to dig, I started to panic more and more about other jobs that needed to be done. I felt overwhelmed, exhausted and close to tears. I decided I must be hungry, but food didn't help the utterly wretched feeling of failure and anxiety, I just couldn't shake it.
Eventually, my exasperated husband intervened (he is a brave brave man) and I got sent to bed with Time Team on the lappie, immediately passed out and woke up three hours later. Then moped about the house being crabby until Downton Abbey, and then crawled back into bed.
Yep. Recovery plan going well.
I do learn though, eventually. Today has been help-yourself breakfast, lunch at Maccers, trip to the shoe shop to spend gift vouchers :), dinner from the freezer and doing nothing that required any effort when the kids were playing outside, watching tv or monopolising the computer - whereas usually I'd been tearing around cleaning things, or folding things, or cooking stuff. The multi-tasking has been up-graded to no-tasking (or very bare minimum tasking, as any parent will know), so maybe there is hope for me yet :).
