Monday, March 28, 2016

Mushy brains and the inefficient homemaker

I am not an efficient person. Homemaking in an efficient way doesn’t come naturally for me. I’m talking the really nitty-gritty efficiency stuff.

I was married for six years until I learned to do dishes. I learned that you stand in one place and wash THIS sink full of dishes—completely—before moving on to find more dishes. My inclination had been to wash a few, remember that I had kettles on the stove, move off to get them, wash a few more, than wander to gather more, wasting lots of steps and time in the process. Then it dawned on me why Mom would say, “Bring me dishes to wash,” while we were working on cleaning up after supper. If she could stand there and wash uninterrupted while the dishes came to her, the whole system worked much more quickly.

Learning to pick it up right away—I’m still dreadfully bad at this. So a toy is laying on my bedroom floor. It bothers me all day because it doesn’t belong there but I’m planning to sweep my bedroom floor sometime today. Rather than picking it up because it’s bothering me, I’m apt to walk past it all day long. One toy on my bedroom floor is a little thing, but those little things that lay about the house all day and are bothering me, add up. Soon there is this whole little pile of things in the back of my mind that are really bugging me and I’m feeling bogged down by the condition of my house.

Bathrooms are still kind of a huge ordeal in my mind. Jube is in training about bathroom cleaning and I still feel like I need training of my own. Oh, I know the steps, but for some reason, bathrooms kind of pile up. Mostly it’s a procrastination issue. Perhaps the bottom line is that procrastinators don’t tend towards being efficient?

I don’t remember how my mom’s house looked when I was a young child.  I don’t remember her slumps over baby times. I’m sure she had her slumps. The only slump I remember is over the summer she had her hip replaced. I think I was sixteen. She sat and gave orders from her chair that summer until she could get in for surgery. Actually, she was technically out of commission for a year, I think. But by that time, we kids knew the ropes of general cleaning. Oh, I know that there were corners that bugged her to beat all and we went at them as soon as she was pain-free, out of the woods, and feeling about ten years younger. But the bathrooms got cleaned and the dishes got done and the bread got baked, because Jenny and I knew the ropes. Our young childhood days, I don’t remember so much.

Okay, Jenny knew the ropes. She didn’t even have to learn them. I bumbled along. Work was frustrating to me. But it was at a time when I still didn’t realized that I needed to stop and think about what my hands were doing. How fast was I moving? My work habits were just as terrible in school. It was no fault of my mom’s either. She realized in part what was going on, and tried to work with it—but I think in some ways the idea that I needed to think every step through consciously was an issue she had to think through in an effort to understand. What she did give me though was a good picture of what the goal was. Something to work toward. That’s why I’m able to actually work on my own inefficiency and procrastination.

I’m thinking about all of this because – hopefully – I’m coming out of a slump of my own right now. Being pregnant in the heat always takes its toll on me physically and emotionally. I move slower when I’m pregnant and feel like I waddle in circles all day long. With three children, I find that I get very little done these days. I just found out last week that my hemoglobin level was down below nine a little. It seems that it always drops around this time in the pregnancy. With all of that going on, my efficiency level drops down below a nine too, so to speak.

I was scrolling through my phone pictures for a picture for this post. I found this one. It says like it is. I think that was a bad week.

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But today I felt like I could tell that all my vitamin-taking has been helping. It wasn’t so hot either. Like ninety-one rather than 100 degrees for a change. The pollution wasn’t quite so bad today. I just felt all around better about life and living it. But I realized as I did dishes tonight that moving slowly had become a habit since my brain has been so dreadfully slow and mushy. I realized, “I can do this faster. I can scrub this glass faster. I can walk from this end of my kitchen to that, faster.” And it’s not like relearning, but it is like having to tell myself, “Kick in gear.”

Heat, pregnancy, and anemic tendencies are the perfect combination for mushy brain syndrome. I hate that fog. I suppose fogs do, and will come, for all of us, for different reasons. There is something to be learned in the middle of those times too. Today though, I’m thankful for a light at the end of the tunnel.

4 comments:

  1. Dear Lisl,
    You really are too hard on yourself. I think I did expect a lot of you girls during those years. The summer of 2004 was very different. I lost April through August to the hip issue and surgery. I don't remember being frustrated with corners. You girls DID know the ropes and did them like breathing a lot. We had readied the house for potential moving and I had lists for that for you. The only frustration I remember was the constant parade of curious people who used the excuse of our having it listed with a realtor to finally see the inside of our old stone cottage. That STILL bugs me. I think we had one actual interested party and they couldn't get a loan. After that little fiasco we settled in for the long haul to slowly remodel and maintain as we could. I have only good memories of how much you all helped me to keep our home with your good ideas and cooperation.

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  2. I just want to comment. I am pulling out of the pregnancy baby stage mushy brain thing. And in retrospect from not too long ago, I want you to know that it's not worth it. It's not worth it to kick yourself all over the planet because you don't have the same definition of household duties and control that other people do. I've come to realize that it's just not important. In the scope of things, you're doing amazing things everyday. So learn to pick up what's in front of you, but don't say you're inefficient or lazy or any negatives things. Say you're strong, and flexible, and have eternal focus. I promise, people who have their ducks in a row have told me often that they struggle BECAUSE of the control issue with in them to have it perfect. Relax, breathe, and be purposeful and shoulders back. You're doing wonderfully. It's okay. That's all.

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  3. Oh Lisl....:) hey have you ever tried to write a list of things to do? Crossing them out one by one is fun.... N if it doesn't get done today there is tomorrow....idk... it seems to help me... Right now though my to do list is so long it makes me want to sit down n cry a little.... One day a week doesn't last very long.... N these days that's all I get at home..... I think I'm gonna be working some midnight hours on the next couple a weeks.... Today I worked on something I have been wanting to accomplish for months..... But I should have been doing something more profitable because it really want on the important list.... Now I'm feeling stressed cause I didn't do the important things! ������

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