a slice of my life. #1.

the key to my life is pacing. as long as I pace out my activities, exercise, challenges, I tend to be able to manage fairly well.
but, when I have a day like yesterday:
drive an hour in the cold/ice to an eye doctor's appt.
wait for 2 hours for a 10 minute follow up appt. (I tore my retina 6 weeks ago).
rush thru walmart to get the 8 items on my list.
drive back an hour to get my son at school.
drive again a half hour to his intake evaluation appointment,
which included an hour interview with me telling his birth story
until now, which is crazy stressful for me to tell....
drive a few minutes to get a quick hamburger with a  gluten free bun!! yeh!! eat in the car on the way back home....
stop off at the dump to off load garbage....
then get home.
to unload my shopping.
get dinner ready for William, who decided he hated the hamburger we got.
ck emails, facebook, blog.
by 6:15, I had hit the wall. we were in bed at 6.45. watched an hour of food network, "chopped", our favorite show.
by 8pm we were both asleep. that's my 7 year old and I.

so you would think that after 10-11 hours of solid, good sleep I should feel rested. NOT. I am exhausted. I am a bit sick to my stomach (typical warning sign for me that I am exhausted).
I am feeling that I am being sucked into that horrible black hole of my self critical place. "I never get anything done. My son deserves a parent who can keep up with him. I should do more. I should be better at getting things done. I should have a cleaner house. I should be able to provide better for my family".... yadda yadda yadda. the critical talk starts to sing it's familiar song.

so what am I going to do to take care of myself today.. get up, that in itself is huge. if I hadn't been on carpool morning duty. I would have slept the day away. but I didn't. I got the kids to school on time. I got to the post office. I got to the market. I got to class. I got home. I have ckd emails and facebook, this makes me feel connected to my friends who I moved away from. I have baked a cake. a new recipe that I haven't wanted to try. and now I am going to get my son.

we will have a very very slow afternoon. a very very early dinner. and go to bed very early again. it is so much easier maintaining this kind of schedule up here in the mountains where there is so little external distraction. one of the main reasons I moved us here.

that is an accurate slice of my life... when I have done too much and my fibromyalgia is flaring. I feel the exhaustion before I feel the pain. 3-4 days of recovery after a stressful day like yesterday. hope to be feeling better by the weekend. and if not, we will be watching a lot of movies, taking it slow, and not doing much else this weekend.

I miss my mom and friends who babysat for me while we lived in the bay area. the hardest part of being here is not have a team of babysitters that can punt for me when I need to be napping and recharging.


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