I know, I know, I was AWOL. Please, allow me to explain.
This past Saturday, a very kind lady from our church threw a housewarming party for me & Tim. It is the first of two parties. Why two? To be honest ... the situation is delicate. We originally thought we'd have one open house/housewarming for all of our friends, family, and church. But, the day after the hostess gave us extra invitations to pass out to friends (she'd already given invites to our church members), she received some very bad family news (the kind that makes the mouth drop open). So, there Tim and I were, completely unsure of how to handle things. Should we urge her to cancel the whole thing? Postpone it? In the end, we decided not to burden this nice lady with more stress. We decided we'd go through with the open house, and have a second smaller thing later on. The whole situation, especially the fact that our house was entirely unrepresentable for 1 party, let alone 2, had me ruffled.
Our house, since we've moved in, has looked like a garage sale. Everything is mixed up, and boxes are half-opened. In the weeks leading up to Saturday's party, when anybody asked how things were coming along, I smiled and said, "We're getting there." Thing is, I didn't tell them that "there" was "buried alive." To see chaos in every room was extracting my inner Martha.
"Shelves! Shelves! We need more shelves!" I'd cry, but no matter how many Home Depot & IKEA trips we made, it was never enough.
Around this time, a funny thing began to happen. My hands, randomly throughout the day, would get that "pins and needles" feeling. At first, I thought I was having a case of carpal tunnel. I mean, I had been painting rooms, assembling furniture, cleaning--my paws were worn out. But then, the tingling feeling started happening more and more and for longer periods of time. In fact, I woke up one night with both arms in painful tingles.
Tim, observing me as I reorganized books, removed the dry cleaning from the metal hangers they come on to regular ones, and ate dinner in front of the computer just so I could finish editing a newsletter, said, "You have, like, OCD. Why don't you take a break?"
But, how was the laundry going to get done? Or dinner? Or the thank you cards we owe a few people? Did anyone order tickets yet for our Florida trip? Has anybody seen Rain??
During this whole time, Rain had been irritated with me. She wanted to play, read books, go outside--all the things we did at our apartment--and I was over there organizing color swatches so we could paint the home office.
All the while, my body has been showing warning signs. When my back would give out, I would tell Tim, "Honey, just hand me something I can work on while I'm sitting," instead of taking a break.
The thing is, I can't stop myself. It's not Tim, and it's not Rain. If I'm not doing two or three things at a time, I feel like I'm not getting anything done. Maybe I have ADD or something.
Anyway, so how did Saturday's party go?
Fine, of course. It went fine. That's the thing: during the party I was thinking, "Why did I make such a big deal about this?" Everyone I know is nice, so of course, they were nothing but polite about the house. Why was I working like Simon Cowell was coming to rate my place?
This week, Tim will be out of town for work. His final instructions to me were, "I want you to do something for me while I'm gone: do not work on the house. Go do something fun. Take a break. I want this place to look the same when I get back, OK?"
That's sad. When someone has to tell you to take a break, things have gotten out of hand. So, here I am. What should I do first? Order something off of Amazon?
Of course. But I'll have to read email, flip through a People magazine, and listen to the This American Life podcast at the same time, too. Sorry. Rome wasn't built in a day.
Monday, September 22, 2008
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