Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Nesting

The universe concurs that going through with the surgery to fix my right thigh joint is the right thing to do, and this is the right time. Mostly, what makes the most sense to me is that having one painful leg is better than having two (my friend DI said it best... thanks, you!). At the end of the day, 80% of the time, it is my right thigh that hurts. Often I can barely walk if it's been even a slightly busy day. (right now I feel the ball joint of the hip- where you could press on it and feel it from the outside- throb. Inside it is a powerful ache that won't let up.)

So, June 2nd is the day. Home the next afternoon (it is so hard for me to write that! I mean the part about when I can expect to come home. I have a lot of fears around that).

When I have been pregnant, around the third trimester, I always had the huge, unstoppable urge to create order and space, and finish unfinished projects that I wanted done before the birth.
They call it "nesting", getting the nest ready for the baby bird on the way. I always got it strong.

Changing functions of rooms and moving furniture all by myself, painting and decorating rooms, rearranging the entire kitchen, getting all the mending done, and tons of laundry up until the finish line. Here is a picture of me 8 months pregnant with Shifra (Nov. 2002), standing on the kitchen counter top shining the steam vent...

Nothing stopped me from doing the projects that popped into my head. Once I painted the room that was going to be her room, and it was like a minty green. When I finished painting it, after a long hard day, also taking care of two toddlers, I asked Robert what he thought. He said it looks like the color of Mylanta (stomach upset medicine). Yah. Buzzzzz! Wrong answer!!! I slumped down the wall and cried.
I then spent the evening, after putting Dov & Ya'akov to bed, *repainting* it with a sponge texture white. I went to Home Center, bought another 5 litres of white paint, and painstakingly used a sponge to paint a cloudy-type of effect all over the entire room to lighten up the Mylanta color. I was up most of the night, but I *had* to get it done, it would not wait.

Each baby I did stuff like that. I was very useful when I was pregnant. :)

I am finding myself having that same "nesting" feeling these days, with the surgery coming up. Isn't that strange? I know that I will be out of commission for a while, and I want to know I got some big projects done before I won't be able to do any for a long time.

I guess the knowledge of an upcoming confinement sets off this nesting reaction. The purpose is to feel that after the baby is born, or the surgery is over, I am left with just the more important things to give my time and TLC.

I painted today, and potted flowers and plants.
I painted a bed storage box which I found on the street. It is the size of a mattress. I already knew what I was going to use it for. It was perfect.
I asked Ya'akov to come up the street with me to help get it into the car.
When we got it home, Azriel and I started to work on getting the upholstery and foam stuffing stripped. Box knife, scissors, screw driver to remove staples. It took about an hour, but we stripped it.

Yesterday I bought the perfect color to paint it- a burnt sienna orange.
Today I painted it.
Tomorrow I plan to plant the fruits and vegetables which I bought the seedlings. Parsley, baby lettuce, basil, rosemary, dill, and I will plant melon seeds from an amazing melon I ate today. :)

It is going to be in the downstairs back yard, and it'll be the fruit and vegetable section.
Ya'akov has another corner of the yard there where he is cultivating sunflowers! Big sunflower stalks are about to spring forth with yellow sunny flowers, and the seeds for more!! It is gorgeous how he is doing it with such love and care. Those sunflowers are his babies.

Today I also potted five plants- flowers, succulent plants, and re-potting a few that I already had that needed help. It was *a lot* of work. The painting, the potting, the clean up. Then the kids came home..... and then I found out my babysitter had food poisoning and could not come over today. Ack! Only 2pm and already completely wiped and in strong pain. Not good.

Still, I made lunch for us, and then got them to a new sewing class they are trying out. 
A heavy heart-to-heart conversation with a teen aged son took even more out of me.
Then a parent-teacher conference. Thankfully, this teacher knows me well over the many years she has taught a few of my kids, and agreed to do the conference by phone (which is also a testimony, actually, to the fact that the conference was easy and a good report. She didn't need me to come in because there were no big issues to discuss. Whew!!

I could barely walk at that point. So. Much. Pain (mostly right leg). I slugged through dinner and bedtime (and two rounds of "Go-Fish"), and now am waiting for the second load of laundry to get done, so I can get it into the dryer, so the kid can have his favorite clothes in the morning. What a mommy. :)

After all my planting and setting up a watering system is done, I have a filing project to do. We got a new filing cabinet system, and I am taking on the job of transferring all our files from the old system, and making everything easy and neat. That will take a long time. Tedious looking at documents and letters, organizing and file where needed. Tedious, but I am looking forward to it being done before my surgery. It just needs to be done.

For me, deadline = productivity. Maybe that is why I haven't been able to really work consistently on my book; no deadline. Well, I do plan to work on it while I am down for the count, recuperating after surgery. Everything at it's proper time.

I really surprise myself when I can get these projects done, you know? I mean, there are days that I cannot get out of bed because of pain and total lack of energy, or just not being well that day.

I know as well as you do that I am going to crash some time soon (my babysitter hasn't been able to come in three days. I'm burning the candle at both ends.) But, I hope it waits until my projects are done. :)

A few pics of what I've been up to:

flowers, plants and pots ready to be matched up

finished product- the plant shelf outside our front door

painting the bed box/ veg garden box

I love painting jobs. So therapeutic for me.
























Looking forward to showing you the finished vegetable garden! Stay tuned..... :)

8 comments :

  1. Dear Sarah,
    I am overwhelmed by your persistence and productivity!
    Ida

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  2. Bo well, and good luck my dear friend.
    Warmest, Esther Gur

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  3. I scrubbed the bathroom...even between the tiles with a toothbrush before my hernia operation (when I wasn't supposed to) . Didn't want to get home after op. to a dirty bathroom! But when I was all done I felt I was ready...what do men do ? Certainly not clean the house.

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    1. I have the bathroom cleaning on my list, too, I can only concentrate on one project a day, and not every day is available to me for various reasons, so we'll see if I get there or not.

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  4. keep up all the activities you are doing! but you gotta rest. maybe after a couple hrs. of work, take a break for a while and continue later on. love the big veg, garden box! your garden also looks lovely!how about planting cherry tomatoes. they grow quite fast.

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  5. Happy nesting, happy planting, Shabbat shalom and come home safe and well. Caroline

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  6. Im so happy for you that you’ve been able to come to a decision.

    I have a lot of fears around that).

    Maybe it’s time to work on those fears...

    Xoxo,
    Miriam

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    Replies
    1. Yes, I agree. I just don't know how to do it with you. It feels so unnatural for me to do a session any other way than in person. Phone cuts off the real person-to-person energy.
      I am very scared, though. Also since my friend's mother died *two weeks ago* from hip replacement surgery. Right there on the table. It was replacement surgery, and mine isn't, but I am now terrified. Another friend also lost her mom, a few years ago, when a hip surgery turned into a massive bone infection.
      So yeah, fear is there. Lurking.

      Maybe I'll again try to get to you. It's really what I feel I need.

      Sarah

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