Dream feelings #5

We are living in a big barndominium that has walls that do not connect with the ceiling, and I know we share the roof with another family on the other side of the wall.  Its only Grayson and I home and I and I am trying to put him to bed for the night.  I hear voices in his room and discover there is another child there, one that I do not recognize, playing with Gray. They have these small cello-wrapped packages of small gadgets that look electronic, almost alien.  I cannot figure out what they are.  Happy Meal or Cracker Jacks toys?  I tell the other child he must go, its Gray's bedtime.  I must have ushered the kid to the front door because on the other side of the wall nearby I hear people laughing and talking.  I loudly shush them and they hush.  I return to Gray's room and he is sitting up in bed awake, so I tell him he really has to go to bed now!  I notice his bed is atop a platform that has multiple drawers below it.  In the drawers are not much besides small toys, trash, a sock here and there...none of it is clean or organized and I wonder to myself when the last time was that I changed his sheets or cleaned his room.  I am back at the front door where two women who look to be adult mother and younger daughter, are showing me strings of outdoor lights with red bulbs.  They are dressed like straight out of the 80's and have dark hair.  The dream ends.

****** 

This dream actually made me teary eyed when I awoke.  I feel kind of torn up about Gray leaving home to go to college, but I know its past time for that to happen.  I keep hoping he will get accepted to A&M- I cannot picture him languishing at SHSU.  He is such a bright bulb - makes good grades, does whatever we ask of him.  I know I will miss him so much.  The barndominium - what we plan on building at Highlands.  The gadgets - tied in to his engineering degree plan.  The disorderly room - his current room! (and me trying not to mother him so hard) The dark haired women - me.  The light strings - some we have at Highlands that we replaced the bulbs in on Saturday.

Oy vey.

Smarter, not harder

I think its nice to sit on reflect on the "happy" in my life - I need to do that more often.  But this Spring there's been a lot of physical stuff making me feel less so.  For most of it I know how it got started.  I have done a lot of yard work lately and I know that pushing myself to get things done on my two days off is starting to wear on my almost 59 year old body.  Well, actually one day since Mark insists we leave for Highlands on Saturdays by noon.  Push and shove, rushing, and trying to do too much.  A recipe for pain.

*Two weeks ago I had cystitis that laid me low.  I thought I merely needed to drink some more water and I could nip it in the bud like magic.  Apparently, no, you just have to survive it until it goes away, and sometimes, it won't.  Motrin wasn't cutting it, so an after-hours doc called me in some Toradol.  A couple of doses later I could feel the pain lessening it's grip and it finally waned.  But there's something about having that kind of pain off and on for a week that wears you out.
*Then a few days after that, I was finishing planting some lariope in the backyard before it started raining.  It was also the morning we were going to leave for SHSU on a campus visit with Grayson.  I managed to strain my back, pulling a muscle which was already aching from all the raking and yard work I had been doing in the two weeks leading up to that.
*Finally, on Saturday as I was again rushing to come to a stopping point on some yard work out front, I hauled some very heavy bags of mulch out of my car.  Three of them.  Which didn't used to be a problem for me, but I don't think I am strong enough to do that anymore.  And I strained my left arm as I was trying to be careful with my right arm.  Spasms all evening.

******

So Easter Sunday I tried to take it easy and I got to bed early and spent the day drinking a lot of water and I even napped. My plan going forward this week is to wait until Saturday to complete the landscaping projects I want to work on.  Get lots of sleep this week.  Drink lots of water.  Continue my healthy eating plan.  And focus on taking care of myself.  Plus, maybe I need to change the way I work on these outside projects - working smarter, not harder.  And not rushing.