So, what do I do everyday that is different from everyone else that is not suffering from chronic pain? Please read the Spoon Theory, if you haven't yet, to better understand my daily life and this post.
Now that I am no longer working, my days are a lot less stressful. This is just a brief
When I was working, I would try to get everything done (aka chores) within 3 hours. That includes laundry, dishes, picking up the house, showering, making the bed, sweeping the whole house, any kind of shopping, and making dinner by 4pm. I had to take a nap to function at my late night job, I was down at around 1pm and up at 3pm. I would get home from work at midnight and finally settled and in bed by 2am only to wake up at 7am and start my day all over.
Now that I am not working, I have created a schedule that I try to follow. If something doesn't get done on it, then oh well. I also get up at 6am so that Matt gets up and eats before leaving for school at 7am. I try to be in bed by 11, but that doesn't always happen. This is my daily morning routine:
Get up
Make bed
Get dressed
Eat breakfast
Take meds & vitamins
Brush teeth
Put on make up/moisturizer
Fix hair
Clean bathroom sink
Brush toilet
Do load of laundry
Feed pets
Clean litter box
Wash/put dishes away
Thaw dinner
Pickup & put away
Hot spots
Check e-mail/Facebook
Meditation time
This is based on the book Sink Reflections by Fly Lady. The pick up & put away is the basic picking up things that might be laying around, like a magazine on the sofa. The hot spots are areas in my house that tend to gather clutter very fast. Those areas are my kitchen table, my side of the bedroom (I tend to have a ton of books/magazines on the floor and a drink from the night before).
Again, following the Fly Lady method of cleaning, My house is divided into zones. Each zone gets a one week focus and a deep cleaning. Next week is my kitchen. It is also the week my dad is visiting and the week that the new World of Warcraft expansion comes out. so I may be slacking in the cleaning a lot more. LOL You're probably thinking that this is easy and you can do it in like an hour. Well, this takes me about 3 hours, not including the weekly zone cleaning, any shopping that needs to be done and dinner to cook.
Everyday is also assigned a little list of things that need to get done on that day. For instance, today is Thursday, so I have these to do in addition to my morning routine:
Pay the bills
File papers
Clean out purse (mine is huge and accumulates fast)
Clean out car (my backseat is bad and I have been slacking bad on this)
Clean laundry area
Fridays and Saturdays I try to finish up anything that did not get done during the week for an assigned day. Sundays I relax and go through my coupon binder and new coupons.
This morning I was reading a post that I wrote back in March of 2011 when I was first diagnosed with RA. Man, how my views have changed since then. Back then, I did not want to be on any medication and to do a more natural way. Well, there is no "natural" way that is safe. Even though my joints have not gotten better and seem to be worse, I know the medication has slowed down the damage than if I did not take anything at all. Yes, I hate the side effects, but I also like to be able to walk and use my hands.
First published 9/20/12
No comments:
Post a Comment