Falling in love

I have fallen in love in a very grown up way.  I am in love with an electric floor scrubber. If that isn't grown up I don't know what is.

Naming the thing

Mr Footless and I were having a talk the other day and I looked at him and asked him how much time he thought he might still have on this earth.  He kind of Hems and Haws and then says "two or three years, why do you ask?"  I looked him in the eye and told him that I have been getting a really strong feeling that he doesn't have all that long.  I told him that I got the feeling that he had a matter of less than a year.
We dropped the subject.  Later He walked in to the kitchen and asked me," what if I have more time than you think?" I said "Then we have things in order and we know what is going on."
Mr. Footless grunted and walked off.
Just in case you are not aware, Mr Footless is getting frail.  His memory is getting more and more fugitive.  He has had a few troubling episodes with confusion.  If any of you who read this have history that you need to talk to him about, or things that you need to say, You need to do it sooner rather than later.
Meanwhile Mr Footless is working hard on getting things in order, and moving things around.  As I said, If we have more time than My anxious sense tells me, things will be in order and that will make living that much easier.

Getting it all back together

I am about to do household aerials. In other words I have to get my fan back together.
Bless Mrs. Poke the Crazy. she came in Monday and removed the lattice and the blades plus the pulley thingy.  Bless Mr. Friday's Child. He fixed the pulley which was the problem.  Now it is up to me to get it all back together before I get someone to help me by holding part of the lattice up there while I screw the screws in. 
Mr Footless listed all the things that he was sure he needed to do today and then he went in and lay down and went to sleep. Ain't life interesting?

A four spoon day

A friend came up to see me today, we were sitting in my newly renovated room and glorying in how well it turned out.  We were talking about being sidelined by chronic illness and She mentioned the spoon theory and how in trying to work a forty hour week she had borrowed so many spoons ahead that she had been sidelined for several weeks.  I nodded my understanding and thought over my day and week.
Well, today looks to be a four spoon day because I have been borrowing ahead as well.
I will need to get the fan out of its place and get the bearing replaced and as soon as possible, but it isn't happening today.  I am out of spoons.
In typing this I suddenly realized I have had chronic fatigue or fibromyalgia since my twenties.  I have had brain dysfunction since I was eleven.  In all the problems that I have faced and the situations that I have overcome there has always been the incredible drag of the chronic pain and illness.  Everything I have done has been done with limited energy and strength, slowly.  I realize how much I feel less than acceptable because I can do less than  what you would think was normal.
I will never be able to work forty hours and have time and energy for my loved ones.   Every day I have to choose what I do knowing that each choice made means another thing that won't get done somewhere else.  What I do with each day is a matter of choices made with the energy I have.
The renovation of this room took a month and a half.  I love it, it's beautiful.  The next room will take about the same time.  In between are clients, friends and family, and inevitably there will be days when, like this one, I am out of spoons.

And this works how?

Last night our big fan blew a bearing.  This is a major calamity because I am really heat sensitive and the fan sucks the heat out of the house every night in the summer.  This makes living  here possible because I can't  sleep at night when I am hot..  I hauled a ladder up into the hall and investigated.  I could understand that something was wrong but I couldn't tell what or why. it wasn't obvious from below the fan blades
 Then I hauled a bigger ladder up the stairs and opened the crawl hole and clambered up into the dark hot pit of the upper attic with a flashlight that would turn off at whatever the most inconvenient time could be, and investigated further.  It turns out as best I understand it, that there is a bearing race that needs replacing above the fan blades, not the one in the motor thank goodness.
I climbed back out and reported this to Mr Footless who then announced that he would climb up there in the morning(!) and take it apart to get it fixed.
I said "No."
Mr Footless said a number of things about how I was being obstructive and some other things about how I was being mean and I told him that It didn't matter what he thought, I wasn't going to cooperate with him getting up in the attic.
Moving on to today.
I got a call from Mrs. Poke the Crazy, A friend who I do like a lot, but who finds poking crazy people irresistible.  (Then she can't quite understand why her efforts to make their lives better isn't better received.  After all she does know how this is all supposed to go.)
 Mrs PTC had an exhaust fan which she offered me as a good substitute for my long working dearly loved attic fan.  I said yes, thanks, and she brought it over.  I gave her a glass of iced tea and we had a nice chat about the latest set of crazy she is busy poking, and she admired my new room and we went on our ways.
So later in the day as I am working on the huge mess in room #2 and taking things into room #1 and arranging them and getting ready to move the computer (not a job for the foolish or the faint of heart I might add) Mr Footless comes up the stairs with the big ladder and sets it up in the hallway of room #1 and then orders me to help him get up in the attic.
I said "No."  Then I carefully explained that Getting him up in the attic was a sure way to get both of us hurt and I wasn't going to have anything to do with it.
Mr. Footless has informed me that he will be getting up in the attic with or without my help tomorrow morning.
I told him to be sure to wear his lifeline so that when he came to grief he could call for help.  He was grossly offended. 
Tomorrow he may

• climb up into the attic and most likely have a problem
• wait for me to get home and then do it
• forget about it and do something else entirely

I can hardly wait to see.

Unloading

Bedroom #1 is most nearly finished with the base molding cut and ready to be nailed in place.  Bedroom #2 has a lot of stuff in it including a treadle sewing machine, three book cases and many heaps and piles of unconsidered schmutter.   I now must consider and unload the schmutter.
 Last week I sorted the knitting books.  3/4 of my knitting library went over to my office and was offered to a friend whose house burnt in the fires west of Fort Collins.  Her entire knitting stash was consumed, yarn, needles, books, finished things, memories and all.
 It's kind of the same and kind of opposite of a death. In death the person goes and everything they had remains and must be dealt with.  In losing a house the people remain and all the things vanish, poof.
You can say that the people are the important thing, and it is true things can be replaced.  All the same I think that we tend to dismiss the extent of their loss.  Every thing familiar is gone. All the patterns and habits that anchor us to our lives are in the things we touch and use daily.  And it is gone.
I can't begin to fathom what that must be like.  What I can do is offer some of what I have.  Needles, books and yarn.  The beginnings of a new start and a fresh understanding of  fiber craft and its anchors.
I am unloading from my abundance and offering it up to those who may need it much more than I.  It is a relief.  I am glad to lighten that load.