Family, gardening, The Future, Uncategorized

Pacing Ourselves

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Husband looked at me with bleary eyes the other day as we were finishing yet one more garden chore and said “We are getting too old for a garden this big. We can never have a garden bigger than this one”.

I don’t know when it happened, but the days are gone  when we could get all our garden work done in a couple of weekends and still look after our children and cats and dogs and keep up the house inside.  It took at least six weekends this year to get everything done. We just can’t work from dawn to dusk like we used to.

“Let’s get all the pea and rabbit fencing up today, and then focus on the strawberry netting tomorrow”.  “I think we can get the soaker hoses down Sunday after church.  We’ll worry about putting up the bean poles until next weekend”.   We never really had to pace ourselves like this, and it came on so suddenly!

I love our garden, and it is coming on nicely, and I don’t want to downsize.  Maybe going to the gym in the winter will help next year come summer. I am not used to pacing myself.

When have you bitten off more than you could chew. How do you pace yourself for life these days?

27 thoughts on “Pacing Ourselves”

  4. Rise and Shine Baboons,

    Pacing myself seems to be the theme of my life, these days. Aging issues do creep in, and the garden example is primary. I find I cannot work as much–I am down to 3.5 days, or walk as much, or eat as much. And on and on this goes.

    Sunday was a sunny, cool day, perfect for weeding. I did not pace myself that day because rain was coming the next day, and the weeds were vigorous and winning, despite having been hit the weekend before.

    So yesterday, said rainy day, I took an extra nap. It helped.

    Renee, I love the examples of what you were once able to do in a weekend. What I used to do in a weekend, I can hardly do in a week.

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    1. And it is my body that tells me how to pace myself. I have discovered that, starting five years ago, I cannot push beyond my limits, especially of energy, but now of fortitude, will, and pain. But that is just growing old.

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  6. Timely question for this skinny 74-year old who just spread 115 bags of mulch and planted a dozen shrubs! Crystal Bay endured what’s called “straight line winds” last night. It’s been 43 years since 65mph winds struck this bay. Oddly, no other bay got hit with this severity. I rent both sides of my dock (since I don’t have a boat and really need the money), and one of the boats was submerged in water; the other halfway submerged. A 100-lb canoe was tossed into the neighbor’s yard. Dock sections were torn off their iron frames.

    I was just sitting on my bed, sipping wine and watching cable news when suddenly there was a very loud crashing sound right above me on the roof. The second of two trees of my neighbors had fallen onto the cottage. I dimly recall posting the story of my negligent neighbors disregarding my warning three years ago that two of their trees were in danger of falling on my home. Well, one went down two years ago, and the other went down last night.

    The guys who dock here came out in the dark, frantically trying to save their boats from complete submersion. I ran around retrieving a dozen lawn chairs which had been blown at least 200′ toward the county road. My son, Steve, rushed out with his chain saw and spent hours on the roof sawing off the huge branches covering the roof. In the dark, no less. He said that not removing them right away would double the damage to the roof. The power was out which made it even more challenging.

    This morning, the bay is like glass. Not even a ripple on it. Mother Nature went from one extreme to the other. Thank God the neighbor, with whom I’d engaged in a two-year battle between homeowner’s companies, said they’ll take care of the enormous pile of tree branches Steve sawed off and threw onto the driveway.

    Tellingly, the worst part of this experience was losing access to cable TV and my laptop.

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    1. I drove through town this morning. We have some storm damage. I was not even aware of winds of that speed. When did it happen?

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    2. Thanks for posting this. I’ve been worried about this storm. I don’t remember much about the earlier storm, but it sent Dad’s boat almost to the southeastern shore of the bay and destroyed many large docks. It was great that Steve could come to your rescue. I’ve been concerned about this since hearing you had two boats moored to the dock.

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  7. We are in the process of trying to plan a fall road trip to SE u.s. that would coincide with a college reunion I have in Greenville, SC. Planning these things just exhausts me (mentally); you’re trying to make decisions months in advance about things you have no idea about or control over. At least with a road trip, we are more flexible than with plane reservations, etc.

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      1. No. It never will. She has five incurBle diseases. One fatal. Two fatal if the lupus does not get her first.

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  9. Here’s the problem with pacing yourself. It takes forever to get anything done. I am jealous that Renee is done with her garden because I don’t think I’m ever going to be done. I’m out there every weekend but still have a ways to go. Unlike CB who’s brave enough to have a 115 bags of mulch ordered all at once I can’t do that. If I have more than six or eight bags at a time, it’s too overwhelming. Luckily I only live 5 blocks from the nursery so most weekends will find me down there getting five or six bags and then the next day five or six more.

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  10. I try to hold down my work and volunteer schedule to about 20 hours a week if I can. Many weeks, I can’t. Not working full time is a plus; still, there are never enough hours in the day. So I make lists of things I want to do and things I have to do and check off a few each day.

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  13. OT – Since this is a slow day, thought I’d post this as it may be of interest to at least some baboons:
    PETER YARROW AND ALL-STAR LINEUP RALLY TO BENEFIT MINNESOTA FOLK ICON PETER OSTROUSHKO AT ST. JOAN OF ARC CATHOLIC CHURCH, JULY 22.

    Join Peter Yarrow (Peter, Paul & Mary) and more luminaries of acoustic, folk, and Americana than have shared a stage in decades. They’re gathering for one remarkable concert, the Ostroushko Family Benefit Potluck. All proceeds go to the Ostroushkos who face extraordinary medical expense after Peter’s devastating stroke in January.

    We’ll start at 5:00pm with a potluck dinner – this is Minnesota, after all – so bring your favorite dish to pass. Then at 7:00pm, Dale Connelly takes the stage to host the evening with Dan Chouinard as musical ring-leader. The legendary Peter Yarrow headlines the program that includes Dean Magraw, Peter Johnson, Joel Sayles, Ann Reed, and Natalie Nowytski, with tons of surprises along the way.

    Share A Dish: Potluck fare is encouraged but not required. Please bring a food item that will enhance our community meal and our spirit of sharing. We ask that all items are well labeled and clearly indicate key food elements such as meats, nuts, or eggs. If your selection is vegetarian, vegan, or gluten-free, please label it so – someone will certainly want to know. Thank you for helping to make this a heartfelt and helpful evening.

    If you cannot attend this event, but still want to help out, please consider donating to the Ostroushkos’ GoFundMe page: https://www.gofundme.com/peter-and-marge

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