Final Update
Well, I've been home a whole two days now...
...and I'm finally starting to get an understanding of just how much the drive east, the two-week stay in AZ, and the drive back west took out of me.
(1) My mind is utterly fried.
(A) While my Muse was extremely talkative during the seven hours of silence on the
way home, she has been singularly impossible to find since then.
(B) My memory is shot - so many little details of life here have changed (this
happens when one is in the midst of doing a slo-motion renovation of two rooms
in one's home) that I have yet to fully comprehend or even notice. Hubby
asked "Did you notice what was missing?" and had to practically walk me through
the house by hand to show me what he'd unloaded and moved out to the shop -
ostensibly to make room for him rejuvenating the "long" wall, but also to make
the carpet installation a whole lot less painful later on.
(C) I'm hungry for daughter Súl's company. Actually, I'm hungry for any conversation
that doesn't demand that I feel like I'm shouldering responsibility for
supporting moods, reminding folks to take their meds, keeping track of
appointments I didn't make originally, or looking for apartments without having a
really clear idea on paper of just what kind of budget the rent would have to
fit into.
(2) I'm exhausted.
(A) There were, count 'em, five timepieces in the living room and den at Bro's house
that "ticked", with one cuckoo clock going off every half hour, and a chimed
clock that rang about five minutes later. All day and all night. That makes it
very hard to sleep.
(B) SiL had no conception of anybody living on a schedule other than her own, so I
was awakened every morning at between 5AM and 5:30AM, when she would turn on the
TV and start talking to - if not yelling at - the cats and the deaf dog (don't
ask about this last, I think it's just habit.)
(C) It takes time to recover from an intense driving experience like this last one.
I was concentrating very hard for nine hours straight, with little more than
three six-minute breaks for gas (and one potty trip). It got me home quickly
enough, but there was a price to pay for it. I also drank Mountain Dews - and I
generally do NOT imbibe any beverage with caffeine at all during the day.
(3) My diet has shifted drastically - both going and coming.
(A) I eat a LOT of veggies here at home - in AZ, they are mostly meat & potatos
folks. I did take Bro out to a Chinese place to eat twice, and the two meals I
bought and prepared for them both included veggies, but I managed to get bound up
right away and essentially lived most of those two weeks battling it. As a
result, now that I'm home, I'm running - and it's contributing to the exhaustion,
I'm certain.
(B) Under normal circumstances, I drink no carbonated beverage - not even diet ones.
I drink a tall glass of diet cranberry juice in the morning - a preventative that
has helped me get on top of repeated UTIs - and then make do with water from the
tap that has been filtered through one of those filter-pitcher things (like
Brita.) Bro drinks Diet 7-up all the time, and SiL drinks bottled water. I felt
very guilty going through HER water...
I have tasks I need to do - both on the internet and at home - that are having to take a back seat to my being almost narcoleptic for the last two days. It is COLD here, with an arctic storm having hit 24hrs after I got home that dusted the hills behind us with snow down to the 500 ft. elevation. So I'm sleepy, can't get warm, and had errands to run around and do yesterday in the pouring rain and today in the chilly, breezy cold.
In conversations with my Bro since I got home, I've discovered that (1) he still hasn't adjusted the pills in his pill reminder to reflect the dosage/prescription changes made while I was still there; and (2) as of last nite, he still hadn't gotten the signed paper the CongressCritter needed into the mail. He's been out of touch today, so only the One knows how he's doing - although from the sounds of it, he & his wife were at least working cooperatively yesterday, some compromises reached, and (best of all) she has decided that there are some things that will have to be sold.
Hopefully, tomorrow will see me starting to be my old self again. I'm sick & tired of being run down, mentally and physically. I need to worry about my son, who still hasn't found a permanent place to live up there in OR.
I think I just visited those "Interesting Times" that are essential to the Chinese curse. I'm ready to go back to my dull, uninteresting existence, as "interesting" certainly isn't all it's cracked up to be!
...and I'm finally starting to get an understanding of just how much the drive east, the two-week stay in AZ, and the drive back west took out of me.
(1) My mind is utterly fried.
(A) While my Muse was extremely talkative during the seven hours of silence on the
way home, she has been singularly impossible to find since then.
(B) My memory is shot - so many little details of life here have changed (this
happens when one is in the midst of doing a slo-motion renovation of two rooms
in one's home) that I have yet to fully comprehend or even notice. Hubby
asked "Did you notice what was missing?" and had to practically walk me through
the house by hand to show me what he'd unloaded and moved out to the shop -
ostensibly to make room for him rejuvenating the "long" wall, but also to make
the carpet installation a whole lot less painful later on.
(C) I'm hungry for daughter Súl's company. Actually, I'm hungry for any conversation
that doesn't demand that I feel like I'm shouldering responsibility for
supporting moods, reminding folks to take their meds, keeping track of
appointments I didn't make originally, or looking for apartments without having a
really clear idea on paper of just what kind of budget the rent would have to
fit into.
(2) I'm exhausted.
(A) There were, count 'em, five timepieces in the living room and den at Bro's house
that "ticked", with one cuckoo clock going off every half hour, and a chimed
clock that rang about five minutes later. All day and all night. That makes it
very hard to sleep.
(B) SiL had no conception of anybody living on a schedule other than her own, so I
was awakened every morning at between 5AM and 5:30AM, when she would turn on the
TV and start talking to - if not yelling at - the cats and the deaf dog (don't
ask about this last, I think it's just habit.)
(C) It takes time to recover from an intense driving experience like this last one.
I was concentrating very hard for nine hours straight, with little more than
three six-minute breaks for gas (and one potty trip). It got me home quickly
enough, but there was a price to pay for it. I also drank Mountain Dews - and I
generally do NOT imbibe any beverage with caffeine at all during the day.
(3) My diet has shifted drastically - both going and coming.
(A) I eat a LOT of veggies here at home - in AZ, they are mostly meat & potatos
folks. I did take Bro out to a Chinese place to eat twice, and the two meals I
bought and prepared for them both included veggies, but I managed to get bound up
right away and essentially lived most of those two weeks battling it. As a
result, now that I'm home, I'm running - and it's contributing to the exhaustion,
I'm certain.
(B) Under normal circumstances, I drink no carbonated beverage - not even diet ones.
I drink a tall glass of diet cranberry juice in the morning - a preventative that
has helped me get on top of repeated UTIs - and then make do with water from the
tap that has been filtered through one of those filter-pitcher things (like
Brita.) Bro drinks Diet 7-up all the time, and SiL drinks bottled water. I felt
very guilty going through HER water...
I have tasks I need to do - both on the internet and at home - that are having to take a back seat to my being almost narcoleptic for the last two days. It is COLD here, with an arctic storm having hit 24hrs after I got home that dusted the hills behind us with snow down to the 500 ft. elevation. So I'm sleepy, can't get warm, and had errands to run around and do yesterday in the pouring rain and today in the chilly, breezy cold.
In conversations with my Bro since I got home, I've discovered that (1) he still hasn't adjusted the pills in his pill reminder to reflect the dosage/prescription changes made while I was still there; and (2) as of last nite, he still hadn't gotten the signed paper the CongressCritter needed into the mail. He's been out of touch today, so only the One knows how he's doing - although from the sounds of it, he & his wife were at least working cooperatively yesterday, some compromises reached, and (best of all) she has decided that there are some things that will have to be sold.
Hopefully, tomorrow will see me starting to be my old self again. I'm sick & tired of being run down, mentally and physically. I need to worry about my son, who still hasn't found a permanent place to live up there in OR.
I think I just visited those "Interesting Times" that are essential to the Chinese curse. I'm ready to go back to my dull, uninteresting existence, as "interesting" certainly isn't all it's cracked up to be!