Too Much Bread, Not Enough Butter

Do you ever have one of those moments, when you're moving nonstop trying to get everything in the world done in one day, and you just have to take a second to breathe when you realize that maybe you're trying to do too much? I've been having a lot of those lately.

Ever since January, I've been moving at a nice steady pace. Clean the house in the morning; take care of the animals; clean the yard and animal areas in the evenings; come in when the sun goes down and cook dinner; then settle in for my evening shows just in time with a plate of food. It was going pretty well.

But as the weeks went by, and little things here and there upset my normal routine, it starts to get rushed. Clean the house in the morning; take care of the animals and make sure the new chicks have fresh feed and water; tend to the garden (whether that means planting or weeding); water the garden, the vineyard, and the new trees we've planted this year; make some attempt at cleaning the animal areas in the evenings; come in just before the sun goes down and cook dinner; then watch the first half of my evening shows while finishing dinner so it's ready by the time my husband comes in when the sun goes down and I can sit with a plate of food for the last half of my shows.

As the last month of my pregnancy closes in, my due date getting dangerously close and the work piling up, I start to think of all the things that still need to get done and how difficult they will be to do once there is a newborn in the house. There are just two problems: (1) I'm getting so tired after expending the smallest amount of energy, and (2) the days are getting long and hot, and it's harder and harder to move fast enough to get things done before getting too hot and needing a break. Now I have to start regulating things to do for different days, such as skip cleaning the house today to get some work done outside, but tomorrow skip the work outside and concentrate on doing water changes in the aquariums and finishing laundry. It would be so much easier if my son was old enough to do chores.

At this exact moment in time, I skipped cleaning the house this morning so I could go to town and do the grocery shopping. The house needs to be cleaned, dishes need to be washed, a load of laundry still needs to be finished, the animals need to be checked on and refed and watered as needed (ducks and geese are most definitely out of water by this time of day), the garden needs to be watered (which takes at least an hour and a half with a spray hose), the vineyard and trees need to be watered, the quail eggs in the incubator need to be moved over to their new egg trays so they fit better and give us more space in the incubator, the chicken eggs need to be collected and put in the incubator, dinner needs to be cooked, my husband will most likely ask me to clean a bit outside to make room along one fence to plant the last of the Crape Myrtles, and I would really like to be able to sit down at least from 7pm to 8pm for the American Idol results show (2 people are going home tonight, and last night I voted a million times to ensure Scotty, Paul, and Casey stay another week). The sun will most likely be going down by 8, which means I will be inside for almost the last hour of daylight. My husband is very adamant about using up as much sunlight as he possibly can each day before coming indoors. Which means that I will be cooking dinner while watching my show to give me a bit more of a reason for being indoors during that time. Oh right, as I look over at my son playing ball with the rabbit, I am reminded that I also need to clean the rabbit cage.

It is already almost 3:30pm. There is no way I'm going to get this all done tonight... but a lot of it really needs to be done today. So I was rushing around, trying to do it all at once and I suddenly realized I needed to stop and breathe. And as I did so, I had one of those moments. When I'm moving nonstop trying to get everything in the world done in one day, and I just had to take a second to breathe when I realized that maybe I'm trying to do too much. To quote Bilbo Baggins from Lord of the Rings (the Fellowship of the Ring, Part One) I feel like butter being spread over too much bread.

I think it's about time to slow down, and convince myself of the obvious truth that my mind refuses to grasp: I will still be doing these chores every day even after the baby is born. The house will always need to be cleaned, dinner will always need to be made, the animals will always need food and water, and sometimes there will be things that just need to put on hold for a day or so to get other things caught up. The incubator and the garden will only need to be tended to during the summer and the beginning of fall, until the birds are done laying for the year and harvest season is over. Just because I have a newborn does not mean that I have to hold him and fuss over him every minute of every day. There will be time to get it all done. I just need to slow down, remember to breathe, and focus on one thing at a time. If you find yourself having one of those moments, just remember this. Remember to slow down, remember to breathe. There is never a good enough reason to spread yourself too thin. If you dont have enough butter, dont make so much toast. Have a bagel and cream cheese instead. Or a bowl of cereal. Or whatever you want, really. Oh, you get it.