The Things Tiredness Makes You Do

I can attribute a great many things in my recent life to extreme tiredness.

Such as jamming my finger in the car door.  I am still not quite sure how it ended up in the way.  I do admit that I was reading a text as I got out of the car.  But then, I often do and I haven't jammed my finger during the rest of my adult life.  The freezer door at work a few years back does not count.  It was a nasty door.  My workmates were duly sympathetic and sent me home.  But I digress.  This little finger still feels a bit odd.

After several weeks, here is what it looks like:

I do still have a nail, so that is promising.  And it is now unbandaged.


How about drilling a hole in the washing machine?
Yup.  I did.  Seriously.  I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.  In the end, I did neither.  It was all just too much.

For those of you with a deep and burning desire to know, the top of a Samsung washing machine is plywood.  This is fact.  I suppose I should be very grateful it isn't made of sterner stuff.  It gave my parents a good laugh (when I told them on going up to their place yet again to borrow yet another drill bit as of course I'd also managed to buy screws that had a head too small for the drill bit I'd already borrowed!).  My darling husband went and had a look, then simply asked that I try not to do it again.  Grin. 

I have managed (not to drill another hole where it shouldn't be).  Just.  Had a few tricky moments trying to work out what size screw I need for what I am screwing together.  This is especially hard to work out when Munchkin is inside the nearly finished chook cage with me, happily emptying an entire tin of screws all over the floor and trying to eat several, and Boyo is outside, gamely hanging onto my bit of wood for me for minutes, and minutes, and minutes, while I fiddle round inside trying to work out where to drill the hole, what size screw will be neither too long nor too short, and what drill bit I need to achieve the right size hole.  We managed.  Just.  Two grumpy adults with sore arms, one grizzly, hungry baby boy with sawdust everywhere.  I guess at least then he didn't know how to lock the cage.  I'm not so sure I'd want to be inside it now with Munchy about - he is far too perceptive and good at copying our actions! 

Extreme tiredness led to many hours spent in bed at the beginning of November.  Or so my doctor and I conjecture.  The bloodtests showed a bacterial infection.  My body was swearing at me, whatever it was.  I had muscle aches and temperatures to the point of writhing.  Boyo had to take most of the week off study and look after Munchkin.  I believe they were actually in shock.  Mummy does not usually lie around.  But I do seem to have done it a bit in the past few months.  Grr. 

Being sick led to sitting an exam I never studied for.  And when I say never, I really mean that.  I was going to do an hour's swat right before the exam, seeing as I know I can hold things reasonably well in my short-term memory. But I did not.  I went to bed.  Yup, after over a week of being sick I was still unwell enough that I chose bed over study.  Not my usual choice.  It did help that I had already passed the paper so I managed to get the rest I needed rather than spending a week stressing over an exam!  I think it went quite well, all things considered (marks still coming).

So there you go.  Just a few things from my life that have come about largely from the incredible tiredness plaguing me.  I suppose I shouldn't really be surprised.  I have done 2.5years of hard study, the vast majority of it either nauseated/not sleeping/beached-whale pregnant or too much study/need to work part time/getting up to baby in the night more times than I can count/must do the washing before lying down Mummy deal.  Hard slog.  And I'm exhausted.  My doctor (bless his soul) said that I will probably get to the middle of next year and suddenly start to feel better.  8 months away!!!  THAT LONG?  Ugh.

To be completely honest with you, the past few weeks have all been a bit much.  I feel annoyed that my body couldn't have held out for just ONE more week so I could finish off the semester properly, you.  I get home and just want to sit.  Or better still, lie (feet tucked up against a hot water bottle, chin snuggled into blankets).  Instead, I put away washing.  Or dishes.  Or both.  Or stop Munchkin trying to pull off the wallpaper!  We don't have enough income for summer.  We've had to cull our budget to its bare minimum for the next four months.  Suddenly, four months seems like a really long time.  And we're still short.  Boyo has picked up one extra shift a week at work.  That's it.  There's just so little summer work.  This is the third summer we've not found decent work!  My new cleaning job starts early in the morning, right at a time when I'd love to be sleeping in (Munchkin is finally sleeping properly again!!!!). 

So I've been feeling a bit sorry for myself.  Tired.  Grotty.  Blah.  But I'm trying to remind myself that we are doing okay.  I am doing okay.  It's okay to feel tired, to be sick.  My body needs a rest.  There's nothing much I can do about that, other than try to give it one as best I can.  And be grateful that all it needs is rest.  I am here, I am alive.  We are all well (we won't count my lingering cough!).  And while the finances are not great, we paid all the bills this month, and will next month.  We aren't starving.  We aren't destitute.  And so many of the things I think I need, I really don't.  Other than sleep, of course!  That I really DO need.  Grin.
Amy