Not Enough Spoons For Everything I Need And Want To Do

The summer has completely gotten away from me. How is it already the 4th of August?

The thing is, it's not just that time that has flown by, it's that I've not been doing a good job managing my chronic migraines and fibromyalgia this summer. I think it has been such a challenge because, for the first time, I'm having to manage both a house and a social life.

We did own a home in the early days of my chronic pain but we lived very far away from all our friends and family. Plus we knew we were not going to be living there long so we didn't invest much time and energy into making it our own. Since moving to the St Louis area a few years ago we have had a busier social life because here we live near a bunch of family and hubby has old friends who are still here.

Now that we are settling into our new home and life is normalizing (for lack of a better word) I'm finding the increase in demand on my time, energy and attention is making managing my symptoms more difficult. Right now we are battling to help our new sod take roots while trying to protect it from the weeds that surround our property on 2 sides and the moles that are trying to destroy it. We are trying to protect our house, ourselves and our pets from spiders, ticks, mice and other insects. We are still doing the things that need to be done to a house that aren't included in new construction like building storage shelves and organization solutions in the basement and garage. We are trying to plan for how to use our outdoor space and indoor space. I'm thinking about interior design and getting the rooms painted. We need to decide about a water softener soon and seal our driveway. The list goes on and on.

Plus, now I have a friend right next door. She had the summer off since she works as a teacher so we got to hang out and she helped me figure some stuff out around the house.

All of this is positive stuff and much of it will only need to be done once, especially the house stuff, but it may take us another year or more before all of the new house stuff is done. Even so, home-ownership really means that there will always be things popping up and demanding our attention. I really need to figure out how to better balance all this new stuff that I need to do and still have the energy to socialize.

I've decided to take the rest of the month of August off from socializing in hopes that I can break this cycle of symptom flaring that I've been in all summer. Hubby has a few weeks off before he starts taking some college courses in the evenings and we have a few things that we need to get done around the house, including spending some time together, before most of his spare time will be spent doing homework and studying. Hopefully in this time I can also figure out how to move forward in a healthier way. I simply don't have enough spoons for everything I need and want to do. I'm not yet sure what to do about it.