I did too much, I am triggered, I can hardly breath, the dogs telling me I did too much is not helping as much as they think it is.

Hubby got stressed this morning first thing and threw out his back. It is better than an episode of cellulitis, but still leaves him down and me on my own. My daughter was able to help for a bit today, but she did not get home until 4am so I did not wake her until 1pm. She ran to the store and got some nukeable soups that I can feed hubby and me some bottle of iced tea, but then she had to leave for work. If she does not crash in the SUV tomorrow, she will only be home long enough to sleep and then leave. We won't actually see her again until Sunday afternoon as she is working 6pm to 6am.

So, it is just me. That does not keep me calm ever. I don't do well alone. I get scared that I am going to do something stupid, like kill myself. It is the fear of my doing that which keeps it at bay, but there is always that shadow looming. If I am alone, I HAVE to stay busy.

I started with laundry. There is about 20 loads of dirty laundry that I need to wash, dry, and sort as to keep or toss. More than enough to keep me busy.

Yesterday the boxes of canned food in the way of getting the dining room finished packing, annoyed me and I put an ad up on craigslist for 6 boxes of food free to good home. By 9am I had 35 emails...

I did it slow. I had a small crate that I would put about 5lbs of cans in and walk outside. Then I would sit down on the steps to the deck, and unpack the crate onto the deck - nicely sorted as to what was in the can. Afterwards I would take a 15 minute break and repeat. It took three hours of keeping this pattern to get all the stuff we are not going to use before the house comes down out onto the deck.

In the middle of all this, I kept the washing machine going doing laundry.

Getting some of those people from the emails to get back to me seemed impossible. I had one no-show and contacted the next three... one could not come out until tomorrow. One turned out to be less than a block away (granted this is a country block and it was a couple miles in reality) and came quickly to get the food.

That left me with another issue. People I don't know were coming to the house sometime soon.. the anticipation nearly ripped my head off my shoulders. Luckily it was only about 20 minutes.

It was an old couple, in their 60s at least, with two very small kids in the backseat. I got a lot of the story as we bagged the food and filled the trunk, somehow these pensioners had wound up adopting four kids... 2 years, 4 years, 8 years, and 9 years. Thus their need for a trunk full of extra groceries. I would estimate about $600 worth. So it will help them quite a bit.

I have also kept the washing machine going - though it is stopped right now.

so what did I get done? What are my check marks?

1) laundry washed - actually this breaks down to seven check marks
2) got the box of food out of the dining room, opening the room back up for packing, got the boxes of food out of the area under the bar in the kitchen - which lets me get at the kitchen island, half emptied the pantry shelf of food we won't use - could be three check marks (was while I was doing it)
5) got it all outside by myself
6) dealt with people over email
7) dealt with strangers in person - and even helped them
8) got hubby fed lunch, full of pain killers for his slipped lower back, and back to bed

Now I just need to add one more check mark... I have to manage to calm down. going to take a third dose of tranquilizers, I can't calm down long enough to try to breath or do meditation. I got a lot done. I did really good today. Three more hours and I can go to bed... though I have not eaten yet today.

Calm, just have to get calm

yadlim and critters who help too much sometimes