Mental Exhaustion

Or is it physical? Or spiritual? Maybe a bit of each, perhaps.

Part of it is that I keep crashing into brick walls. Not literal ones, but the ones set up by expectations and hopes that never quite pan out, at least not yet.

Since I last posted, there have been at least three dates set for the finish-up work to be accomplished at my house. On two of those, the friend who's doing the work couldn't make it. Then yesterday, when he did come, our time was spent on all manner of things that needed to be done, but we still didn't accomplish the main task. There is progress, but it feels so infinitisimal in comparison to my desire to sleep in my own bed again that I really just want to cry. But can't. So even that feels stuck.

I look at the things that need to be finished and feel overwhelmed. Then I just tend to wander from one partial task to another.

This weekend I began to work on removing the brighter-than-Pepto-bismol pink paint from my bathroom. What started out as a semi-reasonable, but relatively simple, task quickly turned into the paint removal from hell. Did you know that there was once used something my friend called "iron paint"? Well, that's what they used in my bathroom. I used every kind of sandpaper imaginable and didn't even make a dent in the texture of the paint. My son had used a whole container of paint stripper on the stuff and had managed to get bits and pieces of it off, but not what you'd usually expect.

One frantic phone call to friend later ended up with me headed to the handy-dandy hardware store for paint deglosser. That stuff is just plain nasty! And even that didn't make a dent in it until I used steel wool on the paint to just barely score it so the deglosser could do its thing. I managed to complete the doorframe and the bathroom cabinet. Now all I have to do is degloss the cabinets under the sink, prime and then anoint that pup with two coats of paint. That's what it took to finally banish the offending color.

Perhaps my exhaustion has something to do with yesterday. I finally got the kitchen completely cleaned up. There is no more roofing soot and grime and bits and pieces of wood lurking on my appliances and counters. You wouldn't know it by looking at it, though. Within a few hours of completion, there's all kinds of crap and clutter and stuff permeating the room.

Then again, it could be the garage door that decided to come unhinged from the ceiling as the garage door opener was opening the door, and proceeded to smash one of the windows in the door ... after all the stores were closed for the night, of course. I am glad my friend was there, otherwise, I would have been completely befuddled by what to do with a garage door stuck in 3/4 open position. Sleep in the garage? I don't think so.

My friend was able to complete a temporary? fix on the garage door through a midnight run to Wally World for bolts and a garbage bag and tape concoction over the gaping hole.

My mission between now and Thursday? (A day later than I was hoping to actually sleep in my bed, btw.) Get the garage support checked out by someone who understands how the garage door works and see if I can find a "compound miter saw" - the tool which kept us from getting as far as we'd hoped. And give my feet a rest, because they've declared war on my body and ache whether they're on the ground or not.

I think I'm going to repeat a lament from two years ago - "Show me the way to go home. I'm tired and I wanna go to bed." My aching body, soul, and mind are soooooo tired.