Housework

I can’t do much housework these days - a quater of an hour exhausts me completely on a bad day. That includes getting the stuff out before I start to clean.

My house was really disgusting before I went on holiday that I had to do some cleaning before my Mum came to stay to look after the cat. It meant I started the holiday really stressed and exhausted.

It also meant that I couldn’t do much while we were away, which really distressed and depressed me more.

I know I could get a cleaner, but like you I’d have to clean the house first.

I need to get two taps replaced, but that’s been put off. We need to get the roof insulation fixed. All put off.

Everyday life is just so much harder than it used to be. I’m ashamed and feel lazy. Daft, but true

Ellen, it’s not daft!

Everyday life IS harder. But I can’t tell the difference between lazy and ill, either. I’m not visibly disabled, so I keep thinking I must be making excuses, and really should have done all this stuff.

I think I went undiagnosed for a long time (years, probably), and in that time, things began to slide. But I still didn’t catch on I was ill, so got used to labelling myself “stupid”, and “lazy”.

When I got diagnosed, it did cast new light on things, and I began to think maybe NOT stupid and lazy, maybe just ill. But I still have trouble breaking away from the old mindset, that said I was lazy, and that there was nothing wrong with me a good kick up the backside wouldn’t cure.

Tina

Hi Tina I considered a robotic vacuum cleaner years ago when, I think they were new but never got one, then I kinda forgot about them again, but something brough them into my head again a few weeksago and here is you and Luisa talking about them on here. I am laughing at your mum not using hers. I think my mum would be the same. Now that my mum hoovers when she is here, I can just imagine her reaction if she was replaced by a robotic vacuum cleaner, lol. Cheryl:)

Hi Tina

Wow, loads of us in the same pickle! I work for 6 or 7 weeks at a stretch and by the last 2 the housework doesn’t get done at all. We have been on half term so I had a very lazy weekend to rest up and invited a friend over on Monday. Consequently I spent most of Monday cleaning up downstairs. I have a tiny cottage so it shouldn’t really take long but every little thing exhausts me and I have to sit with a cold drink after each job so it gets really frustrating. By the time my friend arrived I hadn’t started on dinner and already looked a wreck!

Like you, I still label myself ‘lazy’ because I don’t look as if I have a health condition and I still feel as if I should be able to manage better than I do. I hate using up all my energy for work and having none left for home but that’s the way it is. I have learnt the hard way in the past that if I push myself too hard I end up very unwell so I dare not push through the fatigue.

I’m now at the end of half term and, having caught a cold which wiped me out for a couple of days as well, upstairs hasn’t even been looked at! I have also found there is another problem to living in such a muddle; losing very important paperwork because it is all just piled up. I’m very organised at work but when I get home I open the post, drop it in a heap and go to bed for a little nap before I cook dinner. These piles just keep growing and, as I try to keep downstairs reasonably tidy in case of visitors, they get dumped in my bedroom so now I cannot see the surface of my chest of drawers! Recently my fridge broke down and I am sure I had only had it about a year but I couldn’t find the paperwork to prove it so ended up buying another new one. I hunted through piles of paperwork and found all sorts of important stuff but not the necessary receipt for said fridge! The cable has broken in my recliner chair but I cannot find the paperwork to find the manufacturer’s name so I can ask them where I could obtain a new one from. Luckily I have a friend who thinks he can make me a new cable to fit so I’m hoping that works.

I was determined to sort out this paperwork this half term but lost 2 days due to the cold which, although it was a head cold, went straight to my legs! By that point, even my son was calling me lazy even though he regularly complains of ‘man flu’. Well, I still have today and tomorrow so now I have rested from hanging out the washing I’m off to try and sort out some of it. If you hear a very loud scream emanating from Norfolk it will mean I have found the receipt for the old fridge …

Anyway, sorry, didn’t mean to hijack your post with my own tales of woe. If you want to invite your friend into your home I would. Just keep him in one room and dump most of the clutter in another room for a few hours. Although to be honest, I have found that my real friends don’t mind that my house is often dusty and cluttered if they pop round unnanounced and actually most are quite open about their houses being much the same! It’s the ones that are fit and well and retired early that manage to keep an immaculate house and that’s probably just out of boredom, right? Take care and enjoy yourself

Tracey