Spent

Visions of staining, washing windows and lawn mowing filled my thoughts during my restless sleep last night. So much to do. So little weekend. I got up at 5:30 in the hopes of squeezing everything into one day.

I gave myself the gift of the morning to do what I wanted to do, breathe easy and take what I needed from the morning. It was lovely. Three hours of morning time is my daily norm. I have been lacking normalcy this past week. Three hours felt lovely.

After the clock struck the end of my three hour hiatus it was only 8:30. The hardware store which stocks the miracle deck painting brush opened at 8:30. I was there.

Deck staining was to be done in the shade. Our deck isn't shaded until late afternoon so I started the day by washing windows. Scraping paint off said windows and window casings took a little added time and made me ponder the idea that professional painters should offer to wash windows after their work is done.

Window washing has been long overdue around here. It feels wonderful to have squeaky clean windows. Ahhh!

Then came the lawn. I have shirked lawn mowing duties around here for two weeks so I felt it was my turn to step up to the lawn mower. And I did.

Pulling weeds, sweeping up paint chips and scraping off plaster/crack-filler off the driveway took the last of the energy I had. Rain is in the forecast within the next 24 hour period so I was relieved to stroke "stain the deck" off today's roster of events.

I don't accomplish what I used to in a day. I feel slow and sluggish. I look at our five year old cat who moves slowly and sluggishly and I see "me". This same cat can't jump 6 ft fences in a single bound any more. He can't even jump onto the 3-1/2 ft deck railing without engaging his front claws and using his back legs to climb up. He uses the top ladder rung when jumping onto the decking of the kid's play centre we have in the back yard.

I was telling my son that our cat reminds me of myself. "Maybe he has arthritis," I added wistfully. My son just chuckled and said, "No, he's gained a lot of weight." Oh. Me too.

I share an affinity with our Junior Cat in residence. We've both slowed down prematurely. We've both packed on extra poundage. We both love leisurely cat days.

Who's to argue with that. I accomplished enough for one day. The evening is mine, to do with as I please. I do believe it pleases me to laze around with the cats. My 5 a.m. mornings are catching up with me.