While I was doing something today, it crossed my mind that I could put up a post about it. So here we are.
We're decorating our spare room. My mum and dad are coming this weekend and they'll be staying in here, so here's the big deadline that we've made!
I said to Paul that I'd do the painting while he works. He wasn't convinced. But I insisted. And I did, and felt smug. I've been feeling for 15 years that I don't really contribute to the family, but today I felt as though I did.
What I will say though is that when I'd picked up paint with the roller from the floor and then looked up and positioned the roller near the ceiling, I felt dizzy. Each time. It reminded me of early on, how I used to feel dizzy pretty much every time I got out of my bed. If there are any TBI survivors reading this I think they'll be able to relate.
But it didn't stop me, I growled to myself and continued as if I hadn't felt dizzy at all. That's the way I am, I never want to show weakness.
But I really enjoyed it, even though my back kills, my sciatica is raging and my neck aches.
But when I was a teenager, every weekend my parents and I used to drive up to Cumbria to the house - a virtual pile of rubble - that we bought in the 80s. We worked on it from the ground up. My dad showed me how to lay the wires for putting in plugs, that would be plastered over afterwards. It made me feel really good helping out.
Paul and I bought a flat in 2000 and worked on it until we went to live in Melbourne in 2007. I spent the time wrestling with Nitromors and stripping the paint off every bit of wood in the place. I had so many burns on my hands from it! Then we stripped the floors with a huge sander that constantly shredded it's sandpaper - we got so angry with it...
...but anyway I feel as though I helped our family a wee bit today!
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