Not Without Cost

Written Friday evening . . . 

 

            I’m paying for it already.

            Late this afternoon, John and Mom took off on an errand to Oak Harbor.  I stayed home to clean out the refrigerator and freezer. 

            I worked hard and fast, taking everything out and wiping down the shelves.   I tossed assorted items, from ancient celery to almost-curdled Ensure to leftovers of indeterminate date. (Only now do I realize I forgot to do the cheese drawer.)  Clearly, this is a job I have put off for too long.

            Then, in a burst of enthusiasm, I moved some furniture.  Earlier this week my lower back decided that it would not allow me to sit in the sectional recliner anymore, so I slid out that piece and slid in my own recliner which has been smack dab in the middle of Mom’s living room since the moving truck arrived almost three years ago.  (Other than what I could fit into my bedroom, most of the rest of my stuff still sits in storage in John’s shop.)  Now the blue recliner occupies the middle of the room and my mismatching brown recliner lounges next to the rest of the blue sectional.  Martha Stewart would not be happy.

            The furniture-moving itself was not too bad.  It was the lifting of the rag rug and the sweeping of the dirt and dust bunnies that did me in.  At least I knew better than to haul out the Wind Tunnel.  (It was those few moments of wild abandon in which I actually vacuumed the hallway and bedrooms that aggravated my lower back to the point of recliner intolerance earlier this week.) 

            So now I sit with my feet up, noticing that my lower back feels just fine for the moment.  But my neck and shoulders are killing me.