A Lesson in My Limitations

As I've mentioned a few times, I spent the last week of December praying and plotting my projects and agendas for this year. It's an intensive agenda, but I've been encouraged with my eCommerce stores, and eager to get them built up and productive. I wonder if I should be spreading the word more about my busy 2023 ahead.

My one sister has let up on calling me several times a day, but another friend calls quite often too. Other friends come by and ask me to do a project for them.

That happened out of the blue last week, when EW came by with a folder full of his family history and genealogy, which he wanted me to photocopy and bind into 10 books for his family members.

I've done such projects for myself and this didn't seem such a big deal. So I agreed. But I could not print from the file on his USB stick, so I had to resort to using my printer as a photo- copier, which meant I had to stand to feed sheets back in for the other side. Hours of this!

On top of that, he had not scanned the photos included, but they were photocopies of photocopies, so faint and hard to see. The text needed proof-reading and editing (it would have meant less pages in the end) - nor did he have page numbers on the pages.

This latter part created untold hours of extra work as I tried to collate the pages into the right sequence, but I had to study the first and last lines on each page to see where they fit between. (My one desk was a snowdrift of sheets). The more I struggled with this the more my back began to ache as my vertebrae, which have only 10% cushioning, began to grind on each other.

Most of my days and long evenings are quite peaceful, but last Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday were tense and stressful. I'd given up my business hours for this project, and kept hoping that I'd be all done with even the binding with the old manual machines my sister Elsie gave me when she moved to BC years ago - by Saturday night...for sure.

I didn't get all my plants watered, nor the floors vacuumed and washed. Saturday night I fell asleep when I put my forehead down on my knees for a bit. When I woke I pressed on and on, but only had 4 books collated correctly by the time I needed to get to bed.

I promised myself I'd get them finished on Sunday night. And I did. About 12:30 am. EW was coming to get them on Monday morning. so I pushed myself to get the holes punched, and was just beginning to put in the cerlox combs when he arrived.

That was a good thing because he wanted to put them into special covers and was prepared to put all those pages into the combs by hand - one-curl-at-a-time. Yikkes! But I figured he has more time than I do. I wanted my quiet, peaceful business routine back!!

He did pay me generously, but I've decided that the next time someone asks me for this kind of project, I will insist that the pages must be proof-read, edited, and numbered!! Else I will firmly decline the job!

Oh yes. I've been telling friends that though I have a serious case of osteoporosis, I am thankful that I have little to NO pain. Now I know that if I'm on my feet for more than an hour, I will have real tangible pain! I have explained to my inner self, that yes, I am older lady and I have physical limitations.

I feel fine - as long as I remember those limitations!

Do you know your limitations?

<*> TIPS & SOLUTIONS: <*>

Count Your Blessings

There is an old hymn I recall from my childhood, though I seldom hear it any more, but the chorus goes like this, "Count your many blessings, name them one by one, see what God has done!"

When my Mom was so sickly and gradually dying, I sometimes was quite discouraged, and went to bed filled with worries. I decided to jot down at least three blessings from the day before I went to bed. I prepared a special notebook for this, and deliberately thinking over the day with the goal of finding 3 positive things that had happened changed my mood and mind-set so that I was able to fall asleep easily and without brooding over negative things or words said.

I got to the place where I could easily jot down 10 such blessings in one evening. Eventually, I gave up limiting myself to any unique number. In fact, to this day, I still can fill several pages of my current Blessing Book before I run out of good things to thank God for.

This is one thing I can recommend highly; it will do wonders for you. A gratitude attitude will often carry you through the next day too!

[Back to Archives Index ] ~~ [Back to Main RoseBouquet Page]