The best laid plans.

What do you do when your best effort is just not good enough?  Well, cry vent and have generally a hissy fit….I would say have a cow…but that’s why I am so overwhelmed right now.  I have a cow.  I am spending at minimum 3 hours a day on her and usually closer to 5…trying to keep up with everything else, and taking care of my family and mom.  Please know that I am thankful and grateful for all the at I have, but right ow I need to just vent this out.  This morning is a perfect example.  Woke up at 4 with the worst charley horse…this is because of the erve damage in my leg.  Should take more lyrica, but trying to hold steady at 2 a night.  Frustrating because last night I took a muscle relaxer too…first time in about 3 months., also my standard 4 aleve.  Anyway….tried to go back to sleep.  Alarm goes off and I struggle to get out of the bed.  Out to milk Bess.  One hour of milking, getting pushed into the mud, screaming hands….Into the house.  Put a pot of water on to boil.  Strain the milk.  Scrub the milk bucket and then wash up.  Put milk in the boiling water and stir for almost 30 minutes while holding a thermometer in it.  Hands are steamed and sore.  After 30 miles tit finally gets to 161*.  Hold there for 20 seconds, then it has to be cooled as quickly as possible.  Lid the jar, and quickly go to put it in the silk full of cool water (not yet iced as I don’t want to break my only 1 gallon jar….and as you are moving it from the stove to the sink…have it slip out of your hands and crash to the floor.  Scalding hot milk in your socks, Glass and a gallon of freshly pasteurized milk all over the  wood floor (the has gaps that make it almost impossible to get everything up.) SIGH. Spend the next hour picking up glass, sopping up milk with 7 bath towels (that now will be ANOTHER load of laundry to do today) and then try to wash the floor so that it doesn’t get sticky and stinky.  Now the house smells of farm milk.  Then add that I already have a bunch of stuff that needs to get done today because I’m only home during the week on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  And  a friend from out of town asked to come out and see the farm tomorrow. 

To do: 

• Pick beans and squash, and cucumbers
• Weed my 1/4 acre garden.
• Start mucking out Bess’s stall
• First have to figure out how to get broken wheel barrel work.
• Pick Blackberries.
• Do something with the 3 pounds of blackberries I currently have.
• Figure out what to do with the 7 gallons of milk that no one will drink because it is Farmy.  Also another reason I am trying the pasteurization.  What’s the point if no one likes it?? Really>
• Make bread.
• Make a decent dinner for tonight.  Frozen pizza is out..that was last night and was the last on in the freezer. 
• Try to stave off the seizures that are increasing again because of the decrease in the steroids.  Consider rolling in the poison Ivy to be able to get more steroids.
• Wonder where there might be a stashed bottle of wine.
• 4 loads of laundry to wash dry, fold and put away.  I do fine with the first, had to rewash last nights load because I’m not the best with the moving on to the next step…and then the folding…bout 25% there…and putting away…Really? Plus, now both my pairs of shoes need washed too!  One  has been stepped on (repeatedly) by Bess (Yes, ouch) and the others are now milky and will likely start to stink from the outside.
• Water the garden and the corn and the chickens,
• Wash the dogs as they are a grass stained mess.
• Milk the cow again and figure out what to do with that milk.  Should I try the whole pasteurization again?  Will the butter and farm cheese and drinking milk not taste ‘farmy”.
• Get my flyers printed for the farm market on Saturday.
• Mop the kitchen floor again.
• Make dinner.  Do the dishes.

OK.  Stopping for now because I know there is no way I can get all of this done today anyway. And I if I keep the list up I will likely be even more overwhelmed.

I guess my frustration lies in e the fact that it’s only been exactly one week.  Mostly I don’t mind being the “punchline” for every family gathering.  And the fact that most everyone is questioning my sanity (including myself.)  It’s more that this morning was my best effort so far and I felt like I was really getting a rhythm and a routine…and it all crashed around my feet…literally.  And I have to wonder if my best effort is for naught….what’s the point?