New Dresser

My new dresser being inspected by Ari. He's such a Big and Tall cat! 15 pounds under all that fluffy fur.

I did mention in the first post that my daily painting is Health Permitting. All physical activity takes five times the body energy it would for anyone else due to my right leg being 3cm shorter than the left. That means anything involving standing up or moving around. Then the total amount of body energy I have to spend is limited by fibromyalgia, so my doing anything physical is a massive Olympics-worthy feat of stamina and achievement.

Yesterday, I got a new dresser from my hotel manager. Another tenant got in a beautiful long storage cabinet with shelves and a mosaic tile top - gorgeous piece of furniture. Once it was installed, he gave his dresser back to the hotel. I put dibs on the dresser when I saw the maintenance guy put it away.

So in the morning, Harry knocked on my door and asked if I still wanted the dresser. Of course I did! I went nuts pulling everything off that three shelf bookcase that's now sitting on the dresser and removing a big stack of art supplies from in front of the bookcase where it had accumulated. I'd take things out to use them, put them back on the stack so they'd still be in reach and bury the bottom shelf or two behind stacks of supplies. No more.

My whole bed and much of the floor got covered in stacks of books and supplies just to get everything out of the way to bring the dresser in. Maintenance guys moved the microwave and heavy but empty bookcase into the hall, then brought in the dresser, then brought back the bookcase to go on top of it and put the microwave on it. Since the microwave used to sit on top of the bookshelf, it's got a much stabler place now and the coffee pot's in easier reach.

I spent the rest of the day putting away everything I'd taken off the bookshelf and the floor, clearing off the bed and clearing the stacks on the floor. I had to move a small three drawer plastic drawer unit across the room next to the television. I had a whole lot of picking up and bending, not to mention sweeping where the bookcase was before the dresser came in.

It would have been a challenging task for someone abled. For me it was a marathon. I kept going when my back hurt, so I wound up pounding my bad hip and getting some knee and ankle symptoms on the short leg. That is what always happens if what needs to be done is more than I can do. I'll need to rest up from it.

Today, on the 5th, I've got home care coming in the morning and a weekly clinic appointment in the late afternoon. That leaves only a short window for painting. I suppose you're wondering why I threw my back instead of shoving all the chaos off the bed to get my home care worker putting it away on Thursday morning.

99% of it is art supplies. There are things I can't trust a home care worker to handle that would be very hard to organize if I wasn't the one stacking them. Think about your supply cabinet. Could you verbally describe exactly the order you want everything in it to someone else who's not an artist and doesn't know how to handle it or understand your priorities?

"That goes on the top shelf, left side. No, that's the middle shelf. I mean the top shelf. No, not on top of the book case, the top shelf, there, yes, no, the left side is the other side..." Try doing that for a few hours. You'll find that what you could have done in half an hour will take three or four and not be finished in the helper's scheduled three hours.

Anyone who's ever moved with someone else helping to pack will have an idea of what I'm talking about. Sometimes it's better to do it for yourself even when it pushes the edge of what's physically possible.