You’ve heard the story, haven’t you? An old shoemaker overwhelmed with work, poor I believe too, barely enough materials to make the next pair of shoes. He goes to bed before he has finished his work, tired, knowing he has to get that pair of shoes finished first thing in the morning. He goes to sleep as soon as his head hits the pillow, that’s how exhausted he is. The next morning he wakes up and low and behold the shoes are made! He couldn’t believe it a miracle. This went on for a while and he felt so lucky, it was amazing.
I’ve never been kean on house cleaning, I do it but if there is anything more exciting to do it is easy for me to choose that over house cleaning, which is almost anything but doing taxes. Cleaning does get done though, just not up to some of my friend’s standards.
Anyways I ended up in a wheelchair for about 3 weeks, I couldn’t leave my house unless I could find 2 friends to lift me in and out. I could barely get myself to the toilet and bed, but I did figure out a way. The first time, living on my own, had its drawbacks. Friends checked on me, helped me out when I needed things. My son came out and build me a ramp, so it was easier for people to get me in and out of the house, too steep for me to do it by myself, he installed railings as well. Thank goodness for rainy weather during that time which is unusual, as when it was nice outside I would look out my south window wishing I could just go for a walk in the sunshine.
Due to being in a wheelchair I needed everything close and handy, I had friends pull the microwave to the edge of the kitchen counter, make sure dishes and bowls were on the counter where I could reach them. All kinds of things like that. A few times I had friends come over offering to clean my kitchen, they wanted to put things away and I told them politely, “No” as then I wouldn’t be able to reach things. Then I had a friend come over that was determined to help clean, she decided each spice bag needed sealed? What the heck, it was important to her. Then she started moving things I used away from the microwave which I used every morning with the microwave. Next, she opened my fridge, screwed up her face, and pulled out a small green pepper grown in my garden, “Really, Yvette” she said, “This has to go!” No,” I said, “It was picked from my garden just the day before,” it couldn’t help that it wasn’t a perfect pepper. That was the end of that cleaning.
3 weeks or so later when I was using a walker when I went out but not in my house, we had a huge snowstorm. We never have them that early in the year. It wasn’t very cold thank goodness but the snow was super heavy. Just previous I had managed to mow my own grass, it took me three days, bit by bit so I didn’t hurt myself, I sure didn’t want to go back to being in a wheelchair.
When it first started snowing I thought if I cleared the driveway every time there was an inch of snow, I might be able to keep it cleared and not hurt myself. I managed that twice, concerned about slipping. Then it got dark and it just kept snowing, thick and heavy. The power went out at 5pm, but I had a headlamp and some pre-cooked food to eat. I went to bed early to stay warm under the covers and read a book. The next morning the house was 14.5′ a little chilly, I got dressed and put my housecoat on over top to stay warm, the power was still out. I couldn’t leave because my driveway had a pile of snow on it and I had no electricity, so what was I going to do? Well, I decided, this was the perfect time to clean the house. I walked into the kitchen, I looked around, and I laughed out loud. Here I had had all these elves offering to clean my kitchen, and I had turned them all away, now it was all up to me. Man, I had wished for house-elves all my life what had I been thinking?
I did get a lot of cleaning done with nothing else to do, but it sure doesn’t take long to go back to looking like it did before.
(I was without power for over 50 hours, and we were supposed to limit our use of water as the water treatment plant was struggling. Some friends were without power for a week!)
YVETTE CUTHBERT, Artist 