Relaxation!

After 48 hours of almost non-stop work, Heather and I managed to finish getting our house ready for leasing. Totally exhausted, we fell into bed at 4 am to grab two hours sleep before it was time to finish packing (all done by Heather), do some laundry (by me) and then off to the airport to catch the noon flight to Vancouver, where we arrived at 4.30 local time, 9 hours after take-off from YYT. A quick meal, and then collapse again into bed at 7pm. 


After 12 hours of deep sleep, a leisurely shower and a good breakfast, I feel refreshed and relaxed for the first time in months.


And so I ask myself: "Why do I put myself through this?"  It's not the first time Heather and I have been faced with a deadline that took extraordinary effort to meet. Do we procrastinate until it is almost too late to accomplish what is needed, let alone desirable? Or do we simply take on too much? This time we were "saved" by one event (the Tuckamore fundraising dinner) being postponed, and the other also postponed, this time courtesy of hurricane Igor.  If we had lost those two evenings this past week, the house would still have been unrentable!


I have vowed never to allow ourselves to be put into that situation again. Just the physical effort of the renovations, climbing up and down ladders and the many stairs in our house, stretching to reach areas for painting because it would take time to go and fetch the step ladder, all took their toll. And combined with the mental stress, worrying if the work would be completed in time, to the point where I could not sleep for more than four hours, thus contributing to my physical tiredness, all meant that breaking point was not far off for me.


So the title of this post is a sigh of relief and a command to self: take time to smell the roses, and the coffee!