I am a stay at home parent/wife. Mostly because I can’t work reliably at all as my migraines, fibromyalgia, and ATFP like to flare up when introduced to weather, barometric pressure changes, florescent lighting, perfumes and colognes, the wrong kind of air freshener, and stress.

One of the things I struggle with is feeling as though I am contributing to the house as those same difficulties listed above make me an intermittent cleaner, gatherer, and cooker of foods.

When I hit a long stretch of particularly unwell-ness I blow through the easy to make foods that I stock in the house and we often end up ordering in. This is expensive and unhealthy and as it usually corresponds with ER visits or expensive PT copays, exactly what our household budget doesn’t need. Spending the extra money on expensive pre-made foods stresses me out even more.

So what can we do? Last week it hit me.

When I was in law school I used to make huge meals in the crock pot or soup pot and freeze them in portions for future meals. 4 person portions for future dinners, 2 person portions for lunches, etc. I did this because I was so busy running around and being successful that I didn’t have time to prepare a meal every day but I wanted to save money and eat healthy.

I am such a monumental dumb ass. This is exactly what I should be doing now. Just because I am home all day doesn’t mean I am not super busy being very, very sick, most of the time.

So I have a new plan. I am preparing healthy, tasty soups when I feel well and preparing extra for freezing when I do. The I am freezing them in pre-portioned, pre-labeled and dated containers and popping them in my deep freezer.

So when I feel like I am going to die I can just throw one on the stove and I have still made a healthy dinner for myself and my family. I have still reduced grocery costs by cooking from scratch because it’s just as easy to heat up my cooking as it is to microwave something store bought.

So, as of tonight I will have two future dinners in the freezer. If I manage to do this once a week I will build a stock up and then I can relax, beat up on myself less, and enjoy once again managing the cooking part of the household responsibilities like a fully abled and organized person, even while I am rarely either of those things.

My hardest learned lesson has been patience. Having a body that attacks itself in a myriad of ways means being patient with yourself. Getting here is a journey that I am still on.

Most of the time I am patient with my usual limitations. Usually I can be kind, find things to be grateful for, prioritize my family and manage to contribute sometime to the running of the house.

I still struggle with finding patience when I have additional challenges, such as a concussion caused by a slip on black ice two weeks ago and a head cold.

When things add up and my body begins to feel like an all over plague area I start to lose my patience. I get cranky with myself for not being able to do enough. I lie in bed and stare about my room and rearrange it a million times in my mind. I read a book and discard it mid-chapter because it’s not the right book. I start a play a game or watch a show and they don’t help distract. I get impatient and restless and increasingly miserable the longer my physically forced rest continues.

I feel like Meg is Little Women cutting up all her dresses to redo them “á la Moffat”, destroying perfectly good things because I am feeling a sense of malaise.

I do have things to be grateful for and I try to count my blessings. I fear in times of difficulty my inner child is too full of the “unfairs” to really hear the counting.

Basically, I’m currently a whiny woman-child and a hot mess.

Despite the otherwise generous nature of our home planet she has very little give, especially when you are testing that give with the back of your head having encountered black ice on your walk home.

Did you know a concussion is a lot like being way too drunk? I now do. I had the “Why did I drink THAT many margaritas?” spins for three days. Now I just have the “Am I really feeling the Earth move?” dizzies.

Totally a word, dizzies. Promise.

Don’t believe me though, I’m concussed. My brain is compromised.

Where was I?… Oh right, don’t hit the Earth with your head. Or anything really, don’t hit the Earth. Why would you do that? It’s mean! The Earth was just trying to help!

Damn it. I did it again.

Boy I hope my holiday Amazon Handmade listings aren’t this … creative.