A week after foot surgery and I'm going nuts. It's not just boredom, but I HATE depending on other people. At one point in my life I did everything I could to not have to rely on people because I was paranoid they couldn't do it the way I wanted it or they couldn't do as good of a job as I did. I eventually got over that, until now. But now with all of my allergies I have become one persnickety bitch and there's not a lot I can do about it. And most of my asshole behavior or responses are either outright or veiled and they're towards my mom most commonly. Am I ashamed? Pretty much. I know better and my mom is technically my care worker - now I know why most of those people don't stay in those jobs very long.
There are very specific ways that I make a lot of my food. It took me nearly 2 f'ing years to get my mom to fully understand how my rotation works. For a while I thought she just wasn't listening since I went over the caveats near, at least, a gazillion times with her. Once I put it on paper for her to reference my rotation days, I realized that I was correct in my original assumption - she wasn't listening to begin with, but I really can't blame her. At this point I just consider that and so much else simply water under my vagina - my first Girls reference!!! So as my careworker, I've relinquished control of cooking my meals to her. For a long time I thought it would be awesome to have a personal chef who could make all of my meals because the preparation, cooking and cleaning up takes an exorbitant amount of time. Be careful what you wish for, Andreana. There's a lot of knowledge in my head that I rely on to cook the way I want my food to taste. Considering I cook less from a recipe card and more from guesstimating and just throwing leftovers in it definitely is cause for problems when someone else takes over and they are giant fans of the recipe cards and cooking precision.
The other morning my mom came to help me prepare my breakfast - a smoothie and a bowl of popcorn for a snack. I got the smoothie going and asked her to pop my popcorn while I was in the shower. I got out of the shower and immediately knew something went wrong when I was hit with this overwhelming smell of an appliance burning. I had apparently not been specific enough when I said to fill up the top cup with kernels and toss it in. From this my mom heard fill the entire area where the corn pops. I wasn't pissed, but I definitely was dissapointed not to have a snack for the morning.
It's not just the cooking that I have unspoken rules for. Laundry is apparently another area of my life that has become a test for what I'm allergic to. I can now officially say that my skin can tell when I come into contact with seemingly innocuous chemicals. For example, my mom washed a bunch of my clothes at her house because the washer and dryer in my house pretty much suck. I ended up sleeping in a pair of pajamas she washed and found myself not only turning bright red everywhere the fabric touched but spent the majority of the night scratching ALL over even after I stripped off pajamas AND undies that she had washed. I tried to laugh it off in the morning telling my mom I must have eaten something the night before, but she eventually proposed that it was possibly due to the fabric softener bar in her washing machine. The last time I used store bought products like that was a long time ago and clearly my body is a fan of the less complicated, homemade products.
My routine for washing clothes is not terribly interesting, but it might be helpful to those of you who find store detergents and fabric softeners are irritating to the skin or even if you're looking for a cheaper alternative.
For whites, 1 cup Arm and Hammer washing soda and 1 cup of hydrogen peroxide dumped over the clothes - this is the equivalent to Oxyclean. I also shake in some Borax for good measure. For the softener I use vinegar and a few drops of pure lavender oil. For the detergent, I use my own laundry soap:
4 cups of hot tap water
1 Fels-Naptha soap bar (sold at Walmart)
1 cup Arm and Hammer Super Washing Soda
1/2 cup Borax
Grate bar of soap and add to a saucepan with the water. Stir continually over medium-low heat until soap dissolves and is melted. Then fill a 5 gallon bucket half full of hot tap water. Add melted soap, washing soda and Borax. Stir until the powder is dissolved. Fill the buck to the top with more hot water. Stir, cover and let sit overnight to thicken. It gets really thick and is almost gel like. When adding to your own container, first stir the mixture then fill up your soap container halfway and then fill the rest with water. Shake before each use. You can also add a few drops of an essential oil per 2 gallons. Add once soap has cooled. This makes roughly 10 gallons of soap for under $10.
For colors I typically leave out the washing soda/hydrogen peroxide mix and just use everything else. For the dryer I'm using a pair of cut up cotton pants that have essential lavender oil sprinkled all over them and throw them in as a dryer sheet. It takes a little more work than just going to the store, but what I'm realizing is that my body is the expert that I need to be listening to and the extra work is worth it. For now the extra work is being done by my mom and she is an absolute rockstar for willingly coming into my world. She keeps me well.
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