It Takes a Village, Part 3: Body Doubling

Happy Saturday friends!

Isn't it funny how certain things stick in your head? I'm still mulling over that Oprah podcast about women quiet quitting their marriages. I wrote about it two weeks ago in It Takes a Village to Support an Adult. Then again last week in It Takes a Village, Part 2: I Can't Be It Either.

I was still wondering if there is an answer to any of it? Obviously a village, a community, is the answer but building a community is hard work, ask me how I know ;-) It takes time and effort and constant feeding. I guess, now that ManChild is 19 and only my baby in my heart, building the community around The Mother Ranch is my baby now. 

But that's the village side of things. What's the answer in good marriages? How do we start to give up control-of-all-the-things and expect that our spouse will pick up the slack? 

Don't look at me as if I have the answers, haaaaaaa!!!

But I did have a couple of ah-ha moments this week:

Brad and I were out in the lower pasture, doing morning chores. We both just start doing what needs to be done, no one has certain jobs. When one of us finishes a piece of the chores, we move onto the next thing that needs to be done, sometimes that's starting something new, sometimes it means taking on a part of the other person's chores. For example, if I'm giving grain to all the critters, then Brad picks up all the hay bags and starts to fill them. When I'm done with grain, I often will go and start hanging those finished hay bags. Then I'll rake up loose hay into piles where the hay bags are hung and Brad will start working on cleaning the goat barn. Whoever finishes first, lets Tori and Cash out of their eating areas and the other goes to fill the goat water buckets. It's all a well oiled machine now, we've been doing some version of this for ten years. If one of us can't do chores, the other knows how to do it all without asking each other what the steps are.

The difference in the above scenario is that we came to farm work as equal adults. We had no preconceived ideas about who should do what, it just all needed to be done. Neither of us grew up on farms either so we learned together. There is marriage power in that!

Housework is different though isn't it? We learned at the feet of those control-all-the-things mothers. Him by seeing that she and his sisters would handle the things and me being taught to handle. What to do?

My brother was visiting this past week and we went to see Dad and Delores. We ended up splitting up for a bit, Dad and Michael catching up and Delores and me talking. She told me that they had decided to not have a housekeeper anymore and they just do the cleaning together. Imagine my surprise. Who is this man? They do it all on one day. 

Hmmm...

That was sounding familiar...

Then I remembered that my Aunt Katy and Uncle Chris used to do it that way too. Instead of the woman going around doing all this daily invisible labor, they do/did all the things together and it worked. No one was sitting around relaxing, while the other was cleaning. 

Maybe that's the answer: stop assuming "picking up the slack" will happen, start cleaning side by side. 

So, this is my current answer: clean together on Sundays before the work (for me anyway) week. I talked about it last night and he said, "It just doesn't seem like there is all that much to do..."

I was fluctuating between trying to hold back laughter and trying to hold back the fire breathing dragon that is also me 😂 😳 🤯 🤬. You will be glad to know, I stayed calm and he still has his eyebrows and eyelashes.

"It just doesn't seem like there is all that much to do..."

I can't even.

Of course it doesn't. JeZUS CHRIST (as my grandpa used to say!)

I'm thinking that the real secret isn't just dividing tasks. It's that neither of us stops until the jobs are done. We stop together, when everything is finished, just like with chores. As two ADHD people, working at the same time aka "body doubling" will be so good for us. Wish us luck! 

THE RANCH:

Seven years ago now, I was run into from behind by my off the track thoroughbred. I had an undiagnosed head injury and often my brain couldn't figure out how to walk up the stairs. It took years to heal. That was the beginning of the end of full sized horses. This was the first time I thought I could maybe take all four littles to the upper pasture and wasn't scared :-) There was a discussion about how we were going to do it, and then some untangling of the lines but then we were on our way and my sweet ones just went along like it was nothing, yay:

A friend's mom gave me her big jade when she moved earlier in the year. This summer she's been outside gaining more leaves by the day but one day her arm fell off! Oh no! Jade is so hardy isn't it? She just started pushing new growth from that point:

I've been collecting heart rocks for as long as Brad and I have been together, 28 years. I find hearts all over the place, even in veggies:

 

You know how some people are afraid of spiders and others are afraid of snakes? I'm afraid of crickets. They freak me out by how quickly they move. I don't smash them and I haven't gotten calm enough to talk with them so they will stay still and I can take them outside like I do with spiders. I just go get Brad and he picks them up barehanded (shudder) and takes them outside. This one was particularly gnarly, it's a cave cricket and it was in Lucy's water bowl in my bathroom. Uh-uh, nope, no way:

 

 

While my brother was here, we repotted my heirloom African Violet. This was my maternal grandmother's, then my mother's, now mine. It's giant (not quite as big as before the fire but is recovering) and after being placed in the new pot, her leaves promptly went limp in shock. Gulp. I've put a big, clear Rubbermaid box over top as a kind of greenhouse, in hopes that she comes out of it. Finger's crossed!

 

At the end of a walk with I Love Lucy, she likes to grab her leash and play tug with it. I saw our shadow selves and had to take pics. Leaping for the leash:

 

 

A green lynx spider on my basil, I've never seen one of these before. Apparently they don't build webs, they hunt by pouncing on insects like a cat! 

 

HOW TO WORK WITH ME

Equine Partnered Coaching! With horses (early morning appointments in the summer), without horses, or online, your choice. 

Neurofeedback Train your brain to calm and ease. The most common response I hear about
neurofeedback is, "I'm so much less reactive in my life!" It really does smooth out the sharp spikes. Super helpful if your world feels harsh and spiky right now. These appointments are in my climate controlled office.

Reiki Another way to facilitate relaxation, calm, healing. If the weather is nice, you can choose outside in the herd (this is an early morning appointment) and of course in my office is always available :-)

And Women's Circles! I've updated my website yet again so read up and then contact me if you want to talk about joining a Women's Circle!

Wednesday Women's Circle has a waiting list, I will add you to it if you'd like. Newer people do
indeed get in occasionally, as sometimes the people higher on the list end up with upcoming vacations, too busy at work, or just life is life-ing. 

Tuesday Women's Circle, runs 11am—2pm.  Contact me, I have 3 more spots in this group, it starts September 15th!

Monday online art class via Zoom. Ongoing, every Monday, 7:30-9pmET. $35 There isn't a public link for this one but you can contact me for the supply list and link here. I teach you something fun in watercolor or mixed media. It's a low key, jammies kind of class. Right now it's small so you get more one on one instruction if you want it. 

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Hope you all have a great week!

Thank you for reading :-)

All of my art and writing is made with human intelligence!

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