Yesterday we hosted Shabbat dinner. I want to preface the rest of today’s post with this: I love hosting Shabbat dinner. I love making Shabbat in our home and sharing it. In no way do I regret inviting people or hosting.

Normally when I’m hosting Shabbat dinner, I have hired help who does a lot of the prep work, most of the cooking (but not the baking,) and the cleanup. She was sick all this past week, though, so when I started preparing for Shabbat, I wasn’t even starting from a clean slate; I was starting from a messy kitchen, a house that hadn’t even been swept in over a week, and absolutely no prospect of help until 4 p.m. (by which point I wanted to be done all the prep.)

At least I remembered to thaw the roast overnight.

I did my best to pace myself. I even used the new app I found that tells me when I’m getting close to my limit (of course, I set the limits and it’ll take a few weeks to calibrate properly.) I went way over my standing limit anyway, but not as badly as I could have. I used the drafting stool we keep in our kitchen and sat down as much as possible. I also took lots of breaks. Still, by the end of dessert I was physically done. That’s why I didn’t blog last night.

I woke up late this morning, and instantly wished I had stayed asleep. There’s this symptom called “air hunger,” where you feel like you’re not getting enough air, in the sense that you constantly feel the need to breathe more deeply but somehow it doesn’t help. In the meantime, the body is breathing just fine and oxygen saturation is normal. It’s just as much fun as it sounds, and I had it bad this morning.

“I told you you were at critical levels last night,” my watch said. Okay, fine, it didn’t exactly say that, but I bet if it was sentient it would have.

Anyhow, I lay low most of today. I also did my physio exercises, spent some time playing guitar and singing (in the hope that it would regulate my breathing and calm my nervous system,) and then took a nap. I felt marginally better after the nap, but not by enough.

E’s school had a Havdalah and Skating Party tonight that I had to take E and R to, so I did it the only way I could physically manage it: I used K’s wheelchair. Upon arriving there I was immediately glad I did, because all the accessible parking spots were taken and the only spot we could find was all the way at the end of this vast parking lot. If I hadn’t had the chair I would have seriously considered giving up and going home, or dropping the girls off and coming back for them later. I was that tired.

I have more to say, but it’s almost 11 p.m. (we got home around 10) and I obviously need the sleep. Good night!