Hot

I have a couple strict rules for myself: 1) Don’t go to Whole Foods, Target or Trader Joe’s after 10 a.m. on Fridays. 2) Don’t run errands if the temperature is higher than 85 degrees. Not only did I break both rules on Friday, when the high was 95 degrees, I went to Whole Foods, Target and Trader Joe’s.

I was hot, my head hurt and I was grumpy. By the time I got home, I was really, really hot; really, really annoyed; and had a really, really bad headache that was probably triggered by the heat. So what did I do? I cleaned the house and worked on my computer (in the hottest room in the house). Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Once I descended into the blissful cool of the basement, I realized just how counterproductive it was to push myself. (OK, I’ve realized this a thousand times already, but it’s a revelation every time.) I had made myself feel worse than when I started and I had no energy for the rest of the day. The sofa in our musty unfinished basement became my friend and I watched baseball on my laptop. All the while stressed because I had to pack to go to my sister’s house the next day.

There’s really no point in continuing the story. I got hot and overdid it on Friday and again on Saturday. I would have done the same on Sunday, but Hart and I hung out in my sister’s air conditioned house while she and her family were at a pool party.

My sister apologized repeatedly for not entertaining us. We were actually perfectly happy — we got to lie around and didn’t think about the housework we weren’t doing because we were three hours from home. And it reminded me again of the lesson I should have learned by now. Don’t push it. It always backfires. Always.