Spouse’s Orders

I haven’t much time to write a post for this blog… I am enforcing an order that I have given to the spouse: You may NOT

…go outdoors. At all. Period.

Fallfun1This time of year here in Maryland, leaves are falling from the trees. From time to time, a little cleanup is required. Most of our property is forested, and we do not have to rake leaves in the forest itself.

However, the front and side yards are traditional lawn, and raking and blowing leaves is something that I choose to do so that the yard looks okay. Especially considering our neighbor across the street who sees one leaf fall and runs out to catch it before it lands on his lawn (talk about obsessive-compulsiveness!)

For the last three years, however, it seems that those leaf-raking or blowing sessions exposes my spouse to something in the environment that triggers a massive release of toxins produced by his infections and causes a tremendously debilitating spell of vertigo, nausea, and fatigue.

My spouse had extensive allergy testing done, but the results were negative or inconclusive.

However, I imposed my own strict rule: “you may not go outside. I will manage the leaves and fall yard work entirely on my own. Do NOT try to help. Stay inside. That’s an order!”

My spouse understands and has reluctantly complied. He did try to disobey me once yesterday to fetch the mail while I was using the leaf blower. I dropped it and chased him back into the house. Then later in the evening, I put on a cop uniform with Dehner Patrol boots and taught him a lesson. (Ooops… better those things are left unstated for this G-rated blog!)

This autumn… so far, so good. Let’s hope he gets through November.

Life is short: obey the rules!