Uncategorized

Yesterday was constructed entirely out of errands. When I rattled off the list to Howard, his response was “I’m glad that’s your day and not mine.” So I dropped papers off, I returned unwanted purchases, I had the vacuum cleaner repaired, I went grocery shopping. Through my town and hours I wended until the twisty trail landed me in the evening at Gleek’s 5th grade program. It was to be followed by writers’ group and then bedtime. This program has been part of Gleek’s life for months. She’d practiced her lines, sung the songs, sometimes so much that the rest of us asked if she could please be quiet for awhile. She was as prepared as she could be. Well, except for the part where the chairs were filled with audience. They couldn’t rehearse that part. Bravery is a decision, not an emotion. It is the decision to act despite fear. Gleek was afraid, but she did not miss a single cue. She sang and spoke right on time. Then I took her home and let her run until she was tired and play Minecraft until she was calm.

Today was a clean up day. I emptied my overflowing email box. I sent off files to people. Then I sat and stared at nothing in particular while letting my thoughts sort themselves into new places. Pauses are necessary. In the pause I had another possible idea based on my cover concept. The photo shoot is scheduled for next Wednesday. Between now and then a small piece of my brain will be quietly considering and problem solving. The email processing dictated the shape of next week. I have my to do list ready to go. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll feel inspired to clean the house with my newly repaired vacuum cleaner. It would be nice to move Howard’s suitcase off of the front room couch where it has been sitting since he came home on Monday.

Daffodils are blooming in my neighborhood. This relates to nothing else in this post. It just makes me happy.

My oldest child sits with a cat in her lap pondering the pile of homework she needs to complete in the next week on the final run up to end-of-term. She also has worried thoughts about art, money, and validation. My second oldest sits down stairs on a couch, snickering as he reads through the Schlock Mercenary books. He’s finally gotten old enough to realize that they are funny. Third child is reading Girl Genius in her bed. Youngest is reading Full Metal Alchemist. I could play “one of these things is not like the others” except that at any hour of any day the obviously different child would change. They are four unique individuals and I constantly have to alter my parenting strategies to accommodate their different needs.

I can feel the gears of my life shifting. We’re changing from book crunch into the lull before shipping. Hopefully we’ll fill that lull with bonus story creation for the next book. We’re also shifting from winter into spring. Gardening work must begin soon. Fortunately it looks like we’ve cleared away enough tasks that I’ll have space for it. I’m shifting into project mode and out of heavy parenting mode. This actually follows a pattern that I identified last year. I’d forgotten that I identified it, except that one of the things I was working on today was layout for my book of blog entries from last year. Seeing the patterns from year to year is interesting. I feel quite glad that this year we’ve finished the book crunch a full six weeks earlier than last year.

Now we just need to adapt to daylight savings time.

Realizing that the reason my spinning rainbow crystals were not spinning was because the tiny solar panel was dusty. Quick wipe and it was all fixed.

Seeing Link come home from school happy.

Realizing that when my teenager had four errands to run, I could just hand her the keys and stay home while she took care of the errands herself. Also, insuring a teenage girl, with good grades, onto an accident free policy, is not as expensive as I expected. Totally worth an extra $30 per month.

The sky is sunny and bright.

My meeting this morning proved once again that my co-teacher and I get along great. We hammered out an outline in less than an hour. Now we have assignments and sections to work on. One more meeting mid-April and we’ll be ready to teach.

Some of the cut flowers I bought two weeks ago are still pretty.

This was yesterday, but it was so nice I’m still going to list it today: Going out on a lunch date with Howard.

Sometimes illness doesn’t seem like what it is. I was half a day into my head cold before I figured out I was legitimately sick instead of being lazy. The lethargy was strong, but I feel much better about it now that I can see it was convalescence. I only figured it out when I realized how often I was reaching for tissues. Judgement and decision making skills appear to be the first things taken offline when I don’t feel well. Today is better. The tissues-per-hour rate has dropped to a tolerable level and I got a few necessary tasks done. Hopefully my head will clear up tomorrow. I’ve got lots of convention prep work to do.

For those who might be wondering. My son came home from school the next day with all of his school work finished. Ditto for Thursday. Today he brought home some unfinished work. So the one hard day did not solve everything, but the pattern seems to indicate that this structure is right for helping my son face the things he needs to learn instead of avoiding via distraction.

Unfortunately spending so much energy on Tuesday afternoon meant I got nothing Done Wednesday. Add in a child diagnosed with strep throat, and my schedule was in pieces. I pulled it back together yesterday. Today was spent far away from my schedule as my parents were in town. Tomorrow is a house-focused day. Next week I have to put on my Graphic Designer hat a lot. Things need done. I’m hoping that I can get through next week without anyone staying home from school sick.

I dreaded today even before it began. “Dreaded” might be too strong a word, particularly since there was no concrete reason for me to go to bed unsure I wanted to deal with the day to follow. The day is mostly gone. Nothing horrible happened. I’m just swimming in a sea of things-to-do. I have orders to file until the calendars come back from the printer. There are other orders which need to be shipped right away. The calendar needs a last few flourishes before it is done with the design stage of its existence. Those are my job. I was a volunteer for a 5th grade art class where half the kids were finishing a project involving multi-colored paint. The other half were part way into a project including drawing with white on black construction paper. Unfortunately the white colored pencils were no where to be found, so I applied a last-minute substitute of chalk. Smeary, smeary chalk. I love teaching concepts with a clear lesson plan. This time I was insufficiently prepared and it all felt chaotic. Then there was a child with an emotional crisis, a conference with a teacher, and we’ve yet to even tackle homework time. The good news is that the teacher agrees with me that grades are a unit of measure and not a life goal.

I think this evening may require cookies. Not because things are bad. They aren’t. Nothing in front of me is impossible. There is just a lot of it and I’m sleep deprived. Cookies will help.

I like days where I am high energy and focused. I also like days that are drifty and somewhat formless. I’m not so fond of days like today, where I have a vague awareness that I really want to be getting lots of things done, but somehow the hours escape me without any sort of measurable progress. I did manage to arrange for the freezer to be moved from our downstairs pantry into the garage, but then instead of pursuing the project by setting up shelving for the food storage, I…sort of wandered off to click my way through the internet a couple more times. I did locate some ideas that I may want to apply when remodeling my office, none of which are immediately useful. I read a couple of articles with interesting science information. I have no current applications for this information. I felt some vague guilt that my kids seemed to have breathed in the same unambitious air. They had a mythbusters marathon. I sometimes felt like I ought make them do something active, but the weather was cold, windy, wet. Gleek felt under the weather. Link had just returned from an overnight fishing trip. Most of all I couldn’t seem to find the necessary focus to insist on something else.

I wanted to be energetic today. I wanted to get projects done and clean my house. I wanted to make everything ready for the week that is coming. Alternately it would have been nice to have a truly relaxed vacation day, something refreshing and rejuvenating. I didn’t really have either one. It wasn’t a bad day. Nothing in particular went wrong. I just felt like I squandered the potential of the day I was given and I’m not sure why. Hopefully I can be more energetic tomorrow.

I’ve scribbled notes for at least three good blog entries in the last two days. Unfortunately every time I found a space of time which could contain writing, I arrived there with my brain all used up. Oh well. At least the postcards are done, the week’s homework is under control, and all the pieces for opening orders on Monday are in place. Onward.

I’m sorting things and reorganizing today, not in any logical or focused fashion, but random things as I bump into them. So you get this blog post which is much like my organizational method today.

***

It was past noon when I first looked at my To Do list. I’d drifted my way through the morning, mostly sleeping, occasionally staring at nothing in particular as my mind turned over possible plans for the day. I opened the list in an attempt to find focus. I knew there were things to accomplish, some of them urgent, many of them order dependent, and I did not want to arrive at Monday morning to discover that my lackadaisical attitude on Saturday had gifted me with a crisis. The first thing I noticed about the list was that I had not checked off any tasks since the prior Monday. Five days where I barely even glanced at my list because I was completely occupied with a few large, urgent tasks. This cycle is normal to me. Sometimes my list is my constantly-checked lifeline. Other times I neglect it completely. I need it when I’m tracking lots of small tasks. I don’t when I’m working on a few large ones.

I re-ordered and updated the list so that it reflected a plan for next week instead of the abandoned plan for last week. The organization process is useful even when the list goes unused. Unfortunately the list did not clarify which of my possible paths for Saturday I should choose. There was the “get the car fixed” path which had me sitting in a waiting room having new tires put on the van. Then sitting in another waiting room to make sure that the van passes its safety inspection. These final two steps were the tail end of a path which began with getting the windshield replaced and turn signals fixed. I also contemplated the “get ahead on work” path which would have pinned me to my computer working layout and design. In the end I did a mix of “working on house projects,” “vacation day,” and “accomplishing odds and ends.” This was a nice shift from the driven pace of the week just passed. Most importantly, I could wander myself from task to task rather than trying to herd children into doing tasks which I was not allowed to do for them. Much nicer.

***

Last year I was burned out on Halloween by the second week of October. This was because I spent four intense days scrambling to make a costume for Kiki to wear to an anime convention. Kiki was grateful for my efforts, but dissatisfied with the costume. The other kids pulled their costumes together from stuff we had on hand, no effort from me, and they loved their costumes. So this year I declared a hands-off policy for me. I would render minor assistance with costumes, particularly for Patch, but beyond that they were on their own. They agreed with this plan. Kiki planned an elaborate armored costume which she intended to make out of cardboard and paper mache. Link planned to buy a Halo costume with his own money. Gleek and Patch made no particular plans. In the end Kiki found that her visions exceeded her skills. Link decided he’d rather buy a video game. Gleek created a Tiffany Aching costume which only required the purchase of a hat. Patch will be a Nac Mac Feegle, but the Halloween shopping fairy smiled upon me and let me find all the necessary props in a single store. Costuming has been remarkably stress free. Possibly because none of us had any spare stress to expend. The end of term exhausted us all.

***

The weather has turned brisk and my lawns are littered with leaves. It will soon be too cold to go outside and garden. The weeds in my flower beds may have to keep my flowers company this winter. Again. I did get outside long enough to shut off and drain the sprinkler system. We’re due to have two more mild days, I decided to leave my hammock swings up for those two days in the hopes that I’ll have the chance to lounge in them once more. When I bring them in, they’ll be headed to storage for months. I haven’t sat in them much this past month, but they were there. Ready. For the rest of the descent into winter, and for winter itself, I will have to find some other retreat.

***

Last week I came home from Antelope Island filled with the intention to get myself and my children outdoors. I scoured weather reports and thought that today would be warm enough to gather them all and go. It was warm enough, but the drive was worn out of me. I need to remember that this is not a failure. We need restful times with routine relaxation just as much as we need new and inspiring adventures. Sleep is needful. Drifting can be important. That said, I’m still watching the weather and wishing it would tell me of more warm days ahead. I shall have to find some indoor adventures I think.