She is thrilled to be able to wear two shoes again. And so very happy that she can swim tonight that she is actually considering swimming some laps just to make up for the swim team practices she missed this week. I have a feeling she’s going to reconsider that when her friends are wanting to play games at the pool.

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So, of course, things went wonky and as I was walking out the door, fully dressed, I realized that my run was not going to happen that day.

Last night, as I was getting ready to go to bed, I planned my day. And there was just no way I could fit a run in.

Until, all of a sudden, there was a window where there hadn’t been one before. And so I ran. And while it wasn’t as fast as I would have liked, it was fast enough for now. And if felt so very much better than the last time I did it.

I might even be looking forward to doing it again.

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Also, Stagg brought home the Hogwarts Flu and has been miserable.

Its been a heck of a two weeks.

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xoxo
sheila

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Last night, we made reservations and bought tickets for our Wednesday/Thursday plans. But so far, the girls haven’t asked about it. They have accepted (or overlooked) that we are telling them it will take us 2 days to get home while it will take us only hours to get there.

This week will be all about dropping little hints to see if they can guess what we are going to do. What fun!

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I kept track of my day to see if there was a reason why I wasn’t getting anything done. Also, because my dad likes it when I update. Hi, dad!

5:50 Alarm goes off. Hit snooze.

6:00 Get out of bed, wake the girls up for cuddle time. Katie was dry this morning!!! so all I had to do was remind her to use the bathroom before coming into our bed. Maggie needed 2 visits to get up.

6:15 Out of bed for the girls and I, as queued by the “Good Morning Song” on Stagg’s phone. Grumbles all around. I took a shower while the girls got dressed. Stagg stayed in bed and checked email. Breakfast for the girls, find shoes. Remind them to brush both their hair AND their teeth before leaving. Let them know they have 15 extra minutes because I’ll be driving them in. Have Maggie change her clothes 2 times, and then help her pin the pants she picked so they will stay up. On the 3rd try, it is no longer a battle I chose (or had time) to fight.

7:15 Leave for school, stop by book fair with Maggie to pick up one last thing while Katie heads to class.

7:30 Foundation board meeting.

8:45 Post meeting meetings in parking lot. Covered Swim Team, Girl Scouts, Foundation responsibilities for next year, generalities, a little gossip and got some exercise scheduled for Friday morning.

9:20 Get home, start cleaning. Hoping to get main floor (minus the front room currently being used as storage) clean. Start some laundry and put some tea in the microwave.

9:40 Surprise! Contractors are here! And they don’t have the things they need to work because we didn’t know they were coming this morning.

10:12 Return with surprise supplies, discuss the new issue with them, and then mention it to Stagg so he knows what is going on. Start cleaning again, check on seedlings (and realize the seeds were not covered up when Maggie “planted” them). Make sugar syrup for bees.

11:20 Reheat and drink some of the tea. Living room cleaned up, kitchen 80%, leaving 3 problem areas that attract clutter. Stress and try to figure out what to do with that stuff.

11:30 Realize that while I’ve had coffee, I have not eaten today, so make lunch.

12:00 Pay bills, file papers, check email, get 1 of the problem areas mostly cleaned up.

12:45 Run errands: Target & Home Depot (yes, again)

2:30 Make it home with 2 minutes to spare before the bus comes! Give Katie a snack, talk to her, help her login to my computer to do test prep for homework. Also, the contractors leave in a hurry because they have another job they need to finish. They give me a quick tour of what they did that day and tell me they are not sure what day they will be back, but that they will be back. (This is not, I should point out, normal “we’ll be back” language from sub contractors. When your father in law is the contractor, there are some advantages.)

3:10 Head to school so Katie can hit the book fair before we get Maggie from Science Olympiad. Realize that the “other job” was my neighbor’s house and chuckle.

3:30 Get Maggie, who is a little disappointed that one of her events for state has been changed. No more Grab-a-Gam, now she’s got Crime Busters. And we head back to the book fair because she wants to look around. While there, run into Swim Team board members and
discuss and issue.

4:00 Arrive home to find that the laundry I started this morning is still in the machine. Wet. And contains Maggie’s lax uniform, which she needs in 45 minutes for pictures. And she wants to play in the meantime. That, combined with her feeling like she is failing math (with a B), lead to a mini meltdown over a snack of brownies. Meanwhile, play phone tag and work out details of getting both girls to play with some friends for a few minutes because it is 80 degrees and super sunny.

4:15 Drag a still very upset Maggie out of the house to play with a friend, convincing her that the uniform will dry while she plays. She argues with me the whole.way.to.the.playground and then ends up playing for a little while.

4:45 Leave Katie with the neighbor’s to play while I take Maggie (in a dry uniform) to get lax pictures taken. We are supposed to be there at 4:45. Sigh.

5:45 Make it home from the pictures that were supposed to be over at 5:20. Take Maggie over to the neighbor’s, where Stagg is now having a beer and socializing on my way to a meeting across town. Move rest of the still wet laundry into the dryer.

9:30 Get home from meeting, to Stagg working on the couch, notice that he has cleaned up the kitchen after dinner because he is awesome. We talk about transactional stuff that we haven’t had a chance to talk about for days.

10:00 Go upstairs, watch a TV show in bed, Stagg falls asleep. I find that I can’t sleep, plan the next day and eventually stop noticing what time it is a little after midnight.

I didn’t get to swim yesterday, and although I actually had it on my schedule today, it still didn’t happen (not sure if the contractors were coming back among other things).

Even though there is not much to show for most of what I did yesterday, it makes me feel better to see it all written down and see that I am not spending all my time looking for bon bons.

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It was hard to find Katie for a little while, but we managed. Things are all squared away now.

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The other day, I realized that I can “take notes” and highlight passages when reading books in iBooks. Not only that, but iBooks keeps a list of them that both shows the passage and contains a link to the page where I made the note or highlighted text.

Really, this has made more than one of my days!

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Instead, I put it off and looked forward to this morning. There were two other things that were competing for my attention: a request for help at school, and a mass being said for a friend. I was tempted by both opportunities. Really, I felt guilty about considering not choosing to do something I felt like I should. I should, after all, be running around doing *stuff* right? Instead, I decided that I really, really wanted and needed to swim.

There have been many mornings this month that I really didn’t want to swim. If I had to get wet, I wanted it to be in private, with warm or hot water and great smelling soap and shampoo. I wanted to feel clean and warm and dry when I was done. But this morning? I was looking forward to it. I wanted to feel like I had done something this morning, I wanted my muscles to feel a little tired because they had been worked. I even wanted to feel the water feel cold for a couple of seconds until the activity made it feel warm and cool at the same time. I was even ok with the contortions needed to make sure that my socks and pant legs wouldn’t get wet because the floor was wet.

But when I got out of bed this morning to wake up the girls, I intended to walk straight to the door, but ended up smacking into the side of the dresser. I course corrected to Katie’s doorway and came close to falling down the stairs. By the time I was getting Maggie, I realized that I was having some issues with my balance. I wasn’t dizzy… just off-balance. It was a strange feeling.

So, today, I didn’t get my swim today. But I am getting to chill on my couch for a while today while I try to reset my balance-meter in more ways than one.

Monday, though? I will be swimming. It’s all about balance, right?

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Here are some of the best things I’ve read recently…

From Momastery: A Mountain I’m Willing to Die On

Children are not cruel. Children are mirrors. They want to be “grown-up.” So they act how grown-ups act when we think they’re not looking. They do not act how we tell them to act at school assemblies. They act how we really act. They believe what we believe. They say what we say. And we have taught them that gay people are not okay. That overweight people are not okay. That Muslim people are not okay. That they are not equal. That they are to be feared. And people hurt the things they fear. We know that. What they are doing in the schools, what we are doing in the media – it’s all the same. The only difference is that children bully in the hallways and the cafeterias while we bully from behind pulpits and legislative benches and one liners on sit-coms.

Diana Nyad talks at TedMed about how extreme goals can release you from living with regrets large and small.

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?” –Mary Oliver

Don’t Carpe Diem has been making the rounds, and makes me want to wave my fist in the air and yell “Yessssss!!!!!”

When I started this post, there were a couple other things I thought I had seen. Maybe I did, but I can’t find them now. Oh well. Maybe that means there will have to be another post like this sometime.

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