Challenging morning — very sleepy because I had to get up early for an iGov meeting at 8:30, and was up later than planned last night, having a little meltdown at Kevin about how much there is to do and how little time there is to do it.
It’s not really that I don’t have enough time overall, I think, but that this April is just another one of those crunch periods with everything due at once. Right now, dealing with:
- wrist injury flaring up again (pretty constant low-grade pain, with occasional spikes of intense pain)
- some kind of brain fog last week leading to me missing five (!) scheduled appointments, despite checking my calendar every day (maybe menopause, will check at next doc appt.)
- I need to schedule various doctor appointments, but I feel like I don’t have the brain to actually remember to go to the appointments, or the time to schedule them, or go to them — sigh, I’m going to do it anyway, but probably can’t get any of them in before May at earliest.
- end of semester (which right now involves a lot of running after students and basically begging them to please hand in something that I can grade so I don’t have to flunk them, and yes, I know they’re overwhelmed, I sympathize, but I still need SOMETHING to grade, 0% is worse than 60%, badly-done is better than not done at all, please believe me.)
- the national nightmare, which just seems to be escalating, despite some little bits of pushback and some small wins here and there; Kev and I actually had our first brief conversation last night about whether we would move if the presidential disregard of the law kept escalating unchecked
- we only talked for a few minutes about this, and I think it’s probably still years away even if the worst comes to pass, I don’t want to start people panicking. But we concluded, I can pay $5000, last I checked, and reactivate my Sri Lankan citizenship, but we can also probably manage a move to Portugal or Spain or Mexico, if we sell our house — and we’re very lucky to have the financial privilege to even be able to think about this option, but I still hate it; I can’t stand that that’s where we are as a nation.
- Kavi’s college search has been overwhelming — touring has eaten up a lot of time, and when it was combined with Kevin being sick last week, I lost four work days I hadn’t planned for, so I’m feeling much more behind than I expected — decision day is May 1, and I think we may be right down to the wire on that.
- it’s planting time this weekend — the horde of plants I ordered in the depth of winter (possibly in reaction to the election) need to get in the ground; I didn’t even have time to start any tomato / eggplant / pepper babies this year, and it’s probably too late for those (?), which makes me sad, because I have all these seeds…
- I also need to get my outdoor watering system set up again this weekend, so I can easily water, otherwise all those baby plants will die, and that’s just too depressing to even contemplate right now
- I haven’t had time to finish clearing the front yard, I haven’t started on the back, our parking pad is embarrassingly messy, if someone local has a sturdy teen who wants to earn some money for doing yard work tomorrow, please let me know. I am happy to throw money at this problem.
- the new shed shop has a soft launch the last Friday in April, so I have basically two weeks to finish painting, wallpapering, and setting everything up (Connor is coming back today to help with that, because my wrist isn’t up to it)
- and oh, I need to plan a launch party and make invitations and print them and hand them out… (tentatively, save-the-date Saturday May 3rd, 3-6 — will confirm early next week once I hear back from the Berwyn village folks)
- Kevin and Kavi are ALSO really busy — Kevin has a ton of complicated tax stuff to figure out this weekend for his parents’ estate, for example (which is both tedious and exhausting but also surely making grieving worse; it’s been less than a year since his mother passed, and his father died the year before, as did our dog)
- poor Kavi has brought home a fake baby for the weekend for her child development class, and it woke her up every hour last night, demanding to be fed, so I’m not expecting Kavi to be able to help with any shed or gardening stuff — we’ll see if she gets through the weekend without crying)
- I’m trying to wrap up all my remaining school board stuff — my last meeting is in two weeks. A bunch of tedious paperwork, mostly.
- I had an idea for a story last night, and I’m excited about it and want to write it, but I don’t know WHEN I can carve out 4-6 hours of uninterrupted time to draft it, and that makes me feel a little crazy. (Dan, this one’s for you, if it happens; I realized I wanted a story about what happened between “Paper Star” and “Thin Air,” to set her on that new path.)
- I have a whole bunch of other writing projects in progress, and they’re just on hold at the moment, nagging at me
- my e-mail is a disaster; I’ve started training Connor to help me process it, because I clearly can’t manage it on my own, but it’s going to take a while training before he can deal with it on his own at all…
Is that it? That might be it. And again, most of this I signed up for (except the stupid wrist injury and the brain fog), so don’t feel too sorry for me; I did this to myself. But right now, it’s a lot, and all I actually want to do is putter in my garden and let the plants heal me.
This too shall pass. I think I just needed to complain a little.
Okay, next things: get dressed, get a few more plants in the ground, check on resin pours from yesterday, maybe start a new table, go to the paint store and get some brushes (check garage first to see if there are any there that I missed last time I checked), meet Connor at the shed at 11 to continue painting. I think if I wear a brace, I can safely do at least a little painting; we’ll see.
Pictured: signs of spring — redbud buds on the branches, native purple prairie trillium budding, native Virginia bluebells budding, viburnum budding, first dwarf peach blossom opening.
