What do you do when you're too stressed to read a magazine?

This was the scene yesterday. All work in by deadline for the month of March. Check. Lawn mowed. Check. Did a long hike in the a.m. with my daughter that counted for both exercise and homeschool. Check.

Should be a good time to sit down with a favorite magazine, right? Especially with my fave drink, iced tea, at hand.

But no. There is so much hanging over my head that I cannot even get through a single article. Heck, I couldn't even focus on the pictures! After 5 minutes, I gave up.

Not a single aspect of my life is under control. My limited clients aren't enough to pay the bills, much less save anything. My kids are facing various health, school and other issues (not because of anything they did, either), and I can't solve most of it, as much as I try.

There are other deadlines looming, and I am struggling to deal with those.

And now it seems that we might have to move yet again, because our landlord wants to raise the rent yet again (on top of the $200 increase last year.) I am tired and overwhemed. I need something to work smoothly. SOMETHING.

There is a Chinese curse..."May you live in interesting times." I understand why it's a curse. And it's eating me alive. Bring on the simple and predictable, please. PLEASE!  A daily walk in the woods or on a beach. A good income. Friends around to meet for supper or a weekend event.  Things going pretty smoothly for my kids.  I want daily life to be, as I heard on a recent podcast,  fabulously ordinary. I can always get "interesting" on vacation instead.

This is a test...can I actually be organized?

Photo via Pottery Barn

Right now, my front hall is decorated with a half dozen neatly tacked up pieces of newspaper.  I read somewhere that this was a great way to figure out how to arrange pictures or art on a wall before you actually grab the hammer and nails.

After a few false starts, the arrangement works.

In a few minutes, the newspaper is going to be replaced. with memo boards, a dry-erase calendar, chore charts, a bulletin board and framed name art to show who's board is who's. The whole thing will be topped with a quote designed to help us start the day right.

Once it's all up, the real test begins. Starting tomorrow, I will have a command center with all the tools that are supposed to make family scheduling easy, homework tracking efficient, and school mornings free from panic, tears, rushing and last-minute "oh I forgot..."

So what if it doesn't work? What if all of these tools and boards and quotes don't change anything?

If I can't get myself and my family organized with all the right stuff, does that mean I have to give up on EVER getting it right?  I am about to find out.

Yoda says there is no try, only do. So starting tomorrow, it's not about trying to get us on track. It is about doing...or not doing. Wish me luck!

Back to Mom 101

Can this happen in the real world??

You'd think after three kids and countless mornings getting kids off to school, I would have it down to a science.  Lunches would be prepped and in the fridge, clothes laid out and backpacks loaded and waiting by the door. And I would sail through the morning, dressed and ready, calm and peaceful, planting kisses and offering sage advice on how to ace that vocab test.

Yeah right.

Take this morning for example.

My husband and I are both fighting a cold that won't let go, so the morning started with coughs and grabbing for tissues.  Then he headed out to walk the dog, and I hit the shower for my relaxing, revitalizing four minute shower.  (What would a long shower be like??  I've forgotten.)

After I hack up a lung as soon as the steam hits, I scrub down, decide I can go one more day without washing my hair, then throw on a pair of jeans and a top and head for the kitchen.  On the way, I hear the dryer running, so that means my daughter didn't get her laundry done last night and needs something for today.  I stop to check the dryer, and find that she's thrown a couple of wet things in with the already dry load.

I pull out the now super-dry stuff and find my husband's missing sunglasses bouncing around in there. Dry clothes folded, blazing hot sunglasses on top.  Dryer restarted with only the wet things.

Back to heading for the kitchen.

I hear my daughter moving around between her room and her bathroom, so I know I don't need to go wake her up, and I have visions of putting the water on to make myself a cup of peppermint tea.

My husband returns from the walk, and heads for his own four minute shower.

Hint...this is NOT me!

Then I look at the time, and remember that we didn't get around to cutting up the stuff for lunch last night, so instead of reaching for the tea, I reach for the cutting board and the veggies from the fridge. Lettuce, peppers, carrots, celery, cheese.  Check.  Apple. Check. Water bottle.  Oh heck!  Where is that water bottle?

I ask my husband to empty the dishwasher, so we dance around each other in the kitchen while I finish packing the lunch. 

Call out to my daughter in my scratchy voice.  No answer.  I hear the water running in the bathroom.  Surely she's done by now.  And I hear the printer going. How can both be running at the same time?  I'm afraid to ask.

My daughter runs through the kitchen, still in pajamas, heading for the laundry room. Water bottle found and washed. Daughter runs back through, complaining that my computer wasn't working right and messed up her printing.

Lunch done, veggies put away, cutting board emptied.  The trash smells funky, so I close it up and pull the bag out.  Throw in a load of wash.

Grab my computer because I need to catch up on some work while I'm at the genealogy library this morning. Grab my purse.  Look for keys.  Run back in the bedroom to grab my phone.

Ask my husband to grab the trash bag just in time to hear the door closing behind him. Chase daughter out the door, grab my purse, computer bag and trashbag and shut the door without the dog or the cat getting out.

Throw the trash away (hoping I haven't tossed anything else in the can..like my phone), and open the car door. Get in and realize that I forgot to take my cold medicine and vitamins, and never got around to putting on makeup.

Our van is on the fritz right now, so we have to all go to drop our daughter at school (who's mad that I told her she had to take the bus home, and oh, by the way, she forgot to wash her tights for ballet), then head to my husband's work to drop him off. 

Finally get to the genealogy library only 5 minutes late. No makeup.  No peppermint tea.  No energy.   I pray for a "Closed" sign on the library.  No luck. 

But also, no patrons.  So I can do some work..  But first, I need to blog.  No really, I NEED to blog.

And so it is.  Three kids. And I am still at Mom 101 on a morning like this.

Getting back into the game

I haven't posted on this blog since late December.  Since then, a lot has happened in my life. 

My new husband had to take an out-of-state job, so we are to be apart for several months of this precious first year.

My car developed serious electrical problems, and I am still trying to get them fixed because buying a new car isn't in the cards right now.

My daughter is still struggling with daily health issues, and we still don't know why or what is causing them.

And in mid January, my mom passed away. 

So with all of that, just keeping up with the blogs and other things I write for work took every ounce of energy I had.  I opened this page a dozen times, but no words came out...until now.

I am tired. Stressed.  Sometimes scared.  Bruised. But I can feel that there is life beneath the surface, like a river that is starting to move again beneath its winter skin of ice.  It's hard to see the change -- in fact, some days a cold, hard freeze seems to put me right back where I was. It could be a sleepless night, or a hard day at work, or something like today when I went to get my car, and found that it was not yet fixed...again.

But the freezes aren't lasting as long now.  Even when they hit, I am feeling that trickle of movement underneath the icy surface...that hint of springtime.  Not yet visible, and yet something I can sense in the air.

Spring is coming.  Maybe not today or tomorrow or even next week.  But it is heading this way. And then the words will flow again.

Flyaway...

Dreaming of flying away, with my love, with my children. Far away, through the rainy sky and clouds. Landing ever so gently near a Paris sidewalk cafe where we could warm our hands and our stress-tattered hearts with big cups-that-are-really-bowls of steaming hot chocolate and dip flaky butter croissants and not care about the bits that drip on our clothes.

Dreaming of finding a hidden bookstore, carefully crafted to be invisible to those who rush by on their way to meetings and business and busy-ness. Sinking down deep into an armchair, warm lamplight illuminating the faces of those I love, our laps laden with beautiful books and our minds finally free to imagine what we really want to do with the rest of the day and the rest of the week and the rest of our lives, now finally finally finally free from boxes and chores and plans that never worked out no matter how hard we tried or how little rest we allowed our selves.

Dreaming of seeing that the stories in the books we hold aren't the stories from other lives and other pens, but our stories and knowing, at last, that we can write the rest of the pages with our days and fill the empty picture-spaces with the things we see and the people we come to know and the our-selves we finally meet.

Dreaming of standing on a hillside, seeing the landscape spread before us and the endless roads we can wander and knowing that there is now time to walk and time to stand still and time to climb and time to just sit and watch the pictures G-d makes with the clouds and the light.

Dreaming of drifting off to sleep in a featherbed, the lights of Paris below, the days ahead. Somewhere in the distance, a faint whisper of music offers the perfect score for our dreams of this new life. Dreaming. Dreaming. Of Flying Away.

The surprising virtue of laziness

Ask anyone who knows me to describe me, and the term energetic will probably come up. Or maybe hyper, or unable to sit still, or always running somewhere...the meaning will be the same. I have a very hard time sitting still. And being indoors and sitting still is the worst. I twitch, I wiggle, I wander, I pace. Since I moved back to the sunshine, I spend every free moment outdoors at concerts, art shows, festivals, the beach, or just out for a walk. If I go to a restaurant that offers indoor and outdoor seating, I will inevitably choose the outside table. I have been trying to devise a way to get my employers to move my desk and computer outside so I can work in the breeze under a palm tree.

Today was a beautiful February day. Warm, breezy, and once some morning clouds passed, sunny and clear. So where did I spend this beautiful day? Outside at a festival? In the pool? Walking on the beach? No, I spent almost the entire day indoors. Inside Barnes and Noble, and then inside my apartment, sitting on my bed reading Mohammad Yunus' book "Banker to the Poor" and drinking tea. Doing Yoga. Talking with my daughters. Talking with friends on the phone. Watching television (okay, it was PBS, but it was television!) Even grabbing a few minutes of power-napping. Indoors. All day. I didn't even touch my computer until now.

And I discovered something amazing. I feel really good. I feel as though I had a weekend, for the first time in I don't know how long. I am rested and not dreading the Monday a.m. alarm. I feel refreshed. I am amazed.

I think one of the reasons I run so incessantly is that I have a fear that if I ever stop long enough to rest, I won't be able to start going again. Life as a single mom is tough, and the stress can be overwhelming. So I keep moving. I sleep 4-5 hours a night. I come from 9 hours of work and do 4-5 hours of cooking and homework-helping and housework. On weekends, I run around getting everyone where they need to go, and try to make as many memories as possible. I never stop.

But today, I did. Oh, I still cooked three meals, but they were simple and easy. And I did some laundry, but that mostly involved throwing handfuls of things into a washer and then a dryer, then folding them while watching Wayne Dyer talking about intentional living on PBS.

I boldly went where I had never gone before as a single mom...I rested. My car rested. And although they complained about it at first, my daughters even rested.

Next weekend, I will probably return to my outdoor lifestyle. And I'll enjoy it. But it's nice to know that it is possible to spend a day doing nothing much at all. And to enjoy every minute of it.