Hiking through the weekend

I made soup from a Kabocha squash.  I felt all Martha Stewart about it until my family slurped it without enthusiasm only to be polite and I tasted it.  That was a lot of trouble for a very untasty soup.  So, no more.

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My 9-year old spent a lot of time crying tonight because her friend’s bird died today.  I wanted to blot out that sad feeling so she’d not have to feel it.  But feeling sad is okay, I told myself, and maybe some day I’ll believe it.

I don’t really like feeling sad even though I tend toward that emotion.  (See also: Melancholia.)

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Have I mentioned lately how much I loathe science experiments and crafting ridiculous things like barometers out of modeling clay and mason jars and balloons?  I am the kind of person who does not need to prove any scientific principle with my own two hands in order to believe it.

This is problematic because science experiments are expected in the curriculum Grace is using (through a charter school).   Therefore, I will spend my weekend “spare” time doing stupid science experiments and trying not to grumble.

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An exterminator came this week to spray our house for teeny tiny ants.  Funny because in our Washington house we had the exterminator spray for big old carpenter ants.  I hope there are no medium sized ants in my future.

The exterminator had the nerve to show up at 7 a.m. even though our appointment was at 7:30 a.m., an ungodly hour in itself.

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I am super overwhelmed by my schedule these days.  My job is a demanding–45+ hours a week.  Grace’s school-at-home is demanding.  There’s the whole feed-the-family and keep-the-family-in-clean-underpants thing . . . I keep doing the World’s Fastest Grocery Shopping trips and throwing together the most random meals.

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Last summer, I took the kids to Mount Rainier.  It was so beautiful and I agreed to hike a trail with the boys.  I thought it was a short trail, but we trudged up and up and up . . . just around another corner, just over another hill . . . just when I thought the peak was close, the switchbacks appeared, the trail steepened.  I almost died and worried I’d rupture my Achilles tendon, not necessarily in that order.

That’s kind of how my life feels right now.  Up, up, up, around another corner, just a little farther, no, just a lot farther . . . look up and you’ll just see the trail steepening, switchbacks appearing.

I’d like to just sit down and stop.

But I can’t.

You know you’re overwhelmed when catching the flu sounds like an inviting one-way ticket to a day in bed.

Well, no time to contemplate how ridiculous that is because I have to get up in eight hours so I can go to a meeting, so I can meet my husband at the football field to watch my son play and pick up my daughter so I can take her to her soccer game so we can get back home and make stupid science projects and finish the laundry and clean up the house and cook dinner so I can get to bed at a decent hour so we can get up early for Sunday School and church so we can hurry home to finish up school work so we can go get soccer pictures taken so we can rush home to clean up and bake something or cut up some fruit–I sure hope we got to the grocery store at some point–just in time for our  company will arrive.

And then I have to start my four hour shift at 9 p.m.

Unless, of course, I come down with Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever.

Wish me luck.