Where has the time gone?

Last week and this week were supposed to be a couple of weeks of rest and relaxation after a nutty semester doing grad school full time and teaching part time... No grad school, a lightened teaching load now that the AP test is over, and a wrapping up of various other things had me planning afternoons in the garden and evenings with husband and friends.

A combination of factors have intervened, and I am again feeling like I am doing far too much time planning in my head in order to get everything taken care of. How does this happen to me?

The first wrong turn was thinking that building a new deck this month would not be that big of a hassle. See old one partially taken apart. We had been talking about this forever, and it was so easy to go and buy the wood! I mistakenly kept thinking that it was some wood and a few screws and we would be done. Viola! New deck: no longer worried guests will fall through old deck, a staircase to the ground, better for parties, an improvement on the house, a benefit for perspective buyers. All good.


Although it has been a fun project, it has become priority number one around here. Instead of doing much else, I am running interference for husband while he works on the deck constantly. Who knew a deck could be so much work? This last weekend after finding that the carriage bolts we had used to attach the 4x4s to the planks were not threading with the nuts, we had to pull out the bolts, take the railing down, and I returned to Menards to get new ones. What followed was the low point of the weekend. I was sitting on the floor of Menards, realizing that almost all the carriage bolts they had had been machined wrong, so every bolt I was going to buy needed to be tried first. With a clerk, I spent at least a half hour screwing on nuts to 6 inch bolts while Nelly Furtado sang "Don't turn out the lights, don't turn out the lights..." and listening to "Save big money, save big money, when you shop Menards..."

We have had lots of help on the deck and for that I have been very thankful. S. Kos has been project booster number one and has shared so many hours helping on the deck. In sharing him with us, LLC deserves a thank-you also. Klick, slummy (pictured here as gay German carpenter-notice the obligatory beer in the tool belt), and others have provided moral or technical support.

Last weekend, LLC and I ran the Melopomene 5K race together and that was fun. It benefited a good cause- a women's health organization. We had done some practice runs and ended up exceeding our expectations on race day. Although, I don't think I caught the "racing" bug that is coursing through the clan, it was a good experience. I liked the excitement and the camaraderie that surrounded the runners. I think all agreed, though, that the best part of the day was the breakfast out afterwards with our race spectators.

Another endeavor that has been keeping me fairly busy (and somewhat annoyed)is a consulting job that I accepted with a publishing company for the summer. I am writing supplemental materials- mostly powerpoints- for a government book. Although at first this sounded like a great idea, as well as lucrative, I am now rethinking as it has begun to feel a little like quicksand. There are so many details that I had not really thought about like all the copy write, fair use, technology issues are a pain in the ass and I am beginning to feel like I am blazing a new path for this company. I have already had to stop and renegotiate my rate and duties once, and I am more and more suspicious about the time this is going to take. But I did say I wouldn't sign a contract until after I finished Chapter 2 since I am wary of my own lack of time and their lack of organization or adequate support. Sometimes I am annoyed that I feel the need to do more and take advantage of so many things. Why not occasionally let an opportunity pass me by?

May has not been all toil and no fun though. The softball season has started and I really like our team this year. We are playing in a new league that seems a better fit and after having some issues with remembering how to bat last season, I am finally again hitting like I know how. Frisbee also starts this week and summer league is always so much fun. I am looking forward to meeting our team, although I don't know if any team can surpass the great team we had last year. We have also had some fun gatherings around the fire pit in our backyard. Pictured here, the best I could do in the pitch black. I have also been busy catching up with friends that I didn't see while I was frantically writing papers. Last week I met friends AT and klick out for lunch and this week it is girly happy hour at an outdoor patio location.

So as long as the weather stays beautiful, time at school continues to fly by, and Leo decides to do no more suicide stunts (story forthcoming), life should even out a bit here. I am just praying for a little bit of time to relax and catch up on all the things I have wanted to do since January. In the spirit of more time, I did turn down a job working with Upward bound this summer and am hoping that it just seems like it will busier this summer than it really will be. Hey it could be worse--I could be planning a wedding!