The Days are Just Packed

This is what my kitchen looked like this afternoon. Stuff everywhere, drawers blown open, cabinets swinging in the chaos. This is what the inside of my head undoubtedly looks like, too. I feel like my drawers are all pulled out and my cabinets are spilling stuff all over creation.

This is not necessarily a bad place to be. It's not boring, for example. It's not necessarily dull. But it is a bit hectic. A bit messy. Things are not getting done. The days are simply not long enough to encompass everything I want and need to get done.

Alas.

But onward we go. The kids are I are (mostly) enjoying ourselves. We went to our nature class last Friday and found lots of animal tracks in the snow and talked about the different types of tracks made by different species. Cats, for instance, place their back paw smack into the spot just vacated by their front paw. Just try that. Cats are incredibly strong.

Thursday was more typical. We did some math and writing and then the boys and I dropped Nell off at violin class in the morning, walked to the Stonington Library, then walked back to pick her up. We ate lunch at home then dashed off to farm class. The kids made cheese and I ran for 2 hours. Then Nell and I dropped Simon and Ben at the Y for swimming lessons (Brian met us there) and hoofed it to my violin class. After violin I dropped Nell at swimteam then picked up the boys at the high school, where Brian had taken them after swimming lessons for his robotics meeting. I brought the boys home, gave them dinner and we all drove back to pick up Nell at the pool.

Whew.....

No time for reading, for writing, for taking a breath. I fell into bed at 8:30, well before Brian got home. Well before even Nell went to bed. Toast.

During my 2-hour farm class run I did manage to get myself a little culture. I listened to Anna Karenina on the Playaway from the library. I am loving this book! All my years and years of education and I never read it. I had to go out and buy myself a copy from the used book store. I picked up where the Playaway left off this afternoon. I read one chapter (short chapters) and promptly fell asleep.

Susan and I ran just over four hours early this morning on the snowy trails at Bluff Point. We started in the dark with Susan's dad. He hasn't been running much, and the footing was terrible. After an hour, he was done. Susan and I dropped a 67 year old man. What does that say about us?

The sun came up and the light was beautiful on the snow and the water and the trees. But, man, the running was tough. The conditions alternated from icy ruts to uncut, sandy snow. Susan was planning to run for 6 hours, but she quit after four with me. We were exhausted. It was a great workout. Lots of glutes and lots of shoulders. Lots of balance muscles. I am tired, tired, tired.