Tuesday Ten: Countdown

Ten blog posts behind. More like twenty or thirty, but this is the Tuesday Ten. I don't have time for a Tuesday Twenty. I'd like to write about learning to pan for gold in Sumpter, I've got some great nature photos, a short blurb about a stunned dragonfly (the body was all ridge-y, and bumpy--way coooool), first days of school, nature outings, art projects.....

I'm too busy doing all this stuff to sit down and write about it.

Nine months of school, give or take. We're cruising right along into this new school year. Already we've hit our groove. We've got animal masks drying on the cabinet, nature poetry in the nature notebooks, Japanese Post-its all over the living room, a nature collection on the cabinet next to the masks. This year we seem to have hit our year-round groove too. I expect we'll be enthusiastic and immersed in projects and outings this fall. Ambitious. By the time winter really sets in, we'll delve more deeply into rigorous academics, with lots of reading and writing and snuggling on the couch in our jammies. By spring, we'll be ready for the outdoors and lots of hands-on active learning experiences.

Eight books in my to-review stack. I've read some really good books in the last couple months. But at the end of the day when it comes down to, hmmm....read? Or write about reading?.....I go watch Project Runway. (Just kidding. Sorta.)

Only Seven days in a week, twenty-four hours in each day for teaching, piano practice, laundry, cleaning, yardwork, gardening, grocery shopping, volunteer work, cooking, talking to my wonderful teens, homework, errands, playing games with the boys, reading out loud. I wish we had an extra day in the week, just once in a while.

Now I've got "Eight days a week, I Loo-ooo-ooo-ooo-oo-oo-ve you" in my head. Great. Oh well, it's better than something insipid like The Itsy Bitsy Spider.

Added a few minutes later: Well crud. Now guess what's spinning through my head.

Six things on my mind at all times. There's always something going on up there. Mostly things I need to do; the rest thoughtful, personal, spiritual, whimsical. That doesn't count any of the hundreds of things I'm forgetting. One thought enters, another must leave to make room, perhaps never to be seen again.

Five wonderful children. All unique, all precious, all maddening and beautiful and time-consuming and absolutely worth every second I can spare for love and discipline and play and conversation and hugs.

Four: The number of jobs I can handle at one time. Mom (with the attendant nurse-chauffeur-counselor-police-housekeeper-pet care-gardener side jobs), Teacher, Choir Parent, Activity Director & Behavior Manager. I gave up one of my choir volunteer positions because I didn't feel that I could do a good job on both and have time for my family. Fortunately there was a woman who actively wanted the position. But I still feel guilty.

Three things at once is about all I can manage. I've become a queen of multi-tasking. I can talk on the phone, hand out schoolwork and stir dinner all at the same time. Of course I might start telling you over the phone to carry the ten, or to add 1/2 cup of broth, or that "h" is a tall letter.....

Two hands.

And only ONE of me. Maybe I'll try to build a duplicator in the basement. I could make a chauffeur-me, a housekeeper-me, a yardwork-me, a detail-person-me....that would leave this me to do the fun stuff, like teaching and gardening and napping.

Until then, I'll muddle-scramble-revel in and through all of the lovely chaotic mess that's my life. Life is good.