Ever have periods of your life where you know a lot of things are good, but nonetheless your day-to-day just feels like a dumpster fire? That’s where I’m at right now.
So hi. How are ya?
I have been busy. I tend to avoid using “busy” as an answer or explanation for anything — for how I am, for why I haven’t blogged in a couple weeks, for why I’m tired and grumpy. But the truth is, this month has been BUSY.
Since my last post, we went to Corpus Christi for a weekend to celebrate my nephew’s 1st birthday. We boogied at the sock hop at Emma’s school. We played games at a Halloween festival at JSC. Emma lost another tooth. We enjoyed Froberg’s Fall Festival with new friends. We picked out pumpkins at the pumpkin patch. We’ve had Saturday morning pancakes and Sunday morning trips to Dunkin Donuts. We didn’t go to the airshow, but did get buzzed by the Blue Angels as we finished our Target shopping trip. Charlotte is finally (!!) potty training in earnest. We watched a lot of postseason baseball and the end of a great Astros season. We made owl cookies. Emma is improving her look-ma-no-training-wheels bike riding, and Charlotte is learning how to ride a “real” bike. Both girls got new shoes. We went to a Halloween party. Tonight we will carve our pumpkin, and tomorrow we will trick-or-treat. (Fingers crossed that the predicted thunderstorms hold off.)
Jose is teaching again this semester so the girls and I are on our own on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. We have filled several Thursdays with PJ storytime at the library and dinner afterwards with friends.
I discovered on Sunday that our minor water damage from Harvey, which I thought was localized to a small section of flooring in front of the window, is a bit more extensive than I realized. There are warped, rotten boards behind my desk so now there’s new flooring in our immediate future for that room — my sewing room. And if we’re replacing floors in one place, there are other places — kitchen, upstairs bathrooms — that we may want to tackle at the same time.
I taught my first quilting class, which went really well. I spent many hours working on quilt patterns and tech editing for clients. I started my quilt for this year’s MQG fabric challenge. (I entered two quilts in QuiltCon already (one, two) and the fabric challenge will be the third. I have a fourth one in mind too, but may not have time to get it made.) I’ll be spending time at Quilt Market this weekend, and Quilt Festival next weekend. I’ve put a few more stitches into my Pollinate quilt. I’m coordinating my guild’s QuiltCon charity quilt and am really excited about the direction it’s heading.
I started a 20-week training program targeted at getting me ready for the Seabrook Lucky Trails half marathon in mid-March, which would be my first half marathon since having kids.
And that brings me to work.
Here is the happy or sad truth about my job, depending on your point of view: it is usually not too busy. There is a steady stream of things to do, but 95% of the time it is easily manageable within a 40 hour work week.
The Soyuz abort almost three weeks ago has thrown me into that other 5%, where I have more to do than there are hours in the day, and some of it I’m still not even sure how to do in the first place. I get grumpy pretty fast when I have to work in the evenings, and even moreso when I’m faced with a task that I can’t immediately wrap my arms around. (That’s when imposter syndrome rears its head in my world.)
Both of these have happened quite a bit in October. Rationally, I understand that 1) this period of work stress will be short-lived, 2) I will figure out what needs to be done if I work methodically and ask the right questions to the right people and 3) these are #firstworldproblems.
But y’all. I am stressed. I am tired. I feel like I am barely keeping my head above water with, oh, everything. We are having lots of fun and doing good things, and there is not a single iota of down time.
Whew.
Writing this out has actually made me feel a bit better — if I feel like I have had a crapton going on lately, it’s because I HAVE HAD A CRAPTON GOING ON LATELY.
November, here I come.
Preeti Harris says
Sending hugs and best wishes. You are doing just fine!!!
Sarah says
Thank you Preeti. <3