Sandra Tayler's Blog, page 65

Good Days are Not Always Easy Days

On the morning after three hours of sleep I expect the day to be a disaster. The fact that it was not I can only consider a series of small miracles doled out to me as I flowed from one task to the next through the day. Flow really feels like the right word, because I have been carried through this day from rolling out of bed, until this moment when dinner is simmering on the stove and I have my first moment of quiet to get on a computer. I have three hours left until bedtime and I pray that I can keep riding all the way through without ending up beached or shipwrecked.

Early morning class for Kiki was followed by a battle over breakfast with Gleek. Link had a slow and grouchy start because of bad dreams. I dropped him at school and headed for an early morning meeting with a couple of Gleek’s teachers. There are matters of concern and we needed a plan for them.

(Interrupted here by more evening stuff. Began writing again in the kid’s bedtime lull while they read before lights out.)

On the way home from that meeting I stopped at both the grocery store and Walmart. Shopping lists had been accumulating, filled up with lots of small but important needs for the kids. Having these small things perpetually incomplete had been wearing on all of us. I came home to unload. Then I went back out to Sam’s Club for prescriptions and the last few stock-up items. While there I ran into a long-time friend I haven’t seen in years. She was exactly the person I needed to talk to today, and I was just who she needed as well. We stood near giant bags of beans and talked for forty minutes. It was going to make me late to pick up Kiki, but then Kiki called to let me know she had her own ride home. We scheduled lunch next week for more talking time.

As I drove home I saw Link on his walk home from school and picked him up. Then he and I sat down to do some homework for which he needed my help. It was paused while I fetched Patch from school. On the way home Patch mentioned he felt sick. I didn’t pay that much mind, instead I fixed myself some food, the first since breakfast. I retrieved Gleek from choir and had a pause before she and I had to return to the school to meet with her teacher. Gleek needed to be apprised of the plan.

Then there was dinner, Kiki’s friend visiting, Gleek’s homework, Patch demonstrating that he has stomach flu, a girl scout delivering cookies, a relative stopping by to pick up stuff, Family Home Evening, and carefully shepherding Gleek through the evening because she’s particularly intense today.

This sort of packed day usually ends up with me collapsed in an overwhelmed heap. Instead I see clearly that each part of the day was exactly what it needed to be. Each challenging thing was an important step from where we are to where we intend to go. I’ve been calm and assured, even during the hard bits. I’ll probably do my collapsing tomorrow. For now I’ll just be grateful for today.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

Scheduling March

I sat down and counted. During the month of February there were 20 school nights. These are nights when it is important to run life on schedule so that homework gets done and people are in bed on time so that they can get up the next day for school. Out of those 20 school nights, only 8 of them were not disrupted by a non-routine event. More than half of our school nights had something unusual going on, something that pushed dinner late, prevented homework, required adjustment, or delayed bedtimes. This makes a joke out of the concept of “routine.” I look ahead to March and know that somehow I need to keep more of the evenings free. Either that, or I need to do a better job of taking breaks earlier in the day so that I am not worn out by evening. I’m not sure how it will all work out, and I’m torn. Part of me wants to plan it all and defend my plan. Part of me thinks I should trust and follow inspiration to flow through my days. I’ll probably split the difference: Making focused lists and tossing them aside as needed.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

Tilting

I tip my head one way and my life is over-full with good things. I tip it in the other direction, and I want to cry about how hard everything feels right now. Some of the desire to cry is a direct result of “over-full” but mostly it is because so many of my dearly beloved people are currently experiencing times of struggle and growth. I see the struggle. I see the shape I hope for them to grow into; I know how I grew through similar trials; but I can’t do the growing for them. I can’t even shout instructions without inhibiting exactly the growth I would most love to see. Instead I love them as hard as I can, and hope that the force of that love will somehow be carried to them and loan them strength. That, and I pray.

I pray for those in the midst of a crisis of faith. I pray for those who collapse in panic when the world gets to be too much. I pray for those who need to learn to soften when dealing with difficult people. I pray for those who drift, in need of a purpose and direction. I pray for those who need gainful employment and don’t have it. I pray for those stricken in health. I pray for those who lay awake in the dark, late at night, wishing sleep would come. I pray for those whose minds become a regular battleground between hope and despair. Yes I have specific people in mind for each of the “thoses,” Their stories are not mine to tell, but they all weigh on me and I wish I really could be the fixer of all things and the finder of all solutions. I am not. I am not. I am not. I have to repeat it to remind myself that I must not try to be. When I try to be the fixer of all things, then I am a “those” who ends up curled in a ball, panicked and fighting despair.

Instead of the fixer, I must love and pray. I must carry hope for those who can not carry it for themselves. And I must remember to tilt my head in the direction where life is wonderful and all my beloved people, all my “thoses”, are in a temporary struggle on their way down paths toward amazing things.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

Fragments from Today

We put chairs in our front room. It is part of the ongoing project to remodel the room; a process that started with paint and will not be complete until I’ve done some woodwork. The paint was nice, but the addition of a pair of chairs from IKEA transformed the space into a welcome place to sit. We had a chair and a horrid little love seat, but mostly the room was used as a dumping ground and staging area. The effect was magnified today when the new couch was delivered. Now, instead of squished seating for three, we have pleasant seating for five or lounging space for a smaller number. Someone has been sitting in the space pretty much all day long. I sat in one of the chairs in the sunshine, glad for the sunshine, glad for the chairs, and looking forward to doing the finishing work that will make the room be nice. I also feel a small measure of joy that the chairs are are a little bit bouncy and they are named Poang, which is a bouncy sort of name. People keep flopping in the chairs, bouncing a bit, and then proclaiming “Poang!”

I don’t always have answers or solutions, sometimes I feel that as a gaping void that I ought to be able to fill somehow. There are times when I weep because I can not fix the troubles of my beloved people. Other times I see the void and I stand back because I know I can not fill it. This is a new capability for me, to stand back at a safe distance while sympathizing and agreeing that things are hard. It feels uncaring. It feels like I am locking my heart away and being selfish. Except, my previous habit of throwing myself across gaps meant that the gaps did not feel so challenging. They seemed a small thing, part of the patterns of our lives. When I learned to stand back was when we began to see that the gaps as problems to be solved; when we began to fill in the gaps, change our routes so we didn’t hit so many, change the landscape so that they closed up. The moment I stopped rushing to fix everything is when I learned that love means letting others struggle and grow.

I’m starting to see the end. The snow is melting, the sun is brighter, and daylight is coming earlier in the morning. Winter is drawing to a close. Howard is in the final stages on two large projects. We’ve exited the muddle in the middle and are beginning the final rush to the end. I got my redesigned copies of Cobble Stones 2011 back from the printer and they look good. I’m doing a final editing pass on Cobble Stones 2012 before sending it to the copy editor. Howard’s kickstarter has funded and is in a stable pattern until the final rush at the end. I began the process of setting up the kickstarter for Strength of Wild Horses. These projects have been brewing and simmering for months and we’re finally starting to finish them off and call them done. It feels good.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

An Audio Interview over at Black Gate

It has been a long day full of things done and I’m at the beginning of a week where I have many things yet to do which I don’t want to forget. So my head is a bit full. Fortunately I can point you at this interview that Howard and I recorded with Emily Mah. It is long, an hour and 11 minutes, because we talk about all sorts of things. It is a good thing I was able to say good things then because my brain is out of words today.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

On Being Over Burdened

I sit in church with my journal open on my lap, writing the thoughts that come into my head. The page fills up with things done and things yet to do. The pieces of my life tumble out and I try to put them into order on the page. I begin to plan the week to come, surely this is a good use of my Sabbath contemplation time. I shuffle the pieces and assign them to days, half listening to the speaker at the pulpit.

My pen pauses in its track on the page. Where do faith and peace fit into this schedule I’m creating? Where are the spaces for contemplation and inspiration? Mine is not the only plan for this week. My Father in Heaven sees more hearts than I can. He knows when I am needed to solve a problem for another person. Yet I have constructed a schedule with all the hours defended and assigned. I erect barricades to prevent anything else from adding to the load that I already carry. No. I can’t do that. I’m too busy. And thus I shut out not just people who carelessly ask me to expend my energy on unimportant things, but also God whose errands are always worthwhile.

I look at my neatly arrayed task list and know that I need to be open to inspiration as I sort my plans for the week. I need to be prepared for my plans to change at a moment’s notice. I tap my pen next to the first item. Does it really matter? Is this thing I intend to assign myself really important? Does it serve a larger goal. My pen pauses for a moment and I reach for answers. Yes. It stays. My pen points to the next item and pauses. No. It is busy work. I cross it off. Pause by pause down my list.

My life is over full. I have more things to do that I should reasonably be able to manage. When I am done with checking my items, I add a few more. They are things which I feel should be added to my long list. As I do a calm confidence fills me. When I over burden myself, I struggle with my load. When I am open, when I take on additional burden because it is right and needed, then I am also granted the capacity to carry that burden. The new burdens, and all the others I accumulated for myself, are made light. I face the week with hope and joy rather than worry and stress.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

At Saturday’s End

The wind blows snow everywhere today. I see it misting off of rooftops as I drive past. Then the gray of the sky grows darker and more snow falls so that in the next cloud clearing the wind will have more to send flying sideways across roads and fields. I watch the snow, interested in the combinations of wind and water. Deep inside me there is a sense of waiting, part of my heart is hibernating, laying in wait for the world to warm and flowers to begin blooming. Some years we have crocus by now. This year we have wind blown snow.

The dryer buzzes, it is time for me to pull warm clothes from it and feed it the next pile of wet. That buzz has accompanied my day as I try to catch up on a multitude of tasks that were left languishing in the past two weeks. Our fridge is fully stocked because I finally made a list before going to the store instead of making a harried dash for things we’d run out of. The boxes of books and convention supplies have migrated out of our front room and down to my office. Soon I will find energy to disperse them into the storage room where they belong. All the merchandise unpacked and waiting to be organized into orders from customers, or perhaps to be re-boxed and shipped off to conventions. The spaces in my house are beginning to emerge out from under the things that were stacked in them.

I should be putting the kids to bed now. To be honest, I should have begun that process over an hour ago, but at the end of the day I have little energy left for making things happen, even things I know will make life better tomorrow. Once we go to bed Saturday will be over. I need another Saturday to finish all the organizing and putting away. Instead time marches onward into Sunday. I like Sunday, having a Sabbath for resting fills my soul. Yet beyond it I can see the edge of Monday and I know that work is waiting for me there. I like my work, but there was such an onslaught of it last week that I would like a little more time before getting back to it. I just want a bit of a pause. I wish I could sit in my hammock swing surrounded by the greenness of my garden, but all is white and bleak out there. Instead I’ll take a few last breaths of scent from my fading hyacinths. Then I’ll go downstairs and declare bedtime.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

Returning to a Calmer State

Life slowed down today. Finally. Howard was able to get a solid amount of work done. I finally had time to sleep. I’m close to paying off the sleep debt. I’m sure I’ll rack up more again next week, but tomorrow is Saturday and I get to sleep late. Even better the flow of incoming tasks was smaller than the flow of outgoing tasks. For the first time in almost two weeks I feel like I ended the day with less to do than I began the day. A survey of my calendar for the next few weeks shows lots of empty spaces. They won’t actually be empty, but there are no events to disrupt the flow of ongoing tasks or to unleash a flood of new ones.

I’m starting to feel my thoughts slow down. Instead of trying to track and manage a dozen things, I begin to trust that there will be enough time to do them in sequence. The prioritization engine is also humming along nicely. Instead of feeling it all has to be done right now, I’m assigning tasks to future days. This lets me forget about them today.

My thoughts have slowed, but I’m still distractable. Time to sleep and reboot my focus.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

Morning After the Schlock Kickstarter Challenge Coin Launch

The challenge coin Kickstarter is a bit like jumping out of a plane knowing that the backpack you’re wearing is at least a parachute, but that it might unfold to be a hang glider. But when you pull the cord what unfolds is a jet pack. Right now this thing is zooming fast and we’re trying to learn how to steer while not crashing. Then in 30 days we have to stick the landing.

Happy. Grateful. Terrified that we’ll make some horrible error.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

Let Me Tell You About My Day

This was a day doomed to fragmentation and distraction before it even began. First there was the doctor’s appointment I had to schedule for a child in the middle of the morning. It was for one of those not-emergencies, but have checked as soon as convenient type issues. Middle of this morning was the soonest non-emergency appointment, so off we went. As suspected, nothing alarming, just some routine blood work and advice. Except “blood work” never feels routine until you’ve had lots of experience with needles, which my kids thankfully have not. So we got to deal with post-adrenaline reactions that required extra food and attention. Again, not a big deal, just important. We went almost six years with hardly ever seeing a doctor, but in the last twelve months it feels like we’re making up for that in minor complaints that still need attention. Whee.

So my plan for the day was to work on scout stuff (about which I will have many words in a moment) for the hour between kids off to school and the doctor appointment. Except then the Kickstarter approval came in. Howard has spent the last month thinking about a challenge coin project. He’s agonized over price points and possibilities. He had spread sheets and kept adjusting them. He had everything ready to go, except that Kickstarter likes there to be a video to go with a project. Howard asked me to help with the video. So as the kids were getting ready for school, I rearranged the furniture in the front room to set up a mini-film studio. This included setting up our convention banner and book display. It also meant shoving aside all the boxes of merchandise that I still haven’t put away after LTUE. I even brought up a stand lamp to provide some additional lighting. The kids waved goodbye and we were ready to film when Howard’s friend Richard called to talk about the Kickstarter project. Richard is something of an expert, so the call went on for awhile. I went downstairs to work on scout things while Howard conversed.

I am our scout troops Advancement Chair. This means I hold the password to the online record keeping system and the responsibility to make sure that all paperwork is filed correctly. I hold this job as a service to the men and boys in my congregation who love scouting. When I speak with them and hear the boys talking about their experiences, I’m glad to give the service. However, the BSA loves paperwork. It is crazy with the quantity of forms, reports, and signatures. Each level of achievement has its own process. In theory I can do all of the work from my house on my computer. The actual amount of work should take me 30 minutes of data entry. The online system is so very slow that I sometimes have to wait five minutes between page loads, and the process requires many page loads. If I’m loading a roster, that can take twenty minutes. It is ridiculous and infuriating. I could use more words to describe exactly how I feel about having my time wasted, but I think that’s all I’m going to say about that.

I began scout things, accomplished no scout things in forty minutes, helped Howard film video, went to the doctor, came home, and spent an additional thirty minutes attempting scout things from home. I was more successful when I drove over to the scout office where I was very nice to the local scout employees who did not build the system and do not deserve my ire. I did make extensive use of the online survey which asks about my experience with their system. It asked me once for each report. I had to do five reports. I used different words each time that survey box opened up. I doubt it will do any good. But I departed the office will all my scout work done and ready for Boards of Review in the evening.

My brain was then fried. But kids had to be retrieved from school. Patch had to immediately turn around and head off to cub scouts. Link needed direction to some money earning jobs around the house. I was supposed to supply dinner, but mostly threw a pizza into the oven. Then the start time for the Board of Review had to be adjusted earlier to accommodate a scout. Also two additional scouts needed rank advancements, and there were three merit badges which had not been mentioned to me. Tomorrow will feature another trek to the scout office, three more reports, purchasing all the badges, and assembling everything for the Court of Honor.

I came home just in time for Howard to start his Kickstarter. Three minutes later it had funded and five minutes after that it had surpassed all the listed stretch goals. Howard and I spent the next hour frantically updating with new stretch goals, adding funding options, and triple checking to make sure we did not accidentally over-promise anything. Having a project fund quickly is really exciting, but kind of scary because there is no time to consider calmly. We had to throw things up in a frantic hurry to keep up with the demonstrated enthusiasm. We’re still playing catch up. We need to add tiers and stretch goals, but our brains are tired from all the math. Howard’s spread sheets were useless in the first fifteen minutes. Now we need to make entirely new spreadsheets and Howard has to design additional coins that he didn’t expect to have to do until at least next week. So we can put that into tomorrow along with our regular work.

So tomorrow already features: Scout stuff. Kickstarter stuff. Putting my front room back together. Picking up the prescription the doctor gave us. Returning the movies I checked out from the library for the kids to watch during LTUE. Signing tax papers. Oh, and did I mention Gleek gets her braces put on tomorrow?

All of this is swirling in my head as I realize I really should have put the younger kids to bed thirty minutes earlier. That is only half done when Kiki realizes that we’ve missed a scholarship application deadline. And I start trying to make sense of it all by writing a really long blog post.

So now three fourths of my children are in bed. The Kickstarter looks like it will pass the latest stretch goal before we get up tomorrow morning. And I kind of want things to hold still for awhile just so that I can see what they all are.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.