Balance

Every summer begins with me being torn over just reading and resting the summer away and my need to be busy and do all the projects I don't normally have time for.  Some years I have refinished furniture or painted rooms.  One year, I rebuilt my entire school year's worth of units for every class I taught.  Another summer, I over hauled my recipe collection and threw away half the contents of my desk and book shelves.

This year, I don't have quite such grand plans, but I am already struggling a bit with balancing.  Monday morning, I fully intended to do a major cleaning of the kitchen - pull the blue willow China down to wash, scrub the cabinet fronts, clean out the fridge and wash it down, the works. Instead, the apricots began falling off the tree in earnest and all of three of us spent the afternoon putting up fruit. They are small and some have bad spots, but they are free and pesticide free, so even though 4 gallons of raw fruit only equalled 1 gallon of proceeded fruit, it is worth it to me.  I will be glad when I am making apricot jam and cobblers in the winter.

I really need to carve out some time for school - I am changing some things for my AP class and grammar for my regular classes.  I may need to address these things sooner or later just to let my brain rest.  I couldn't get to sleep last night and before long, my brain was running with ideas of how to restructure my research papers and whether or not we could skip chapters of Huck Finn.  At the same time,  I do intend to deep clean the house, room by room.  There will be garden work and canning and mowing and don't forget about the in-laws.

Jack has been fairly busy with his parents this week.  Monday, we had to run our car up to have hail damage fixed (the hail damage was from before we bought it) that we finally had time to deal with.  At the same time, we took Jack's mom to buy a car.  We had tentative plans for a fun day on Tuesday, but Jack's dad wanted to go the shop.  He is still weak and  not well from his bout with pneumonia, so a trip to the shop means Jack has to go too.  Jack had to teach his mom how to work everything on the new car.  Before long, it turned into a day.  His dad didn't go to the shop, but didn't decide not to go until it was too late for us to go do anything fun. The thing with old people is that they move slowly - what would take me ten minutes, becomes 30 minutes with them.  We can't just do everything for them or they lose all empowerment and sense of worth. Patience. Balance.

Here is where the trouble with balance comes in.  Tuesday evening, Jack came home saying that Wednesday his mom wanted him to take her to the cemetery to get her Memorial Day plants.  We actually got into a bit of an argument and I was not as nice or patient as I should have been: I told Jack no.  I believe my words were, " They can't have you every damn day." His response was to ask if I  just expected him to say no.  It was exactly what I wanted, but we didn't need to have raised, impatient voices.  Jack goes back to work today so Wednesday was our last shot at a fun day.  I could take her to the cemetery after he went back.  I absolutely hate fighting about his parents - they are old and sick and need our help.  There is a lot we should do that we don't do, but sometimes, I also get frustrated that they forget that his time off has to be shared.  From their point of view, they just want him for an hour here and there scattered out through the day, so they think they are sharing.

We did end up sort of having a fun day - we went to the Grear Plains State Park for a bit of walking/gentle hiking amidst the boulders.  We had lunch out, found a geocache, did our hike, and had some ice cream on the way home.  It wasn't the best trail ever and we won't likely go back, but it was a day out and we explored a new place, which was worth it to me.

We are also working for balance with Bell.  She is very unhappy with me. Her summer expectations involved staying up as late as she wanted and sleeping as late as she wanted while spending her day on the iPad.   I am insisting on her getting up at 7, doing some exercise and math practice, and only using the iPad some.  We have had more than one battle so far and I don't expect it to get better.

Today, it is back to the normal routine.  Jack went to his mom's to do some chores for her and then presumably, will be off to work.  I have another bucket of apricots.   I think left to my own devices, I could hit a fairly zen stride of productivity, rest and reflection, and doing pleasurable things.  Hitting that stride while managing the needs of two households that range from 9 years old to 87 years old is proving to be more of a challenge.