I’ve been in bed for 24 hours with a Nasty flu. The kids have cooked and taken good care of themselves.
Our butterfly larvae arrived in the mail.
These are Painted Lady caterpillars. It should be a special event to watch them emerge as butterflies in a week or two. Timothy is finishing up a butterfly unit.
Last Saturday’s schedule:
5:45a.m. Drive to airport (1 hr round trip)
7:10 Drop off Timothy at neighbor’s
7:15 Drive 30 minutes to bring Paige and Daniel to the U of A for piano ensemble practices
8:00-8:30 Wait for Daniel’s rehearsal to end; leave Paige
8:30 Drive 30 minutes to bring Daniel back to Sahuarita for team pictures
9:00 Meet Timothy at the ball field, drop off Daniel for practice
10:00 Drive 30 minutes back up to Tucson to pick up Paige
10:30 Pick up Paige and drive 30 minutes to ball field in Sahuarita
11:10 Pick up heat-exhausted Daniel, race home to eat lunch and let Paige change
12:00 Pick up produce co-op order
12:30-1:30 Paige’s dance performance. One of her songs was Slow Me Down (amen)
2:00 Mark, who has been my companion all day, is ready for an ice cream date
3:00 I take a rest and then get back up again.
1. food
2. watch Dad make funny faces on the web cam
3. bed
Timothy learned that it takes a long time to paint…longer than he was interested, in fact. I love his drawing.
The teacher said you can tell a lot about the personality of the artists in these paintings. Daniel paints in a very precise way.
Paige could be the next Georgia O’Keeffe if she wanted to.
It felt like my blood was full of sludge. I was lethargic and a little testy. I wanted to go on a long walk and let myself get back to some kind of equilibrium of mental and physical health. But I decided to ignore that need and just press forward with THE DAY.
I ran two errands this morning and then I got stranded at the post office with a dead battery in the van; a battery that has been dying a slow death since December. I decided not to beg for a charge. I decided to walk home.
I only felt desperate for a second when I realized that no one was answering phones.
And so I trudged through the construction and dust, avoiding the bulldozers and cranes, all the time counting the ways this dead battery was a blessing and only once or twice wishing for a construction helmet. It was really fortuitous the way it all happened. I didn’t have the kids with me, who would have really struggled with the walk on a road with no shoulder; I had put on some shoes before leaving the house (for a change), and I was only a mile and a half from home. I got my exercise and I made my funny list of blessings on the way:
1. I woke up to find a forgotten bag of peanut M&Ms in my purse.
2. I was able to comfort a friend, mail a birthday package and the taxes all before the battery died.
3. I got the walk I knew I needed.
4. I wasn’t wearing my pajamas when I got stranded.
5. I have a capable teenager who stepped in to watch the kids when my 15 minute errand turned epic.
6. The walk canceled the M&M breakfast.