Stress, Trees and Survival

I've kind of been absentee from the blogging world for a few days. (OK, a couple days isn't an eternity, but it's kind of long for me.) Anyway, we are on the tail end here of a difficult week. I've had sick kiddos, a near-permanent headache, no way to get my regular exercise, and a husband who has been out of town. But we've made it to the homestretch-- Terence comes home tonight sometime and that will be a huge relief.

Whew!

Of course, February isn't over yet. Terence has a crazy schedule this coming week too. He starts working the Renaissance Festival this week on top of his normal stuff, and then the biker prison run is the following week (which requires some HEAVY officer coverage-- everyone works that), and of course, the Ragnar is during that week too.

Oh man, the thought is just making this morning's headache worse. Maybe I should just put the Ragnar out of my mind. It's making me sick with tension. (Maybe that's what the headaches are from?) I have the Ragnar team captain's meeting this Thursday and I'm not going to be able to go-- it's the same night as our activity for the girls and Terence is working. It's not mandatory, and I'll be able to attend via webcast, but for some reason it makes me feel even less prepared to not be able to go. (Plus, they are serving Rubio's for all the captains, and that really makes me feel like I'm missing out.) Also, once again I'm in the position of maybe losing a runner to an injury, only now we are down to the last minute and filling a 23 mile position might be a challenge. I couldn't pull that position off-- I'm not even sure I'll be able to pull off my 16 mile position.

Breathe deep, Heidi, it will be OK.

I haven't done any writing for the new novel this week, can you see why? I have, however, gotten some yard work done. (For some reason I can tackle cutting things down and digging things up when I am stressed, but writing . . . not so much.) There has been plenty to do in the yard. Our yard was hit hard by the frosts when Arizona decided to turn into Idaho for a week so I learned all about how to save frost damaged Lantana this week. We have no less than six Lantanas in the front yard and all of them looked like dead, brown crispy things after the frigid iciness we experienced. Apparently, if the Lantanas are more than a year old the chances are good that the roots survived so they say to cut off everything that is dead, even to leaving only an inch of two of the plant left aboveground. I did that Wednesday (B was a huge help, and her continuous commentary about my work on the "tumbleweeds" was quite entertaining). Now our yard just looks like boring rocks with some spiny twigs sticking up in bunches here and there. But hey, I should count my blessings. My old nemesis, the palo verde tree, is alive and well and poky and ugly as ever. Apparently even arctic air can't kill a palo verde. I think I'm going to be stuck with that thing forever.

Tough old palo verde. If I make it through this month, I might have more in common with that tree than you'd think. Maybe I should quit thinking of it as my enemy.