Stretching Out

 It's spring!

Well, spring in the desert.  It is still early February, so we could have a cold spell again.  But it's supposed to be in the 70's all week, so I'll make the call that whatever that groundhog said, we don't have six more weeks of winter here.  Our dogs are loving the winter.  They stretch out and sunbathe, making me jealous!  (If I try to go out there and do that I will have two hyper pitbulls crawling on top of me.)

So how is my spring going?  It's bafflingly weird.  Different.  No Renfest, no half-marathon to train for, no plans for Valentine's Day (wait, that's normal).  Plus having a high school athlete is really changing things up.  I thought I did a lot of driving before.  But at this point I feel like I'm truly never at home much considering I'm a stay-at-home mom.  And the games are so strange.  Almost no one there (since only two parents can attend-- and they are super strict, ID's are checked against a list).  And the girls sound like they are going to die as they dash by; making them wear masks to play seems cruel and dangerous.  But what do I know?  (It's really unfair to watch the refs get out of breath and take their masks down, but the girls get in trouble when they do so.)  B almost  quit the team when AIA instituted the mask requirement right before the first game, but her school is so very short on players as it is this year she didn't feel she could leave her team in the lurch.  I sat with her in the car before one game while she cried for forty-five minutes, unable to face putting that mask on again for the game.  It was worse by that point-- you know how stuffy you get after a long cry-- but she showed extraordinary determination, pulled herself together, and managed to get out on the court without a breakdown during the game.  Anxiety is hard, not being able to breath is terrifying, but she has tried so hard to make the team after covid setback followed by setback that she won't give up now.  So what else can I do but support her?

M and J are both full-time online right now and doing well-- J is struggling a bit with his first college math class on a block schedule (which means a semester crammed into half the time), but he is still managing to keep on top of all his work. Go J!  M practically lives in her room, so sometimes I'll go all day without seeing her.  I guess that was pretty much what she did when she was away at school too :)  

K is now one month into "Daddy boot camp."  Terence warned K that when he turned 12 the relaxing days were over.  He is already getting stronger and able to run a mile and a half without stopping.  S is eager to catch up-- during our Saturday morning runs she is now making it 1.25 miles.  She's pretty fast too.  I ride my bike along with her (I run my 5k first and then give my knees a bit of a break).  She chatters the entire run-- I have to wonder if she wasn't talking to me the whole time just how fast she would be!

I am still struggling to find a way to balance everything I need to do.  Doesn't that sound familiar?  I swear I've been saying some variation of this all through the twelve years since I started this blog.  The kind of balancing needed keeps changing, but I never quite seem to figure it out.  I hope to finish Sheralie book 3 before the summer, but even though I successfully carved out the time to write the first half during Nanowrimo I can't manage to do it now.  Part of it is that I can manage that kind of craziness for one month, but after that I just crash, and I have to catch up on all the stuff I left undone.  So that isn't balance.  That's temporary insanity.

Balance!  Is it possible?  Will I ever find it?  Or is that part of some mythical future, like "retirement?"