The Goings-On

With all the craziness, I've pretty much been AWOL for the last two weeks. Let's see if I can catch up.

- We wrapped for the season at swim. I wasn't ready for it to be over, but we had a good last week and I'm incredibly excited about starting up again next month. (And also incredibly sad because it's been two weeks since I've seen my kids, and I miss them terribly. I've said this before but it still feels true - I feel unmoored when I'm not teaching. This weekend especially, I was very aware of the fact that I wouldn't get to see them on Monday, and as soon as I got in the car after work I had a good cry. :( I'm still not sure how something that's so relatively new in my life has ingrained itself so deeply in my soul, but it's there and apparently it's not going away.) It was also the end of my first year as site supervisor, something I didn't really realize until that moment, but which kicked off a panic of "write down everything you need to remember for next year." ;) I've been pretty much mentally "unpacking" since then - reviewing the past year, what I want to do differently, continually being amazed that I managed to get anything done at all when I knew so little to begin with. It's been such a great, stressful, incredibly fulfilling, incredibly frustrating experience. :) I'm not sure I've ever been so frustrated with myself as I have been in the last year, nor felt as stupid - but in all fairness, I can't remember when I've been happier, or felt more of a sense of "this is exactly where I'm supposed to be." (Nor can I remember a time in recent history when I've so often sat on my floor and bawled because everyone is smarter than me and it feels like I'll never catch up, but that's another story lol.)

- Then Tuesday night, my parents had a small fire on the side of the house that knocked out the electrical circuits that I was hooked into, meaning that I've been without dependable electricity for a week now. :( I've been running my dad's generator to keep the A/C going enough to keep the place liveable for the pets and to keep the fridge and freezer operating. (So, so much gasoline is required to do this - around 10 gallons every day and a half or so. My bank account has practically hemorrhaged to the point of death lol.) I spent half the weekend digging a 24" deep trench, running from the house to the hookup point, and promptly blistered my hands from using the pickaxe and trowel. It feels like this project will never be done.