WELL, really, I suppose, if I was going to be honest, I only have myself to choke, but whatever.

Home today, half day, as my darling daughter came into my classroom around noon, having been sent down by the lunch lady. Her stomach hurt and she looked like crap. I am always saying what a great thing it is to work in my kid's district, but on days like this, I kind of wonder. If she were at another school, might she have toughed it out? Who knows, and overall, I have sick days for this reason, but let's just say it is adding to the pile that is sending me over the edge lately. Looking back, though, it is a wonder I am doing as well as I am.

I was in that deep and dark "I don't want to go back to work tomorrow" funk pretty much the MOMENT I woke up on Sunday morning. I have never been a lover of Sunday as it is the END of the weekend, but this school year has been good so far. I had the fleeting thought that perhaps I had moved past the phenomenon of "Sunday's little black rain cloud," so its arrival, took me a bit by surprise. Yet, as the day wore on, and my hubby and I cleaned up the house...once again full of dust and dirt that had been generated, this time, due to three new doors being installed, I got to thinking. Major surgery...if you had it, you'd give yourself time to recuperate, no? Well, in the past year and three months our home has had major surgery 3 times as we replaced every window, tore out old walls and replaced/painted in the dining room, and now put in 3 new doors and storm doors. Keepin' the storms out, but feeding the storms within. Or perhaps, feeding the fires of irony while burning the candle at both ends. Still more projects are lined up, necessary things like the roof, siding...smaller things like painting, bathroom remodels (ugh!) and even "fluff" like a pool and decks. All things I WANT to do. All things that HAVE to be done to an extent, before the timing is all wrong and certain opportunities have passed us by, but still, yikes! And I wonder why I am stressed.

Of course it is not just house stress either, but the "rest of life" over the past year as well. We've had three weeklong family vacations, and we all know "family vacation" should read "After my vacation I need a vacation." There just was a big family wedding, in Canada no less, in which Gwynn was flowergirl. Then the not so nice stuff, like my "bout" with a possible autoimmume disease, still in some ways unresolved, and mom's true bout with cancer, still a mental stumbling block at times. Factor in the typical, neverending and perpetually annoying work stresses and normal everyday life stresses. All that on top of a year's worth of birthdays and anniversaries, holidays and the obligations they enfold. I know that to understand life is, in some ways to recognize that it is, at its root, a series of neverending tasks, and that the beauty of life is very much in the doing, and in the cycles, but could it just slow down for a while? Could life hold it's inevitable curve balls and just send nice easy pitches my way for a bit? Could we just STOP working on this damn old house?
-Cheryl