Whirlwind
After months of saying he didn’t want to take classes, my son called me yesterday to say that he does want to take a college class after all. We had five days to get his application submitted and approved before the registration deadline. (This school has open enrollment.) Suddenly he is talking about taking more than one class, getting a job on campus, and maybe even moving into student housing. All things he has rejected in the past.
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My other college kid (same school) did their registration early, but they discovered that one class they wanted was full. We found an alternate and then realized it took place in Heber instead of locally. Then we had weeks where I nudged them and said “you really should find a different class.” That finally happened yesterday. Additionally we took a trip on city buses so that they could learn the route to campus and back. This is how the school commute is expected to go for the semester. Student ID was acquired, classrooms were found. Then we returned home tired but triumphant.
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The office walls have sheet rock and are sanded into smoothness. Thus far we’ve put in over thirty hours of work. Tomorrow I plan to spray texture on the walls. After that dries, we’re ready for paint. Flooring will arrive while I’m at Gen Con. I get to have adventures in floor installation once I return.
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Gen Con is next week. I hope that I’ve adequately prepared everything. This year I didn’t have a last minute scramble, which either means I prepared well earlier, or that I’ve been negligent and wasted time I could have been using getting things done. I’ll find out when I get there I guess. To be honest, I’ve been too muddled up with all the other things to focus on any individual thing very much.
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My son, who usually spends the vast majority of his time attached to screens, has decided to run a D&D campaign for his friends. More than that, he’s creating it from scratch. So I’ve watched him spending hours pacing back and forth, thinking, reading manuals, and doing research. It is so good to see him engaged in an activity that stretches his brain and creativity. His friends seem to be on board with playing, so the game will happen sometime in the next couple of weeks.
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Work progresses on preparing the next Schlock book for print. We need to pack for Gen Con. I’ve got a bathroom vanity sitting in the middle of my family room. There is a storage pod taking up half of my driveway. The only place we have to sit and eat is the kitchen counter. Howard and I are still trying out experiments with medicine to see if we can find a better mix for his good health. Everything feels cluttered and insufficiently clean. My daughter has a boyfriend and I’m learning to adapt to that. But at least I finally folded laundry yesterday.
Everything is happening all at once. It feels like half of the things which are happening are things I’ve been hoping for for years. The other half are things I would not have picked if I had the choice, and I certainly wouldn’t have picked them all at the same time. And yet this muddle of household and personal renovation will eventually settle out and then things will be new. In the new space I will be able to pause, breathe, then look around and figure out what comes next.