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This was the day when all of the planning, sawing, and everything was supposed to result in a shed and a completed eagle project. We got in about 3 hours of work before the rain came.

Link, wisely, said we should call it and finish a different day. I had a hard time agreeing to that, because I really wanted the project to be done. Instead we’ll be having Shed Building Day part 2 on Wednesday.

For now, I’m going to curl up in my bed and try to warm up after being wet and cold.

Assembly began today. This is the first time that the shed project has resembled anything other than a binder full of lists and a pile of lumber taking up my garage. They went together fairly quickly, which is encouraging. Hopefully the rest of the shed will go together just as quickly. Tomorrow we haul things to the build site. Saturday it becomes a shed for real.

I’m caught in that space between “Is it Tuesday already?” and “Wait, it’s only Tuesday?” which is a very dissonant place for my head to be. I would like very much for all the sickness in my house to get up and leave. We haven’t even been that sick. It has been annoyance levels of sick, but I’m quite thoroughly annoyed by it at this point. And we’re using far too much kleenex for a single household. Best option is to go to bed and make it be Wednesday instead.

It is the dark side of 4am and I’m awake. I used to be asleep, but around 2am something woke me. I should have been able to roll over and go back to sleep, but instead my task brain woke up and tried to sort out all the things I have to do. The list is long and so anxiety started to kick in because I knew that every minute I spent awake without getting things done meant that I would be even more sleep deprived and my list would not get any shorter. So I got up and began clearing things out of my email boxes. I can’t do all of the email related tasks, because some of them require printing or rummaging in the file cabinet, both of which are activities which might wake Kiki. But the clutter is cleared up and I feel like I have a better grasp on what is actually urgent.

On Saturday I drive Kiki to college, which is an all-day project. I’ve been looking forward to it, but it means that Saturday is unavailable as a catch up day. Or a catch-my-breath day. I feel like I’ve been running flat out since school started on Tuesday morning. Every hour had some urgent task, school supplies to acquire, gym clothes needed, disclosure documents, friend conflict to negotiate. And then there are the urgent post-convention tasks. And the urgent pre-convention tasks (SLCC is only two weeks away.) And the urgent tasks related to finishing Massively Parallel and sending it off to print. I had to bow out of writer’s group on Wednesday because I had nothing left to give. All of that, and I’ve forgotten how to make sure that dinner gets made on school nights. My kids have been fixing for themselves, which is great, but their options become increasingly limited when I haven’t had time to go grocery shop.

So far so good on the school front. Kids are coming home happy. They’re either doing their homework without argument or gleefully reporting that they have none. I’m quelling the part of my brain that wants to double check all of this to make sure their portrayals of homework are accurate. Homework is their job, not mine. I need to let them run the show until mid September (When my task crunch should be over. I hope.) Then I can check in and make sure we’re on track. Though part of my brain really wants to contact teachers and make sure that the understanding my child has of what is expected of him matches the teacher’s actual expectations. I don’t have time for half a dozen teacher meetings this week. I just don’t. So I’m rummaging in my head to find enough trust that it will all be fine.

I really need to complete some tasks and projects so that I can clearly see the ones I have left.

Spent the morning with the kids at the Museum of Natural Curiosity. The afternoon went to napping an a quick convention-related accounting session. (GenCon booth broke even today. Yay! Two more days of sales still incoming.)

This was my evening:

Kikaa does not normally deign to sit in laps when those laps are in a hammock, but today she wanted snuggles more than she didn’t want hammock. She only stayed for a few minutes before she leaped off to go stalk a bird, but it was a lovely few minutes.

Summer is when I lose track of days and hours. I get to the end of the days feeling all muddled and like I didn’t get enough done. So I finished off my day by taking a crowbar to the deck. all of the decorative trim has been removed and we can now use a flashlight to see underneath. Since most of the trim was in contact with the ground, almost every piece has rot on the end. There were many places where wood had turned back into dirt. Yet because of the construction of the deck all of that was hidden from view. The deck still looked sound. Also there were spiders and bugs everywhere. Not my favorite. But beating things up with a crowbar was kind of fun.

I’ve really got to get a grip on my schedule. I need to put some structure into days that have gone all schlumped. I need to declare work hours and tell the kids not to interrupt during them. I need to prioritize and get some things complete so that I’m not trying to juggle so many things in my brain.

This morning I looked around my house and saw all the accumulated clutter from the past five weeks. During those weeks I packed for a trip by pulling things out of their usual places. Then I unloaded my suitcases, but not everything got put away. I was too busy preparing for a convention, which required me to pull out a completely different set of things. Also there was an art show, which strewed another set of paraphernalia about. While I was away on my trip, Howard brought home a drawing table and assorted gear from Dragon’s Keep, because he’s drawing at home now. Some of the gear is duplicates, most of it is sitting in boxes waiting for me to have time to decide where it goes. Then I came home from the convention bringing back piles of things which need to be put away.

One of the troubles with having so many piles of things, it means that even when I know exactly where the item I’m holding belongs, there is probably a pile between me and that location. So instead of putting the item away, I set it on a pile to put away later. Piles beget more piles until the entire house is full of piles which must be moved out of the way in order to accomplish anything useful.

This morning I looked around and realized that the most important business task I could accomplish would be to clean house. So I spent many hours of my work day organizing and putting away. There is much work yet to do, but it is begun.

I’ve also begun dismantling our back deck. The railings are off and we pried up enough boards to shine a flashlight underneath. That part was a little bit scary. I really did not know what we would see. I feared hornet’s nests and massive spiders because I swear that there were bugs or webs in every single join of every single board I removed. I no longer consider it a nice deck. It was a massive bug and spider house. Apparently. Underneath was actually pretty boring. There was dirt. We started at the far corner from where the rotted support is because we’ve seen leaf cutter bees flying in and out over there. If I have to deal with angry insects, I want to have time to know that they are there first. I’ll probably do a post with pictures, but it’ll probably wait until I have pictures of every stage.

Now I need to rest so I can have a similar work day tomorrow. We’ve had five weeks of running around. The next five weeks we’ll all stay home. I’m looking forward to that.

The first day home after a trip involves a lot of drifting around and trying to remember where I left off. I’m also spending time processing what has changed. I was only gone two weeks, so you wouldn’t think there would be much, but a neighbor took out a large tree next to our driveway and that changes the look of the house every time I approach. Howard and Kiki rearranged the front room while I was gone to make space for the drawing table that used to live at Dragon’s Keep. We’re all still assessing how it works. Weeds sprang up in all of the garden beds while I was elsewhere. Weeds do that. The pantry and fridge have different food in them. So I’m making note of things I ought to buy and new things to incorporate into meals.

I also spent a good portion of the day with my accounting software. I try to do the accounting every week and so to miss two weeks in a row makes me antsy. Piece by piece I began to pick up the strands of my life and remember how they go. Next week will be a convention week, with Howard, Kiki, and I trundling off to Salt Lake for Westercon. I’ll be splitting my time between convention events and the kids at home.

The other portions of my day were spent petting the cat, who is apparently glad to see me, or needs reassurance that I still accept her, or something. I also walked around on our back deck, noting the places where the boards have gone wiggly. While we were gone, on board broke through, making it clear that some of the hidden support beams have begun to rot. Repair would require complete disassembly, at which point we’d have better luck just building an entire new one. We haven’t the money for that, so we’ll take it apart and see what is underneath. It’ll be a time capsule of mud and dryer lint. (The dryer vents is in the crawlspace under the deck as is the hose nozzle. Not the most brilliant of arrangements and likely the reason we’ve got rotting support beams.)

Even though I’m trying to figure out where I’m at, everything feels right. I’m in my house with my people. The air feels like home and so do the plants and trees. Tomorrow I attempt to resume a normal schedule by claiming my Saturday morning gardening time. Sunday is a day of rest. I also have a short list of catch-up chores including additional blog posts I want to write before all the California thoughts are packed up and put away.

It is good to be home.

Home home home home home home home home.
It is not poetry, but it is what my heart is singing today.