Stretched

I think I remember feeling this way last June, too. The month is packed with events, activities, special days, and things that need doing. I know I'm feeling stretched too thin when I have an evening like I did earlier this week. I came home wanting everyone to just do what I told them to do and not give me any argument. I was very bossy and cross. Luckily, I'm not usually like that, so it was clear to everyone that I was feeling "stretched."

My house is a mess (after all the work we did in April to get a little organized and caught up on things) and will be even more of a mess soon. Our son is moving to an apartment and we've generously :) donated all the furniture we've been wanting to get rid of for years. That will pretty much empty out his bedroom and the living room. Which is good, because we're about to tear apart our sunporch, which means we have lots of books and stuff to move out of there. We're also going to replace windows in our living room and my sewing room -- just to add a little bit more chaos to our lives.

This is conference season in my line of work. I've been to meetings at two other campuses just this week, and am off to Hotlanta (I hate hot weather - why are we meeting in Atlanta in the summer?) for 5 days next week. And, just to add a bit more chaos to my work life, my director and I are swapping offices, which has involved moving everything out of each in order to paint them. With any luck I'll have everything in my new office by Monday - but it will be weeks before I actually get it unpacked.

And, our summer vacation happens this month. It will be fun - once we get going. But, we have decided to shorten it a bit so I can have a few days at home too.

Special events? Missed my sister's birthday due to my 30th college reunion and will miss Father's Day because I'll be flying home from Atlanta that afternoon. Both of those things earned me a place in the doghouse with my mother. The annual staff retreat, which I usually miss due to a conference, is between conferences this year. High school graduation was last night (I went to yoga instead).

Anyway, the upside is that the weather has been lovely with only intermittent rain (as compared to last year's very rainy June...and July...). The garden looks great (needs weeding, but that will have to wait). I've gotten to see many of my favorite colleagues, including one from Minnesota, at meetings. I'm healthy (though out of shape). I've had both a pedicure and a manicure in the past two weeks and have an appointment for a perm in two weeks. I'm moving into a shady office. We've got new patio furniture and, as my DH says, it now looks like adults live here (the patio and furniture are right smack where our old cedar climbing tower and swing set resided for many years). I got the refrigerator cleaned out recently and have cleaned half of the shower. I've lost 6 pounds and didn't eat any cookies at lunch today at St. Joseph's.

All in all, I'm a very fortunate person. Thanks for letting me get that whining out of my system. I feel better and hope you do too.

OFF MY NEEDLES
My Evenstar myster KAL shawl is done! I'll photograph it when I block it, which will be after Nate leaves to start his camp job.

ON MY NEEDLES
Re-knitting my Daybreak Shawl. Instead of the large shawl, which I didn't really like when it was done, I've frogged the whole thing and will make two small ones. I'm going to give one of them away to someone who admired the project when I was making it the first time.

And, some other things, but I'm too disorganized to even name them at the moment.