September and Everything After

Today’s been a long hard day. Normally I’d honestly not talk about it but it’s kind of one of those “this is a big huge day and I’d like to remember it years from now” type things. Or maybe not remember it, whichever.

So last night I arrived home really late from Stitches. I knew that was going to happen but it didn’t make it any easier. I love the event, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not the type of person who can do 4 days of schmoozing with the public and not be completely exhausted by it. worn out part 1

Last night was G’s last night here for a long time. He had major packing to do and I stayed up with him. Well that and he was trying to do it on top of the bed. 150+ pounds of luggage and 3 hours later, it was done. Did I mention it was already really late when I returned home? worn out part 2

The kids… I missed them all weekend but I didn’t miss the mess I dealt with this morning when no one could find shoes or socks, the dishwasher hadn’t been run (no clean dishes!) and Kyle split half a gallon of milk. I haven’t even begun to try to get everything back in order. And why are there wet towels in bowls in the laundry room? No one can answer this one. worn out part 3

The divorce. The settlement papers are done. We signed them together last night (gah this is still so weird) and I dropped them off at his lawyer’s office this morning. We have to wait on the judge to approve, it’ll probably be 2 weeks and there won’t be any court date. And it’ll be done. worn out part 4

School. It’s amazing how behind you get after missing only 2 days. And it didn’t help that I hadn’t looked ahead in the syllabus beyond “oh thank God, no tests or quizzes on Thursday or Friday”. So I didn’t have today’s Econ outline lecture notes printed (lots of mad scribbling during class instead) and I have both a Physiology quiz (lecture) and test (lab) tomorrow. worn out part 5

The business & Stitches (continued). It wasn’t quite the weekend I wanted. I broke even and have some profit but that was mostly because I kept my expenses super low this time around. I had a good time (and I forced myself to be positive all weekend in the first place) and I’ll probably do it again if it’ll work into my schedule easily. I have one order to sew and I need to inventory what’s leftover to put my Etsy shop back up. And then I need to take pictures and list all the new fabrics. worn out part 6

It’s Monday. Today we have religion class, 2 soccer practices, and 2 scout meetings. All in different locations and between the hours of 4:30 and 8:30pm. I just can’t do it all today so we’re skipping both soccer practices and at least 1 scout meeting. I should have arranged a pick up/drop off for the other scout meeting earlier but I can’t do it all. I’m told the world will continue to spin if we miss a few things now and then. worn out part 7

And then there’s just the other random crap, I need to go grocery shopping, there’s laundry to do, dishwasher needs run (I need to hit a button, it’ll happen soon), go through the big stack of mail from 4 days, I’ve completely ignored Girl Scouts for awhile and I *think* I have a leader meeting tomorrow and I know I have a Daisy meeting (needs planned) on Thursday. Plus the kids might want dinner tonight (it’s been decided, delivery pizza). worn out part 8,9,10,11,12,13,14…

Not to be a complete Debbie Downer (I’m just tired, not really upset about anything. Or maybe I’m too tired to be upset over these things, who knows), I’d like to thank everyone who has helped me out. My sister for hanging out with me all weekend and dealing with crazy knitters, my in-laws for helping G and the kids while I was gone, and everyone else for any little encouraging comment, email, smile, etc. I do notice even if I can’t properly thank you at the time.

It’ll get better, it always does. I’m taking it easy on myself today and will get a good night’s sleep and start chipping away at the mountain tomorrow.

Hi all from Schaumburg Illinois! (near Chicago)

Yesterday I drove up by myself and didn’t to run anyone off the road (I’m sure my mom is proud). I ended up with the Jeep since 5 kids don’t fit in the Jeep… It wasn’t too bad packing-wise, I even managed to shove my carpet in there. Although if Sarah would like a ride home (I picked her up from the airport last night), she has to sell most everything since the front seat is where I had all my items stashed.

(I’m realizing that so far this is a bit of a convoluted post but I’m fighting a serious head cold and haven’t slept more than 6 hours for a week. I’m kinda lucky I remember my name at the moment. I hoping a trip to Starbucks within the hour helps. Or I may start calling myself Sally. Except I have a name tag that says “Katie” so I might be okay.)

So Stitches for any of you who don’t know, is a big knitting/yarn/crochet convention with classes and a fashion show and author book signings and a market place. The market is where I come in. There are thousands of knitters who attend this 4 day event so it’s a good venue for me and my little business. And it’s fun hanging out with a lot of people who understand being excited about sock yarn and pointy sticks.

Last night was “Market Preview” for anyone taking classes, it wasn’t open to the general public. And I’m a bit scared to say it was a lot slower than last year. I did have some sales but I’d like the rest of the weekend to go much better. Mostly because I have this big ugly college tuition bill due…

Oh and I’ll have a picture of the booth up something later. I had to leave my camera at home but Sarah brought hers. And there will be pictures of sock yarn. Cause I’ve made enough already to at least buy some of that.

So this morning at 7:30 Ally shows me a math homework assignment we’re suppose to work on together. Due today. (Note: bus picks up at 7:50am) Needless to say I was not pleased.

But wait, it gets better! She also had a “didn’t do homework” slip for me to sign. I signed the slip but refused to help her with the math homework because hello, 3 freaking day weekend and you just now show me this? I guess I’ll be signing another “didn’t do homework” slip this evening. She threw a royal fit complete with hysterical sobbing, “the teacher is going to yell at me and everyone is going to know I didn’t do my homework and if I get one more homework slip, I’ll get recess detention!”

Good. Maybe next time you’ll remember to do your homework.

Hey it’s September!

If you are looking ahead on your calendar, all I want for my birthday is sleep. And an empty email inbox. (Current count: 47)

Quote of the Day: “There are only two things a child will share willingly; communicable diseases and his mother’s age.” –Modern Maturity

Lately I’ve been thinking that I desperately need more hours in the day. Seriously a 27 hour day would be awesome. But I’m realizing that maybe it’s not that I need more time, it’s that I need to do less. (And then everyone yells at their monitor, “well duh!”)

I’m sure most people know this about me but me, I think I have a warped sense of the space-time continuum. I know with today’s current technology that you can’t drive from NYC to LA in 10 hours. But somehow it seems perfectly reasonable for me to expect myself to keep the house clean, cook, run the kids to activities, plan Girl Scout events, go to school & do school work, sew 15 items (when 10 is really my “good day” max), and then all the other random crap (make dentist appointments, pay the bills, grocery shopping) in 24 hours. Oh make that 18 because I’ve been getting a delightful 6 hours of sleep lately. Well maybe it’s 7 hours if you count when I fall asleep on the sofa watching TV at 11pm. And then repeat it all the next day.

It just seems possible to keep it up. I’m a little tired this morning though.

Stitches Midwest is a mere 10 days away now. I just need to keep all the balls in the air for a little less than 2 weeks… Then the “sewing 15 items” falls off the list for a month. Because the Christmas gift rush starts in late October.

Maybe I need to switch my major to physics. I’m sure I can tackle time travel logistics in the spare 6.2 minutes I have a day.

Katie …

… is not awake.
… is annoyed by PTO fundraisers. (Anyone want frozen cookie dough, Entertainment Books, or wrapping paper?)
… needs to sew like 200 items in the next 12 days.
… doesn’t think that’s quite possible unless she gives up school, housework, kids’ activities, cooking, eating, and personal hygiene.
… wants to go to knitting group.
… is drinking tea.
… needs to think of better lunch items she can pack to take to classes.
… got a 10 out of 10 on her first Physiology lecture quiz!
… wishes she had more time to read fiction books.
… needs to clean the bathrooms. And fold towels. And run the dishwasher. And sweep and mop the kitchen floor.
… has 44 emails in her inbox to deal with.
… thinks about half of them are Girl Scout related and she’s procrastinating answering them.
… hopes the kids don’t catch the flu/cold bugs floating around.
… has homegrown garden tomatoes, yum!
… would appreciate more hours in the day.

Things have been humming along pretty well. The kids’ schedules are coming together (scouts, sports, etc) and I’m adapting well to being out of the house 2-4 hours a day at college. After my classes, I’ve been running a few quick errands before heading home. It seems I’m now spreading errands out over a few days instead of jamming them all into one. I used to ‘jam them all into one day’ to save gas and extra running but now since I’m out anyways… Who knows if it’s actually better either way, I guess I’m a little less frazzled not trying to run to 12 places in 5 hours (old way). And then I come home and do homework/studying. So far so good and tomorrow I have my first quiz (Physiology lecture).

Mondays however (today!) are not pretty. Due to wonky changes in both Zach and the twin’s soccer practice (i.e. we didn’t start out this insane), I have now have a hideous overlap and back to back events. Monday (starting next week) has 4 kids in religion classes (Zach the odd man out) from 4:30-5:30, twins soccer practice 5:30-7, Zach’s soccer practice 6-7:30, and Zach’s scouts from 7-8:30. It wouldn’t be so bad if the practices were near each other but no, they are 10+ miles across town apart (with religion and scouts kinda sorta in the middle). And ‘across town’ means with crossing two major roadways and countless stop lights and about a half an hour drive time. Oy…

Tonight I have help so it’s not too bad. But when it’s just me, I’ve already warned Zach’s coach that he’ll be missing Monday practices (both teams practice again on Wednesday, same times, yeehaw). It’s only rec soccer, the whole point is to learn teamwork and exercise a bit, I’m not going to lose sleep over this.

An interesting thought… Back in Maryland we could stay on the same soccer team for both fall/spring and even the next year as long as the teams were relatively balanced and the coach continued to coach. The twins played 4 ’seasons’ (fall, spring, fall, spring) under the same awesome coach (he was even a rocket scientist, hehe). By the 3rd time around, we had great carpools, I knew most of the parents very well. Here in Indiana, they change the teams every season. And you know what, I’m not comfortable letting my kids ride with just whoever ended up being on the team. A week and a half into this season and I honestly don’t even know the coaches names yet.

The good news is that this season’s games aren’t at the same times. Which is much better than last spring when we had three Saturdays with games at the exact same time. And you guessed it, they were also ‘across town’ from each other…