Don't wait, the opportunity may not come again.

So, so, so, soooo tired. As I was driving back from Tyler tonight I was thinking deep thoughts and thinking that I would come home and post them here, where they are anonymously safe. Is it a good thing to have the obsessive personality that allowed me to distract myself for a while with "Words With Friends"?

One of these days I will -- hopefully -- learn not to overload myself and my schedule. The last few weeks (but particularly the past week) have just about done me in. Too much to get done in too short a time. Tonight was going to be my only evening home in the last 6. But instead I got to take my stepdaughter to the hospice facility so she could be with her mother, who isn't expected to survive the night. Thought for a while I was going to have to drive to Dallas to pick up the other stepdaughter, because she was too distraught to drive. But she decided to wait until tomorrow morning and drive herself down. She just spent several hours with her mother this weekend and said her goodbyes then.

I actually attempted to call my ex-husband this evening while driving home. Watching my kids deal with the death of their mother, it occurred to me that it would be nice if someone let my daughter know when her biological father (or sperm donor, as she calls him, since she hasn't seen him since she was 15 months old) passes away. I was going to ask him if he would please just put a note in his wallet with my daughter's or my number on it so someone would let us know. But both of his numbers are disconnected, so I guess we'll just never know. And that fits right in with his idea of parenting from the beginning, I guess.

Don't wait to tell your loved ones that you love them. Most of us will not get the forewarning to come in for a weekend or spend the night with our loved ones before they go.

All of those intriguing lines of thought I was working through while driving home are gone now. Wish I could remember them.


Tired + depression = the end of the rope for today.

...exhaustion

Well, it would appear that I have made it through hell week. Yay! And the good news is that it wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be.

Traditionally, our local Relay For Life is always held the second Friday in April, so for the last year we have been working on organizing this cancer-fighting event. We have known it would be this weekend for more than a year.

A few months ago, when I went to work for Habitat for Humanity, the annual Raisin' The Roof fundraiser was added to my calendar for this weekend, too.

About a month ago, we decided that the radio station I work for, QX-FM, would do a remote broadcast from the Rusk County Electric annual Home  & Garden Show on Thursday evening.

Also about a month ago, I auditioned for and was cast in "Steel Magnolias" at our local theater. We have been rehearsing every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday night.

Then, about 3 weeks ago my grandmother passed away and my uncle scheduled her memorial service for this weekend.

So what should have been a relatively relaxing weekend became a test of endurance and energy. It's almost over now and I'm still here and still relatively intact mentally ;-) (Relatively speaking, of course, since some people would argue that I'm NEVER mentally intact).

I wish I had had more time to visit with my extended family members at Mamaw's service. Some of them I had not seen since I was a small child. Some of them I have seen through the years but never really had a conversation with them. One of the highlights for me was sitting with my Aunt Chris, who grew up in Normandy and was a little girl during World War II. The cousins gathered up their children in my uncle's living room while the men sat in their outdoor "man cave" and talked about their man-business (I don't even want to know what that entailed) and Chris told us about the Germans taking all of their food when they occupied the area around her childhood home. She and her cousin survived on a cup of milk a day that they would get when their grandmother went to milk the cows at the neighborhood castle. She talked about a Canadian airman who crashed near their farm. Her grandfather hid him on their farm while he recovered from his injuries. A local collaborator told the Germans there was an injured serviceman in the village, so the Germans lined up 100 men, women and children and mowed them down with a machine gun as an example of what happens to those who tried to resist their occupation. Chris's grandfather was in that line and was shot in the leg. He only survived because they thought he was dead and he laid there until the soldiers left. The Canadian did eventually escape. Chris's father and uncle were sent to concentration camps because it was thought they were Jewish. Her father was in Auschwitz. He was sent to work on a farm supplying food for the Germans running the camp. Someone on the farm discovered he wasn't Jewish and helped him escape. Chris said she had not seen her father since she was 9 months old. One day a tramp came to the gate and she ran inside to tell her grandmother there was another tramp to be fed. Her grandmother went outside to see and turned around and slapped Chris and told her that was her father, not a tramp.

This was my first "Raising The Roof" event and we had a wonderful time. Aryn and I are already planning what we're going to do with our tables next year. We've already decided on our theme and have started looking for ideas. I can tell you that it will be over-the-top and that our diners are going to pampered and feted to an extreme degree, so I recommend that you just go ahead and call the Habitat for Humanity office Monday and ask to sit at our tables next year. Those seats are going to go fast ;-)

I've now had 11 hours sleep so far since Friday morning, have blisters between my toes from wearing new white flip-flops to wait tables last night, and a bruised knee cap from banging it the first time I climbed out of my loaner Gator during Relay (thanks to Lowe Tractor for loaning it to us, even if I did practically knock my knee off in it, lol).

But we've raised $50,000 for the American Cancer Society, I don't know how much for Habitat for Humanity, reunionized with relatives from all over the country, blown up and tied  and handed out several hundred balloons for the radio station, and have lived to tell the tale. Hell week is over. Whew!

Can't wait to do it again next year ;-)

Gray wool

Who was it who wrote once of living days of gray wool? You know, those days that are so full of the business of living without any of the joy of life, the ordinary days that a week later you don't remember anything about. I'm trying to eliminate the majority of gray wool in my days. 

The days are still far too full of everyday "must do's" but even if it's only a 10-second realization of roadside beauty when driving to, between or from jobs, I am trying to find something memorable in each day. It's fairly easy in the mornings. In my job at Habitat for Humanity I talk to such a wide variety of people who sincerely want to help others. I see our homeowners when they come into the office for something and, while they also are having lots of gray wool time (who doesn't when you work and have a home to care for), many of them are still imbued with that sense of a dream realized when they come to see us. It's easy to find the scarlet taffeta at Habitat. 

I discover new moments of brightness every night at rehearsals. I am working with such a wonderful group of women in "Steel Magnolias" and every night we find something new to laugh about and learn new things about one another. And there is always the abiding truth of that script when you get past the big hair and bad southern accents to remind you of the importance of living past the gray wool.

Last week I began the last year of the first half century of my life. I find I'm not dreading moving into the second half century as I thought I would. I'm hoping that I am growing out of the gray wool stage. I'm hoping that with each year I will discover more scarlet taffeta, or chartreuse silk, or that intense sky-blue linen. Or even a cool, soothing stone-washed denim. I could use a cool denim day about now, I think. 

...nothing ;-)

Hmmm... I've done a GREAT job of blogging, haven't I, lol? I should have known I would never leave enough time in a month, much less in the day, to reliably sit down and write. But hope springs eternal, so why not just add a bit here and there when I can and the mood strikes.

Today is probably not the best day to get started, since my dryer died two days ago and my husband is sitting here tapping his foot wanting to get out the door to go get another and I have to be in Longview in less than an hour and a half. But, if I don't start with a sentence or two I'll never move on to the paragraph or two, right?

Life is busy, life is wonderful, life sucks... it's all there, every single day. The trick is to pick the wonderful part to concentrate on and remember and blow off the rest ;-)

Hopefully I will get back to this in less than the 6 months it took this time! Go enjoy your weekend, pollen and all!

I have lots of thoughts, but nothing specific to say. After reading my friend Laura's blog for about a year, she always has wonderful things to say and I have always thought, "One of these days I'm going to try that..."

Now I suddenly have some time, I'm finally going to ;-)