Weed Pulling for Distraction

My hands are aching from pulling chucks of matted grass out of my Mom's flower bed. She's been trying to clean out the grass for years. It's quite ferocious and consuming of flower space. In my attempt to find ways to exercise, I volunteered to dig up the grass. Now I have a project that I feel compelled by guilt to finish. So instead of working on grading papers or my last lecture, I will probably be pulling more grass in a desperate search to find new growth of the perennials.

The reason I got sucked into pulling grass was to manage my girls after school. My hubby was off in a canyon with clients and my girls can get bored real quick if they don't have enough stimulation to occupy there busy brains. They're banned from the Wii and the main computer keeps messing up. I do encourage playing outside but the two oldest would have to keep an eye on their baby sister which in turn means I watch all three of them and get nothing done. My Mom has five acres and no busy neighborhood street to worry over. I figure five acres should give each kid their own space from antagonizing each other. What do they do? They find the one spot with mud to crowd around and make mud pies. They're cute when covered in mud playing, but then one person has more mud than the other person, one person shakes mud onto the other's hair, and then we have genuine mud slinging. I tell them mud is done. Now I have to be in the same general area as them to keep the peace - so much for doing much in the garden. This is where the grass pulling came into play, a neutral location among warring sisters. However Mom appreciated the effort and I feel less guilty as well as productive. Feeling productive is good. Although by the end of tomorrow I will probably wish to have been more productive on other projects.

It's Been Awhile

It's been awhile since me and Jared have written anything. The past couple of months have been full of activities with school, work, and girls. Jared has been running behind in school because his light duty work has been more stressful than his regular duty job patrolling the town. The biggest stressor - computers. He complains how his schedule doesn't allow him extra time or the energy to do work at home. In other words, a 9 to 5 job is more stressful than arresting drunks.

I've done alright with the stress level with my class. I've made sure I keep up with grading papers, answering paniky emails, and reviewing my lecture. The stress that does come usually happens when I am lecturing and my brain does a blitz and I'm standing in front of twenty people with confused expressions of why I stopped talking. I hate it when that happens.

We were lucky to have made a family trip to Disneyland for Spring Break. The girls didn't even know where we were going until we hit the California border. We had them believing we were making a scenic run to see Grandma and Grandpa, which was true, but they were thinking Utah. We rendezvous with the grandparents at a castle style hotel two blocks from the Disneyland entrance. Aunt Britney and Uncle Ross with little Ryder made it there too. Six adults and four kids sharing one hotel room - crowded to say the least - but we made it work.

My feet and legs were screaming agony for four days from walking from one end of the park to the next and from standing in hour long lines, and then walk back to the hotel usually with a kid hanging on me. They become so heavy after a block on your back. However, seeing their eyes sparkle when meeting a princess or a Disney character or were thrilled on a fun ride made the agony worth the trouble. And we survived without any time outs and Mom blowing her top!

Now Spring is here and I'm starting to feel the planting bug. Jared is feeling the pressure of increased activity in social misbehaving and in canyon trips. The girls are counting down to Summer vacation (yikes). Which means, another schedule book to plot out the whole day to keep busy girls busy and retain some kind of sanity with them home all day.