Getting By

There are definitely days where it feels like we're just getting by. The kids have been sick. Last Thursday, Sprout woke up the sickest I've ever seen him. The doctor had us come in, diagnosed a 24 hour tummy bug, and sent us home. The next morning Sprout was on his feet again, but by that night he'd somehow picked up the upper respiratory crud that Bird and I have had for a month. He's been coughing so much that he has trouble breathing and wakes up through the night. Bird got immunizations yesterday and woke up during the night (5 times) feverish and generally miserable. Today she was a wreck. She could barely stand to be touched. The doctor's instructions to wait it out w/ Tylenol can be so frustrating.

I haven't been putting in nearly enough hours at work, and I feel once again like I'm putting out fires and clinging to the edge, trying to build up a stronger base for my program. I have so many ideas for the program, they're just so hard to implement without being able to get in the office and have hours at a time to just work.

Beo and I have been discussing our eco-landscaping, and it seems to make so much sense for us. Lately though, I've been worried and nervous. What about my Sweet William that the grasshoppers decimated this year? What about my splits that died back to almost nothing? I can't have that happening if folks are paying me to design their gardens. Suddenly I stopped noticing all of the successes and started noticing the browned yarrow, the leggy columbine, the rusty lilacs.

All of this has snuck up and I've seen my shopping addiction peeking out--not rearing it's ugly head, just whispering over my shoulder. So I've decided to kick my own rear. I have to be tough on myself, in a good way. When I decided to do some therapeutic knitting, I decided that after 2 years I would stop giving myself guilt trips for unfinished projects, rip them apart, and start something I really wanted to do. I stopped trying to get through the novel that I detested, and asked Beo to ask the librarian to reccomend something. These may seem like smal things, but to me, they're huge. I put major expectations on myself, and allowing myself to forgive and move on is the best way to be more kind to myself. You know what? I deserve it. I really do.

You know what else? We had a frog in our garden. A sweet little lepoard frog that had the kids doing the scuffle-pause-scuffle-pause dance across the yard as they bent to check out the hoppy little guy. Small pleasures, small measures of success. Maybe our clients would forgive the browning bee balm in exchange for a frog here and there.