Some thoughts on dealing with life stress.




If you haven’t heard from me recently, or haven’t seen my most recent posts, I can safely say that life is currently hectic.

Now, please understand, this is not meant to be a gripe session, because most if not all of my HECTIC is done by choice. Sometimes the choice was made a long time ago, and I am just carrying on. Other times, it is a choice based on belief or principle, and it dictates what happens as things come up.

And, as I have told my kids at home and my kids at school, griping about things you have the privilege of changing is not only pointless, it is also really annoying. You know…..If you’re not going to trouble yourself to vote, don’t be the most vocal complainer when you don’t like how things turn out.

Anyway, back to busy. I have been spending an average of 2-3 hours per day away from home, and away from school, while I access the internet to do research and readings for my UALR classes. (AVERAGE) things on the farm have been pretty normal, which means some days go with no glitches, and other days something breaks, and I add hours to my busy-ness. My church responsibilities don’t usually add a lot of time concerns, unless there are training meetings, or temple trips (like last week, which by the way, was a great day), but there are always concerns running around in my head. Trying to stay on top of my needs for Conway is a challenge. I have been assigned to do morning hall duty from 7:30-8, as a trade off for being allowed to leave early to go to UALR. I monitor the north hallway 5 days a week, so that I can leave early on 2. Major downside: I am not allowed to access the internet (even though we have a wifi server, teachers are rarely allowed access), hauling a desk back and forth would take far more time than it is worth, in terms of being able to grade, and it gives me about 4 minutes to get ready for my students, unless I choose to get here by 7 am. Problem with that is it requires me to leave the house by 5:45.

That leaves me with my prep period, and 3 days a week after school. So of course the conflict is, Monday Tuesday and Friday, do I spend the extra hours for Conway schools, or do I use the time to go access the internet at the library, so that I can stay on top of UALR, and still have a few minutes with my family?

That has been the crux of my hectic schedule. Although I am doing it all from this computer, if I am sitting at the school in Conway, I still cannot access the internet. So anything internet related that I do at the high school has to be transferred to this computer. At least this one has pretty much all I need, so my time at wifi hotspots can be as productive as I need to make it. This thing is pretty fast.

As I was driving home the other night, after one of those 3 day periods where nothing seemed to go right, I was feeling really stressed. I had been behind because I had not been able to get out and do homework at all over the weekend. Monday, I had stayed at the library to the last minute, and then met Michelle and the boys at their Scout meeting in Heber Springs. I have signed on as assistant Scoutmaster with troop 200, where the boys are working toward Eagle, since Batesville doesn’t have an active troop. Tuesday, I was working at the Library, and the thunderstorms moving through were not only making me nervous, as the lightning was striking really close, but it also kept knocking out the wifi server. I ended up typing nearly 4 paragraphs on something before I realized that I was no longer online. That was my German Blog for class.



Anyway, this is getting long, and I did have a point: As I was driving home from my Wednesday class/homework session at 10:30, feeling very stressed, a song came on the radio at just the right moment. I don’t know the artist, but I know Liz will recognize it. The chorus was good advice for me at that moment of stress: “You can’t jump the tracks, we’re like cars on a cable, life’s like an hour glass glued to the table, no one can find the rewind button now, so cradle your head in your hands, and..Breathe, just Breathe, come on breathe….”

I felt better, and life will go on, life will continue to be hectic, but when it gets out of control, take this advice: Just breathe!

Variety of things.

I know, I could, and should put at least 3 seconds of thought into the title of these posts, and some times I will, but not today.
Too many things and thoughts going on.  School, SCHOOL, farm, Libya, church, farm, School legislation, weekend obligations, braces, missions, etc.
Thoughts on Libya:  It is interesting to watch the history of a nation shift, in a matter of weeks.  I hope the "opposition forces" as they have been titled, succeed.  They have a tough road ahead, though.  The military madman at the top still hasn't admitted that "something is happening", at least not in the last report I heard.  That was, I admit, 3 days ago, and in the interim, military airstrikes have been part of the fray.  I don't know if they were ordered from the very top, or just military commanders doing "their job".  I am anxious to see how bad the mess in Libya will affect us here.  Oil price speculation is such a driving factor in the price of gas, and the prices on the market have jumped dramatically.  I know there are other factors, including the individual stores maintaining a profit margin, but the speculation makes a big difference.  Running 1000 per week, every nickel in the average price costs me about $10-$12 extra per month.  That wouldn't really be much, if it were only one nickel.
Things on the farm are about normal.  We have had a change in ownership, but it shouldn't really affect us much.  At least not negatively.  As most know, Townsend declared bankruptcy, and a new company has taken over.  we'll see how this plays out.  Right now, it is just the same:  raise birds, maintain systems, and hopefully get some sleep.  With my schooling and church responsibilities, it is not unusual to get home at 9 or later, and have some repair to take care of.  Michelle is really good about trying not to let little things pile up, so I only have the bigger issues to tackle.  That is good.  Sometimes, though, a "big job" that should be simple ends up taking hours instead of minutes.  Perfect example:  A cable on the feed lines broke (corroded), and needed to be fixed.  It looked like it should only take 20-30 minutes to splice in a new section to patch the break, but upon closer inspection, the cable passed through enough pulleys that an entirely new length was required.
This would have been no big deal, except it meant that the ladder had to be moved every 4-5 feet of a 20+ ft. span, to free the old broken cable, then back and forth to run the new cable around 2 turnback pulleys.  as it was, it only took me about 2 hours to fix, but you get the idea.

Great, the last 4 paragraphs I typed were not saved, because a thundestorm apparently knocked out the wifi server, and I didn't realize it.  Anyway, I may try to fill in blanks on another day.

Gotta go!