Cedar Trees in Portland Heights

 

I’ve been painfully out of touch for the past 10 days.  So, I’m not going to even attempt to artfully craft this post. Instead, I think I’ll just give you a straight forward update. I’d like to start back at this as if I’d never been gone. But, that feels like leaving open a door needing closing—drafts of unfinished business tend to make me cold. And you know I’m not a fan of cold.

Almost 2 weeks ago we set about to put in a lawn. That was a Thursday. The Tuesday before my child informed me that he was “coming down with something.” That’s code for, “Hey mom, I’m sick. You’re going to be sick too!” And sure enough, we rolled the green and 12 short hours later I succumbed. 

If I hadn’t gotten so sick, I would have described the intricacies of our putting in a lawn. It was a feat of scheduling genius—between rentals of trucks and equipment to the timing of purchasing sod. And then you would have been compelled to leave witty remarks about lawn. Yeah, I’d say you’d dodged a bullet.

Instead, I got sick and set up camp on the couch. I watched a LOT of television. I discovered that Bill Curtis has a very soothing voice. He does. I slept through numerous episodes of something he narrates. What it is, I’m not quite sure, because, um, I was sleeping. And  can I just say, Jon and Kate + 8 makes me sad?  Very, very sad. TLC was nice enough to run a mega marathon of all the seasons while I was sick. I didn’t see them all, but I saw enough. Even hopped up on cold/flu meds that show screams TRAINWRECK. With eight tiny souls at stake, well, that’s just sad.

Anyhow, the couch and I communed all through the holiday weekend. The sunny holiday weekend. The elegantly formed schedule for the yard, the schedule I was keeping, slipped. I’m now 2 weeks behind and gradually scraping energy together to tackle bits and pieces. Symptomatically (that’s code for SNOT!) I’m free and clear, but I’ve not rebounded. I find that by 3 in the afternoon I’m spent. I fall exhausted onto the couch, a strawberry flavored jello puddle, channel hop until I find  Bill Curtis so I can sleep. Needless to say, it’s not just the yard schedule that’s suffering. I’m behind on every front.

Everyone dreads getting sick, but I dread it for really odd reasons. Getting sick means work stoppage. I know that if we don’t  keep moving we will stall out. Ever so subtly we will drift into doldrums. Paralysis of analysis sets in and the necessary wind required to make decisions and act on them disappears. So, even sick, I’ve found myself outside tackling odd projects between blowing my nose. Eventually, IZ comes outside and chides, “You’re a woman on a mission, crack that whip.” He can mock all he wants. But I’ve seen my studio space and I know what stopping looks like. Not pretty, Bueller. Not pretty.

So that’s about it. I put in a lawn, I got sick, and I’m now desperately behind schedule. Lucky for me, though, I’m not above rewriting the schedule so it looks like I’m on target. History is flexible like that.