Summer 2014 Upon Us

I know this summer is going to be over in a flash--it arrived in a flash!  It was just winter yesterday, or so it seems.  Life has been BUSY for us, and I mean B-U-S-Y!  I started a new job on April 7 and have been working 40 hours a week since, quite a change having worked from home for a while and balanced part-time jobs.  Alice has been VERY busy and diligent preparing our home to sell, although we are both fairly confident we'll still be here when the dust settles.  We were already considering a move in the previous few months, and recently she began to feel very good about looking to build a home and move, and then we found out a month ago that our HOA is considering a lawsuit against the contractors of our development and if it goes forward, it will prevent any bank from lending on properties on our complex so we wouldn't be able to sell it then.  So, here we are, having furiously cleaned and packed half our house, even renting a storage unit and truck and moving some furniture and boxes out of our home.  It has been nice having a much more open, clean, and far less cluttered home, though I must admit, I miss my many books and bookshelves where they were housed (Alice, on the other hand, has experienced ZERO sadness at the removal of my massive library from our home :-)  ).  In addition to trying to clean, I have been busy repairing small things and touch things up, while also balancing my new job and trying to maximize my small amount of daily time with the boys before putting them to bed shortly after returning home from work.

In addition to these time consuming responsibilities and changes, I have also started to seek treatment again for my AD/HD and tried a new medication after 3 previous ones produced no result.  Vyvanse is what I've been trying for a few weeks and while I initially thought it was having no effect, I decided to take one before bed to see if it did anything and it sure did!  I laid awake ALL NIGHT so stinking tired and feeling like I was on the verge of falling asleep, but I never did.  So while it hasn't given me the focus boost and energy boost it is supposed to, it still did something that kept me awake all night despite my feeling so tired!  It has been hard to determine how it has affected me because with everything else going on, especially the job, I have been more stressed than ever before and not dealing with it well, so my stomach has felt knotted up, tight, and sick for about 8 weeks now except for a brief respite in Park City and an occasional 30-60 minute break, but even that has only happened about 5 times.  I am more familiar with the phrase "sick to my stomach" than I wanted to be, as it has been my constant companion since April.  It has been an emotional, and even physical, roller coaster ride for all of us over the past couple months.

Throughout all of this, the boys have stayed as happy and joyful as ever.  Of course, they have had their bad days, but even still, my gratitude and love for them has never waned nor been forgotten even in the moments of greatest frustration when dealing with their cries and screams and their occasional disrespectful attitude they show towards either me or Alice.  I must admit, I have contributed to this on the nights where I don't want to put them to bed knowing I won't see them for 12 hours so I keep them up to play games or stargaze with me.  One night in early June, we spent 2 hours underneath the sky gazing up into the heavens until midnight.  It was a glorious experience with my boys, all of whom fell asleep on the blanket before we were done!

Being at work distracts me from what I know I'm missing at home because it's so busy and there is so much to do, but I do miss seeing the simple things such as karate lessons, library craft days, and swimming lessons that the boys enjoy during the day time in summer.  Memories such as those are so precious, and I am grateful for every one that I have and all of those ones that I will yet create in the future.  Summer will be over before we know it, and we'll likely still be in our home, then simply remodifying our loan rather than moving, and maybe even with me starting an online graduate program and seeking stress relief and emotional rejuvenation through academic historical research--yes, studying history relaxes me and imbues me with a sense of purpose and connection to eternity and understanding of things beyond myself and even our own modern time and place.  So life will roll forward this summer, and despite the bumps we may experience on the way, I'll be more grateful for the good than the bad, and remember for much longer the smiles, laughs, and fun times than I will what I did at work, how much I made, or how much time I spent there.