Counting Down

Personal BLAH entry....

I've been thinking a lot lately about how I spend my time. It seems that lately my life is full of waiting right now - count downs. Some are good and some are starting to feel a little wearing. Some examples:

10 weeks till baby due

June 13th is when we are supposedly going back to OR (I won't believe it until I see it)

Jack just went down to bed - I have exactly 1 hr until he wakes

Joel will be home in 4 hrs

Start cooking dinner in 5 hrs

1 hr until we go to laundry mat to p/u laundry, then 1 week until we run out of underwear

7 hrs until Jack goes to bed

2 days until payday, then go to Costco

The list can go on and on. All these things are never exact. Whenever I have lunch ready right at 11, Joel goes out to lunch or comes home late. Whenever I have not started lunch, Joel is home at 11 on the dot. If I go and put the clothes in the dryer before Jack's nap time, planning that he will wake and the clothes be dry at the same time, Jack decides to take an extra long nap. Then, more waiting, hoping no one takes our clothes out of the dryer or steals them. All this waiting.

So I decided not to spend my days according to these exact countdowns. I have to use the time right now to do the things that need to be done (and occasionally some things I WANT to have done). I started making excuses why I couldn't do or start something because of perceived time limits. Nothing was ever done, with much time wasted just waiting for something to happen. I feel better about my days now. During Jack's naps, I have started doing things for me, fun things (like work on my curtains, read, etc). The house is miraculously cleaner and the dishes almost always done.

I think part of this frustration has been that we are kinda just burning rubber here in Hardin. Are we going? Are we staying? When will we know? When will it happen? Then what from there? We don't have anything here - just bare neccessities. What started as a 2-3 month gig has been 5 months already, with at least 1 1/2 more to go. Which is fine, and we are just living life as much as we can be, but the unsettled feeling is perhaps starting to get a little wearing. We don't really care where we will be, but just being somewhere would be nice. If and when we go back to Irrigon, a lot of my counting downs will still be there. But a lot won't even be an issue. (We will have a washer and dryer, a dishwasher, we know where we will be, and have a baby!)

Congrats if you made it to the end of this entry. I just needed to get it out of my system.