2 speeds

Life has become quite full since the start of the new year! I honestly believed that I was busy before, but now I find myself lovingly shaking my head at that former self, at that person who naively complained about too little structure. Now I seem to only have two speed settings: Sunday through Friday, I am set to hyper speed, racing from place to place, madly crossing items off the list at the last moment in my small chunks of unscheduled time; Saturdays I do absolutely nothing. Sundays I rev back up from zero to ridiculous. The good news is that I love doing nearly all of what I spend my time doing. The bad news is that I don't have enough time to do everything as well as I'd like and have me time and have time for playing with friends. As they say, something's gotta give. Most recently, that something is either any semblance of a social life or the stack of laundry. Or that one project for my church job that I keep not doing--yikes!

So...that's more than enough complaining for now! This current 3-job-arrangement has had some big positives. First, I get to spend every day with some of the cutest kiddos on the planet and they do endless fully things are are full of hilarious commentaries about life. I find myself saying things that I can't imagine saying in many other settings. Just in this past week..."How can you see where you're going if you're walking backwards?" "You were doing a great job until you made the loud shrieking noise into the gym." "No, this shape is not a caboosey, it's a rectangle." Some get a little out of control sometime, as children do, but there's usually enough cute kid-ness and amazement at their ability to learn so quickly to keep me from getting worked up.

Second, I've appreciated the 20-minute drive I have by myself twice a day. Sometimes I listen to OPB or Democracy Now, sometimes I put on the CD Bible in (I'm making my way through the Book of Acts) and sometimes I enjoy the silence. Because I generally leave within the same 5-minute window each morning, I notice the days slowly getting longer and have seen some amazing sunrises over Mt. Hood.

Third, I appreciate my time with Eric even more than I did before. He gets up early with me and makes us breakfast and we still get to enjoy coffee together, something I thought I'd have to give up when I took this new job. We still go to the gym together each afternoon or evening and we always spend Saturdays together. In the past month, we've done a nice walk in Portland, slept late, caught up on our TV from the week, gone out for coffee, helped plan a baby shower, and enjoyed a few outings with friends. We have always shared household responsibilities, but Eric has stepped up his cooking and cleaning--without complaining! Very sweet.

Fourth, I get to spend two evenings a week with a group of wonderful Spanish-speaking women who are committed to being great parents and to learning English! After class the other night, a student of mine who is pregnant told me that she had had an ultrasound that day and had communicated well-enough with her English-speaking doctor to learn that she is having a girl! I was so proud of her!

In my work with the church, I've been coordinating a family bilingual theater class, visiting day laborers and planning for a summer camp for Latino families! All things that I love!

One final positive to mention now: we're making a bit more money and working on getting out of debt completely. With good-sized students loans, there is still a long road ahead of us, but we're making progress. This is exciting!

I know I'll be on hyperspeed for the next 4 months, but I'll be able to shift into a lower gear when summer begins. This helps keep me going.

Hope your February is off to a great start!