| Ten years ago I had my second bout with Mono. Anyone who tells you that you can have mono only once needs to come hang out with me for awhile. Recently it occurred to me that since that second go ’round, my energy level has been in the crapper. First I blamed it on recovery, then on teaching at a place I didn’t much like, then on grad school, then on pregnancy, then on a colicky-never-sleeping infant, then pregnancy again, then two active boys in the house. I thought back to my time in college, when I was mind-blowingly busy and stressed, drank almost no coffee, and felt great. Please don’t point out the age difference. 🙂 Now I’m starting to realize that I’m probably not supposed to feel this lousy all the time. And I started fantasizing about all the things I’d do if I had the energy. Once I knock whatever virus has been making the rounds here, I’ll start investigating what to do about this, but today I bring you: Thirteen Things I would do if I had the energy I think I once had
1. Exercise. Yes, I know that exercise increases energy, but when you’re wiped to start with, the mere thought of working out is exhausting. 2. Cut back on the coffee. GASP! Yes, I’d cut back on my coffee consumption and start drinking more tea, mostly green tea. This much coffee can’t be good for me, but dang, I’m at a loss as to how to keep up with the boys otherwise. 3. Practice my flute for an upcoming recital. Yes, I really do want to play again, I really want to give a recital. I don’t know who would come, but I miss playing. I want to go to a masterclass in the summer of 2008; there’s no way I’ll be prepared for that public humiliation unless I start practicing. Now. But it takes a lot out of ya to work that hard. And it’s even harder to practice with one kid scaling your legs and the other playing his trumpet at the same time. 4. Have more patience with the boys. A is a classic 2e kid, and very likely a visual-spatial learner as well. J has a speech delay that, while getting much MUCH better with his speech therapy, is still difficult to understand sometimes. I am not as patient as I could be with these two and I feel immense guilt about it. It’s not their fault they have these issues and I could do better. 5. Update this blog more regularly. I love this blog. I don’t write as often as I’d like, often because I’m pooped. I fully believe that stress inhibits creativity, and that is killing my blog writing, my flute playing, and my scrapbooking. Oh, by the way, I know my post on the Butterfly Pavilion looks all funky. I swear, it didn’t look like that when I previewed it and once I get a new and improved template, that’ll be fixed. And I do read considerably more blogs than the half-dozen or so listed here. Eventually I’ll add those in. 6. Have more sex. Sorry mom, dad, and anyone else who might be shocked by that, but chronic exhaustion is murder. 7. Scrapbook more. The boys lovelovelove looking through the albums of them I’ve done. I haven’t done a page in months, probably close to a year. Again, stress inhibits creativity, and when I do get a moment to go and play, I’m too pooped to party. 8. Play more. Just go and play. Have more fun with the boys, and with Tom (get your minds out of the gutter, despite #6). Enjoy life more. 9. Volunteer and not resent it. I swear, being on yearbook staff is killing my desire to volunteer. But I want to volunteer, somehow, with Alzheimer’s research, ideally set up a Crop for Memories. I haven’t even gotten past the thinking about it stage. Alzheimer’s runs in my family pretty strongly, so this is pretty near and dear to my heart. 10. Take off with my business. I don’t want to get into details, but I have a home-based business and I’ve had some moderate success with it since I started last summer. I know I can and will be very successful with it, but with all I have going on right now vs. how much energy I have right now, it’s slow going. I’m also pretty impatient. ; ) 11. Cook more than the dozen or so recipes I use all the time. I’d like to try more recipes. Tom used to be the cook of the house, and now I am and I’m not so hot at it. Rather ironic, if you know me in real life. 12. Take better care of our house. That sounds bad, like our home is falling down around our ears, and it’s not. But I look around and see lots of little things that need to be fixed, or cleaned, and haven’t yet been done. 13. Finally, and this is the one that’ll send friends and family into absolute fits of laughter, I would love to investigate international adoption. As much as chaos reigns here, I feel the urge to look into this. How much more chaos would it be, really? If it’s meant to be, it’ll happen. If it’s not meant to be, it won’t. But I’d like to have the energy stores for it. So there ya go. My TT. Next week I plan to have something a little cheerier, but this has been floating around my brain for awhile. I actually surprised myself that I had 13; I thought I’d top out at about 6. Who knew? Again, because of #5, I’ll probably forget to update your TT, so please check the comments for more TTs. Have a great day! Links to other Thursday Thirteens! |
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