Labor Day

Yes, I'm here at work on Labor Day. What better day to be working, eh?

At least it's quiet. No one else is stupid enough to be at the office on the last day before school starts. Tomorrow begins the major shift in our schedule, off the laid-back, easy-going, not-much-to-do routine which has been the norm since Cheryl and the girls returned from their West Coast tour, and back to the hectic, every-moment-spoken-for frantic pace of fall/winter/spring.

It is times like these when envy of the "real" homeschoolers rears its ugly head. For them, it is nearly business-as-usual. For us, it is time to shift into high gear, and there is nothing more frustrating to me than attempting to keep up with all the activities that other people toss into the pot of Life.

My ideal is to have nothing to do but sit and think and write. Were there enough time in the day, it might even be possible to get a few things done, since a lengthy sit in the chair often prompts me to get up and start cleaning house, or making something out of wood, or pestering the children to go for a bike ride. In my old age, it has become nearly impossible to sit for more than twenty minutes at a stretch because my joints start to ache and my legs start to twitch and my mind starts to wander.

But ... were it possible, my day would be spent in a comfy chair composing poems and short stories and essays about nothing in particular, strumming my guitar, designing electronic circuits, cruising my favorite websites, and sipping a chilled glass of Dr. Pepper. All the while talking to Cheryl as she works on spreadsheets and cruises through her own set of websites and comments on the crazy things going on in the world today.

Should the world endure to the day when my need for employment comes to an end, and the children have all gone off to their separate destinies, perhaps that will become our reality.

Until then, my day will be spent banging my head against the software & hardware on this project, attempting to make it work in spite of itself; and preparing charts and graphs and plans for all the upper-management types to show them all how impossible the task has become; and rushing home at the end of the day to remind my children that their father is still alive and well and madly in love with their mother.