Here's the thing

Trees are still bright green in Kansas

I would love to show up here.

I would love to show up here two, three, four times a week. 

I would also love to have a Complete Thought.

I would love to have a complete thought and throw the thought away without it circling back around in 20 minutes. 

I can't do big thought-out posts or even organize a post from start to finish because I can't even have a complete thought.

My kids aren't even *that* little and I *only* have two of them. 

I don't know what it's called when you can't finish a thought but also sleep very well each night. Like, I sleep hard enough that I wake up and don't remember what day it is and then my brain has to boot up as I shoot through the tasks and worries and particulars of the next 12 hours before I get out of bed (at 5am. I get up at 5am.) There's a lot of I can't sleep, I wake up in the middle of the night, I can't fall back asleep out there. NOPE. I sleep. However, this last week, we had two nights where a 4 year old didn't stop coughing at all and she kept me up all night. 

I saw an Instagram post about living minute to minute. That's what I do. I live by the minutes. I know if I get up past 5:15am, mornings are going to be rushed. I know that if I leave the house past 7:07am, I'll feel rushed at work. I know that if I don't wake the kids up by 6:20am, it'll be me yelling them out the door. I know that if I turn the robovac on past 5:30pm, it'll still be vacuuming at bedtime and Sutton hates that because she's scared of it.

I know that if I start the multiplication game past 9:50am at school, the religion teacher will walk in for her lesson and we'll still be playing at 10:00am. I know if I start a new chapter of my read-aloud book past 12:25pm, I won't finish the chapter in time for 12:30pm recess. I know that if I do not start packing kids up at 3:20pm, we'll be late heading to dismissal at 3:30pm. That means, getting the planners out and talking about the next day at 3:15pm. Which means wrapping up whatever we're doing by 3:10pm. 

If we want to talk about what's saving us these days, I would probably start with the fact that the copy machine is less than 10 feet from my classroom door. 

I know that if I don't have clothes picked out the night before for school, Murphy's Law says that we will be able to find nothing and that will also be the day one kid doesn't like the cereal choices, the dog will refuse to take his medicine, and the other kid will drag [her] feet on the way out the door. 

The weekend I refuse to grade papers or take any work home is the time everyone will clamor for the spelling test grade first thing Monday morning. 

On the weekends, I purposely do nothing. It might make me seem sad and anti-social. I don't care. I don't look for more to do. 

I do have a ballet class to be at this morning (in one hour and seven minutes) but that will lead into my errands for the day....Walmart, Aldi, Home Depot, and UPS (not in that order). I also have to pick up contacts I ordered a month ago and are still sitting at the eye doctor. 

I'm constantly trying to maximize my time: Should I do something during ballet? Should I take my computer? Should I get two errands out of the way with only *one* kid in tow? I have Scott's truck today so I have to think about parking (it's an F-350). He took my car back to Missouri for the weekend to change out the tires. I also have some school tasks to do, wallpaper to put up in the kids' room, and a quart of paint to redo some of the living room trim. I would love to bake something this weekend but the groceries need to be secured first. 

This is how my brain works. The idea of not being efficient is completely foreign to me. What is that called? I need a name for how this feels

And right now I'm listening to Sutton run from the robovac and the kids' alarm clock go off repeatedly. At some point, they set it for 8:00am and I don't know how to change it. It goes off at 8:00am every day, no doubt always waking Maverick from his morning snooze while we're at school. 

One of my tasks this weekend is to actually get Wells a Halloween costume. He hates what we already ordered and what he wants doesn't exist (some sort of Sonic), so wish me luck. I used to have Halloween ready by October 1st. Trunk or treat is tomorrow. 

Anyway, I came home to a hot water heater not working yesterday (see Home Depot, above), so thoughts and prayers that Scott could get that fixed tomorrow would be much appreciated. Steelers play in Paris at 8:30am so I'll watch that but the Bills have a bye this week. Chiefs play tomorrow night. I like to watch, hopeful they'll get a loss. I cannot believe they got Kenneth Walker. Penn State continues to embarrass me, so I don't know if I care what they're doing today. 

Oh my reusable grocery bags are in my car so I'm either buying more or making do with what cardboard boxes Aldi has lying around. I have no meal plan so I"ll be planning while I walk the aisles with two kids, which is a set-up for success if I've ever seen one. 

We've been out of town the last two weekends, so this is Sutton's first time at ballet in awhile. Is it worth it? Eh. I don't know. It's not cheap. 

I also have "take kids' pictures" this weekend on my to-do list. I refuse to buy school pictures because it would be $100 for both of them. No. Way. 

So when I say "here's the thing", it's actually a lot of little things. I don't know what this is called but I refuse to believe *gestures around* all this just pops up at 40 years old. I feel like it's happening to everyone but some are just better at masking it.