Not Enough Hours in the Day

I'm sitting here watching inauguration coverage on TV, thinking about all the things that I should be doing. The list goes on in a never ending cycle and changes little over time. However, some moments are bigger than the present, and I am not going to miss the inauguration because I needed to fold a load of laundry. Instead I worked on the quilt that I've been turning over in my mind since election night. It took me a couple of hours this afternoon to put the letters together, and maybe this evening I can decide what I am going to do with them. The finished quilt will be a wall hanging that can hang in the foyer.
I was still at school during the swearing in ceremony, so some of us gathered and watched together. My school is strongly conservative and my students, for the most part, are not happy to see a democratic administration coming in. I cautioned them all that we would not watch any of the coverage if they could not contain their negative comments. I'm thrilled to see a change coming and am full of optimism and hope that we will all see some real change in the future.

It was a crazy weekend, and I'll be playing catch up all week. I think I mentioned on Friday that I was going to be learning how to camp this weekend. The weather was not exactly ideal, but I made it through all of the required training without any frostbite. I must admit that I was feeling pretty sorry for myself after shivering through all of Saturday and thought about bailing when they started warning us about hypothermia as the day ended. I stuck it out though, and by Sunday it had started to warm enough that a few brave souls started to shed their outer layers. My lips slowly turned from purple back to pink and I started to feel better about life. I am now literate in 6 types of outdoor cooking (stick cookery, one pot, propane, dutch oven, box oven and advance stick cookery) and a wide variety of camping tools and paraphanelia. We were back about dinner time, tired and smelly, and I spent the rest of the evening unpacking and such. I was so hoping to come back to a clean house and neatly folded laundry, but the rest of the family was frantically busy all weekend with ice skating and OM and birthday parties. All the usual weekend fun. The house never does well with the usual weekend fun, so I spent my time on Monday afternoon putting it all back together.
We were off yesterday for MLK day and I took advantage of having an extra day to get in one more long run. I was still feeling horrible about bailing on my last run and wanted to get in just one more. Meisje was kind enough to bring her son to babysit, and we took off from here to get in 24 miles. We took two Gatorade breaks and one break to deliver Anna home from a sleepover, meaning the whole run took about 5 hours, but the running time was 4 hours and 16 minutes which made me pretty happy. I think it's only three more weeks until the marathon now, so I get to start enjoying the taper. I don't have any time goals in mind for this marathon, I just want to run a nice steady race and not lose time in the second half.
No nice afternoon nap followed the long run, instead I was getting ready for last nights Girl Scout meeting. Kurt scheduled his Cub Scout meeting for the same time, so we made it a combination meeting, his boys were learning about fun and games and my girls were practicing leadership skills. By the time we ushered all of them out at 8:05 last night, I was just about ready to collapse.

I'm off to a leader meeting tonight, cookie orders are due or I'd think about skipping out entirely. Next weekend is leader daughter camping and I am hoping hoping hoping that it warms up before then. Sydney has never been camping and I am not going to take her out into the bitter cold to freeze. The poor kid would never want to camp again.