Busy. Busy. Sigh. And Busy Still

Swim meet this weekend. Kids had to check in by 7.30, which means leave the house before 7. But - lucky us - the neighbors offered to take the girls. Gary and I slept in, showed up by 9. Good thing, too, as I could not sleep Friday night, so at 1 a.m. I was still lying awake. Which means Gary wasn't sleeping well, either.

But the extra 90 minutes in the morning certainly helped. And it was a good meet for us, the Crocs - low 70s, cloudy. Might have been a bit chilly for the swimmers, but I didn't hear any complaints. And I certainly wasn't minding it a bit. Except about my feet - next time I have to work (I had to work the ready bench), I will wear tennis shoes. Both girls shaved seconds off their times, and Sylvia even won one of her heats.

The other team is über competitive. The sharks. They always beat us, and they quibble over every little thing. They made posters - one was kinda cute, with an actual green croc (the shoe) with googly eyes being chased by a stuffed shark. But my favorite? A picture with the quippy: "Sharks go to college to get more knowledge/Crocs go to Jupiter to get more stupider." I'm guessing the irony was lost on the sharks.

*****

It's a busy week. Yesterday was open house, tonight is a picnic, tomorrow a concert, Thursday is awards night. I will be beat by Friday. Sylvia and I went to open house - Gary was at the ball game with clients. He might have rearranged his schedule, but we didn't even know about open house til Monday morning - this super-organized school we attend did not send out notes, didn't even mention it in last week's newsletter. But I can always attend these things, so Sylvia and I had a nice, albeit brief, visit to her classroom.

*****

And I won't be attending the picnic tonight - we have tickets to see Elvis Costello. Fun, fun. Usually the big concerts that come through don't interest me enough to shell out the big bucks - Rolling Stones, Steve Miller, Tom Petty (though I would have considered him). It's got to really be worth it to shell out the $$$ to see aging rockers. But Elvis is different - he has improved with age (though I still love the early stuff, from when he was a very angry new wave artist). And he's with the Police, so it should be fun.

Last time we saw Elvis Costello was in Chicago, at a Louis Sullivan-designed auditorium at Roosevelt University. We had fantastic seats, and the show was great. Plus we were not even close to being the oldest ones there - lots of grey heads. But if you were young in 1978 when he hit it big ... you do the math.

Tonight should be fun. I'm listening to the new CD, getting ready. I've never seen the Police, so that should be good, too. I get to feel like a college student for a few hours - what is better than that?

Let's just hope the phone doesn't ring with friction at home.

*****

I am enjoying sitting around the house, just staring. The house is in nearly perfect order. Nearly perfect, because we do live here, and as it is not officially on the market, we have a little wiggle room. We've had Realtors coming through, doing the market analysis, getting us ready to list it. I'm thinking by the end of the week. So for the next few weeks, I'll be in a cleaning frenzy.

What this teaches me is that I can keep the house in perfect order. But it takes all my energy, and it's just not worth the trade-off. I'll take my free time, my laid-back life of books and movies and writing and enjoying my kids. Yes, every little scrap of paper is neatly filed away. But my energy is zapped.

Please, house, sell quickly. Please ...