uphill

and here I am climbing back up that hill...


I've sold my soul to the devil this month. I am unable unwilling to work weekends so I bargained and agreed to work night shift for the entire month of June in exchange for having weekends off.  I'm on day night three and still appear to be fully functioning.  I'm still baffled by this new schedule though.  By the time my head hit the pillow yesterday morning I had been awake for 28 hours, probably not shocking for those veteran night shifters, but really unheard of for me.  It was surprisingly and strangely OK, I wasn't even feeling ragged or exhausted like I expected.  Meal times also feel really weird.  Is is normal to eat something at 2 am?  It feels really wrong.  I find myself eating just because I realize it's been eight hours since the last time I had a bite so I do it,  but hungry?  No, not really.  Again, weird.  Also weird are the night shift people in general, I think I'll say no more on this topic.  If you have ever gone to Walmart after midnight you know what I mean.  Strange creatures come out at night. 

The boys are all doing well and are excited for summer.  Just one week left of school.  The big boys are making rather extravagant summer plans.  Gavin's teacher has blessed our house with three pet meal worms.  They live in a Tupperware container cage on our counter and Gavin holds them daily.  We have been instructed to change their oatmeal bedding weekly and water them occasionally.  We are to keep them until they turn into beetles and then release them.  Release them where, the pantry?  I'm not sure why his teacher feels all families would benefit from raising meal worms.  I'm sure there were a few less welcoming meal worm host families.  However, if you think meal worms are bad, I actually prefer them to Tommy's latest pet.  The other day he came in the front door beaming with his hands cupped.  Guess what I found mom?  It's a magic worm.  He then revealed his new pet...  a maggot.  He insisted on keeping it so it now lives along side of the meal worms on the counter.  Tommy has filled his cage with grass and leaves and sticks and one half eaten chicken wing slowly rotting.  This is disgusting!  I beg them to ask their father for hamsters, rats, kittens and even chickens, but nooooooo they want maggots and meal worms.  How sad.

We are looking forward to making some summer memories at a new cottage.  We will be spending weekends this summer at a nearby island in a cottage on a saltwater canal, minutes from the Gulf of Mexico.  Scott and his Dad are logging many hours of boat research everyday.  We hope to get something that will accommodate four crazy little boys, a lil bit of fishing, a lil bit tubing, and a lil bit of cruising.  I spent some time the other day laying on my belly peeking over the sea wall at the little sea creatures in the canal.  I played with a little comb jelly, poking him with a mangrove propagule and watching him recoil and swim away.  I studied the little barnacles as they stuck out their little feather fingers to search for food in the current.  Four little blue crabs sat on the edge of the wall watching me watching them.  Their little stalk eyes keeping me in view at all times.  I dropped a pebble into the water directing it toward the big mama blue crab and she grabbed it in her fat pincher and stared at me in disgust.  Mullets jumped out of the water every few minutes flinging themselves across the surface for some reason (I still need to research why they do this).  As I sat staring down into the water a still unidentified fish with some fat blue lips came up near the surface and stared at me.  I think all this sea life is as curious about me as I am about them.  I can't wait to stick a line in the water and see what I can pull up.  So we will be studying ocean life and getting some sun this summer and I look forward to posting lots of photos of all these new adventures we  are sure to have.

Working nights has been refreshingly less stressful...
I've been meditating (well day dreaming of fishing and boating really)...
It's been empowering knowing I have Scott's blessing if I need to quit...

New coping tools in my pack and meal worms in my pocket, I'm climbing back up that hill to sanity...