Spring Break

My spring break is coming to an end, and during this break I never left the city of Rochester. In fact, I barely left the house. I spent the first part of break working furiously on our home. I removed wallpaper from one room downstairs. I taped and painted a couple of rooms and a hallway. I stained a door. I replaced a doorknob. I helped install an accordion door at the bottom of the stairs. I scrubbed, vacuumed, sanded, and stained. I had a plumber come in for an estimate on the plumbing work we need in order to install a kitchen in the basement. I had a handyman come in and replace our toilets. We keep checking things off the list, and yet the list never really seems to get any shorter. Isn’t that the way it goes with home improvements?

The break wasn’t all work, though. I had a few, fun firsts as well. I took my first long walk in the new neighborhood, finding my way to the Bear Creek Trail nearby. Snow is melting, and the signs of spring were everywhere! I saw my first robin one day and the next day there was a preponderance of robins, filling the outdoor spaces in my life. I saw the first plants sprouting in my new garden and discovered I do have spring bulbs! My husband and I got to keep our granddaughter overnight for the very first time. She is a gem. Elle and I went on our first outdoor walk together as well. I watched the Twins season opener (on television).

Then there were the parts of spring break that weren’t so great. Our minivan that Em and Eric are using needs $600-$1200 for repairs. Then the part that the repair shop was using to repair it was flawed, so they can’t get it repaired until Monday. My laptop crashed and needed to go to the computer repair shop. That meant I had to re-create a lot of things I use for school, as those files are on my crashed laptop. I am running into difficulties completing other school tasks that need to be done on the computer. I really should have backed everything up more recently, right? And then to top it off, we owe more money than I want to owe on taxes this year, due to mid-year tax changes. Yuck and yuck.

Our spring break trip from a couple of years ago keeps popping up in my Facebook memories. I got absolutely nothing done that year – well, no projects at home at least. We delivered a table to Alabama in the back of our minivan and then picked up an important package on our return trip to Rochester. However, in between, we traveled from bleak, pre-spring to spring and on to summer. We dipped our toes in the Gulf and made a million beautiful memories. I like trips. This is not the year for trips, so the memories will have to suffice for now. They do make me smile!!

Spring break is coming to an end, and I am not ready for that. Life is moving very quickly, and we have many tasks to accomplish over the next few weeks. There are big events at church, at school, and in our family, things that will keep us very busy in the days ahead. There are no days off school until the end of the year, barring more snow days. (It could happen!) I don’t know where or how I will find the time to do all the projects I still need to do at home. To tell the truth, I am feeling a bit overwhelmed by it all.

You may be wondering why I am taking time to write a blog if I am so busy. Well, my crashed laptop means I can’t do some of the things I want to do right now, so I am doing something that helps me think. Writing is a way for me to put my thoughts together and to sort my way through them. I see the bigger picture when I start writing things down. The bigger picture I am seeing right now is that life is never all one thing. It is a mixed up jumble of things, some good, some bad, some expensive, some free, some new, some old. The days ahead will indeed be full, but what needs to happen will happen. God will sort it all out. I just need to take a deep breath and dig in so I can do my part. I will do my best to live up to this Anne of Green Gables quote: “It’s been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind firmly that you will.”