There’s something I really enjoy about returning from a trip overseas. With every step from baggage claim to my car, I shed worries and thoughts of work, my steps growing lighter and more energetic. I climb behind the wheel and on my drive home notice sights and street signs I normally take for granted. Everything clamors for my attention but nothing distracts me from the thoughts of finally returning home.

I pull into my driveway and cannot wait to get inside the house and wrap myself in a warm cocoon of familiarity, hugs, and loving words. Every time I return is better than the last. It almost makes me want to leave again just to get the feeling of returning home. Almost, but not quite. For now, I’ll just enjoy myself and spend my time with those I care about most in this world.

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The Fantasies of Youth

Did you ever want to run away and live in a museum?

Not me! Although I enjoyed “From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler” as much as the next kid, the MoMA always seemed like an impractical choice for a stowaway.

No, I’d run away to THE MALL.

Picture it: Spend all night playing the arcade games, stuffing yourself silly in the food court, reading in the bookstores until your eyes crossed, and finally, crashing on a Serta mattress.

What do you mean “You’d get caught”?

Why do you think I took this job as a night watchman?

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They say you can’t go home again.

They’re wrong.

In fact, with that D-Hopper you’re holding there, sliding through dimensions is as easy as falling off a log. Easier even, given how hard it would be to find a— no, strike that. You still have trees, here.

I could go home at any time. Back to the thick, choking air, noxious and burning in your lungs. Back to the toxic swamps under blood red skies. Back to the cancer that awaits, creeping inside you with every breath.

Yes, I can go home again. But why would I ever want to?

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I hope all of you people who don’t have to work or attend school today enjoy your time off! As for me, it’s business as usual (literally)…

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When she was seven, she made a sandcastle on the beach.

The boy next door helped her shape turrets. A courtyard. A moat.

After they finished, he fashioned a tiny paper flag and planted it, the flimsy pennant fluttering in the salt-laden breeze.

When she awoke, the castle was gone, erased by the whispering tide.

The boy and his family had left before dawn.

Now she helps her son place his flag atop a crumbling sandcastle, notes the rush of the incoming sea, and pulls the boy into her arms for an embrace she does not ever want to end.

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As you may have gathered from the subject matter of today’s haiku, life here at Casa de Bedlam has been interesting and not-quite-as-expected, recently.  It seems I’m a glutton for punishment, or at least for booking my time 100% full.  For example, here’s some of the things I’m currently involved in:

• I’m taking the Fundamentals of Engineering exam this fall (October 29th, to be exact) and a quick review of the exam topics proved without a doubt that I was in no way, shape, or form ready to take such an exam without serious prep-work.  Since it covers topics that I only briefly learned about (if at all) in school such as Thermodynamics, Fluid Mechanics, Biology, Engineering Economics, Probability and Statistics, etc., I decided that I definitely needed to have some sort of “refresher” course.  I signed up for an online review course through UNCC, which provides videos of narrated PowerPoint slides as well as forums and an instructor for questions, while you follow along at home with reference materials, handbooks, and sample tests.  So far so good, but I’m basically devoting 2-3 hours a night to reviewing this material, and plan to continue to do so until just before the exam in October.  Definitely puts a crimp on my free time, as I’m helping put the girls to bed around 8pm and then retiring upstairs to a desk to cram material that I didn’t learn 10-15 years ago and haven’t needed to know as a professional engineer since then.
• As if that wasn’t enough, I’m also in the process of training to participate in the Thunder Road (Amica Insurance) Half Marathon here in Charlotte in November (I did say I was a glutton for punishment, right?)  This will be my first half-marathon, ever, and I’m trying to train correctly for it, which means I’ve invested in an “official” training plan from Runner’s World, and although I’m not quite always following it to the letter, I’m doing my best to make sure I’m in shape and have the necessary base mileage training to finish the race, if not meet a time goal.  During the summer, this has meant getting up extra-early to get the runs in before work – I hope as the weather cools off, though, I can move my workouts back more towards lunch-hour, as I tend to enjoy those a little more, and have the chance to run some of these workouts with coworkers when I can join them at lunchtime.
• Work’s also taking a toll, as I’m transitioning back from a support role on other peoples’ projects to doing lead-type work on some prospective future projects that I might head up on the electrical side.
• I’m still the website admin for our neighborhood HOA, which hasn’t taken much time recently, other than the fact that the Board (of which I’m now the 5th and tiebreak member) has decided to allow the website to include advertising from 3rd parties, so I’ve had to put on my “lawyer hat” and put together a quasi-legal contract for people to fill out and sign prior to purchasing ad space on the website.  (I put my foot down at actually managing the ad contracts, but I’m at least getting the framework in place for someone else to do it.)
• There’s also some other things on the horizon – we signed both of the girls up for soccer this fall, so my Saturday mornings are going to be tied up for the foreseeable future, and of course the CP starts Sunday School (religious school) as of mid-September, so that’s another 4-hour block of my weekend blown away right there.
• Between work, my “extracurricular activities”, and spending at least a little time with the family, I barely have time to eat, let alone blog on a regular basis.  I am hoping this eases up after the end of October, when the biggest non-work commitment on my time is completed, but I have a feeling I need to just start trying to get by on a little less sleep, and invoke the 80% rule on my efforts more often, or else I’m going to be seriously overwhelmed in the upcoming months.

How about you all – have you ever taken on more than you can handle?  What did you do to manage it all? Did something finally give, or did you overcome all the obstacles and triumph like a superhero?

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