Better

Just what every overwhelmed Mama wants – FIFTY POUNDS OF TOMATOES. Hahah!

Actually, I am feeling better.

We got back from camping early because of the rain. It rained mostly at night – really heavy pounding rain, I was SO thankful our tent kept us dry – though also Saturday afternoon necessitating a trek to Pizza Hut (we were 30+ minutes from cell reception and any place to eat out). Then Sunday we packed up and went to hang out with our friends who we camped with at a swimming hole at a river nearby to where we camped. I’m sure it was raining in the campground by evening again, and it POURED ALL DAY Monday. I was so glad to wake up to the rain on Monday morning on our roof instead of the tent, especially since we would’ve had to pack up in the rain.

I like camping well enough – some bits quite a lot, other bits less, but it’s not something I crave, or would do without my husband/kids wanting to. This trip didn’t go as smoothly as I would’ve liked – it was mosquito-y (even during the daytime, which is weird, for Maine), and the site was too close to the other sites (though not “close” for most people’s standards), and the outhouses were UNUSABLE. Friends don’t let friends use outhouses like those. So we drove (because we’re ugly Americans like that) to the ONE bath-house with showers and flush toilets. It was still fun, especially Sunday, and I got some good pictures that I hope to post someday.

Anyway, the camping trip angst started Thursday because I had so much to do, a lot of it cooking for the trip (I make a lot ahead of time) and I’d already been in the kitchen so damn much from the peaches. And the cucumbers before that. And the green beans. And the blueberries… strawberries… raspberries. But mostly the peaches. And I was just done. with. the. kitchen. And then camping, with the mosquitos, and the humid nasty weather not fun for camping in, and not being sure others would agree with me re: when the right time was to leave, etc.

Then we got back and the mountain of laundry, and the sudden dread that it was time to get back on the merry-go-round of school year activities. Insert primal scream. I just… felt like crying (okay, I did cry), or yelling at people (um yeah, I did that too)… and my house is a wreck, and the gardens are a wreck (so weedy… so many fallen plants from all the rain/wind) and so I WAS A WRECK.

Already wrecking. And then I got the email from the band teacher which totally made it so two of the five “school days” will now be primarily “performing arts related classes/lessons etc” from 9-1 two days a week. Academics? Hah. Those aren’t necessary, are they?

And then I felt like crying and yelling AND either holing up in my room behind a locked door under my covers OR driving 10 hours by myself to hole up in my room at my PARENTS’ HOUSE because really? how am I supposed to deal with all this mess and hassle and the stress of figuring it all out?

I know this is total “first world problems” – what a luxury it is to choose my children’s schoolwork and activities, etc. & etc. And I know a lot of people have hard/fast rules about one activity/kid etc & etc.

For whatever reason (and no, it shouldn’t’ve been hormones), the whole mess was really bringing me down. Not the how-am-I-going-to-manage getting everyone where they need to go, and schooled, and do my job(s) etc., (though I do wonder that!) but the whole how am I going to make all the decisions necessary to plan our lives thing. Sometimes it just feels like A LOT of responsibility.

After a third? fourth? super-crappy night’s sleep, I woke up feeling somewhat better this morning, and more in control of it all. The kids’ had a good school day; I don’t hate my kitchen anymore (for now); I tried a new bread recipe w/ a new technique (baked in a covered clay dish) and a new potato main dish – potatoes (fingerlings, picked from the garden) cooked in bacon fat in a hot oven, with eggs scrambled on top, and a smidge of parm cheese and bacon crumbles, with garlicky swiss chard on the side (also from the garden), and the new bread and some grapes. Yummy, filling, and satisfying. I got into the garden too – pulled some annuals up, cut some things waaaay back, hilled up some more soil around my beets (some are almost golf ball size!!), and picked green beans, cucumbers, the chard, and some more tomatoes (I had enough plums to make my first batch of oven-dried tomatoes today).

I’m going to finish this and go relax – Chris got ice cream on the way home from picking Madelyn up from ballet/jazz – read and watch an episode of Burn Notice.

I’m thinking I can do this now – even the 50lbs of tomatoes.