Turn It OFF!

All week long, I've had the Bloomberg teletype going through my mind. Constant chatter, reminders of things to do, issues to worry about, things I can't forget. I wake up in the middle of the night after Little Miss fusses or my husband snores too loudly one time too many or Mister Man comes to poke me to tell me about a dream... and then the machine I thought I'd silenced is back.

I breathe in slowly to the count of four. I hold it a beat. I breathe out to the count of four. I focus on the counting, hoping I can ignore the buzzing in the background of my brain. I read somewhere that this breathing engages some relaxation deep within you, and who knows how it works or if it does, but whatever. I continue this four or five times and feel myself slowly start to relax, but as soon as I make that admission, the thoughts become louder again.

I take a deep breath in and out, then I start counting backwards from two hundred, hoping to fall asleep and silence my innermost thoughts for just a little while before the alarm goes off and I truly need to focus on them. Again.

This week seems to be particularly bad for this. It's been a busy week, and while some of it is good in that I've gotten a lot done, I have a lot more that isn't done. And my time is tight.

I give up. I can't ignore everything, so here's my list of ten things I can't stop thinking about this week. Just tell me I'm not the only one who gets stuck in these ruts.

10) My boss's little boy is in the hospital with pretty bad pneumonia, having had surgery to insert tubes to drain fluid from his lungs on Monday. I feel so badly for thinking my boss was making a big deal over nothing last week when he talked the pneumonia that didn't even require breathing treatments. I just hope his son is better soon.

9) The Cinco de Mayo planning meeting is next Tuesday. I still haven't put together the list of tasks for this. I haven't made the agenda. I haven't looked at our notes from last year's event. I haven't found someone to step up to help chair this. I haven't sent out a reminder to the school yet -- I hope people show for the meeting....

8) Do those little candy hearts have milk in them? Last week on Monday, Little Miss had horrible diarrhea that lasted into Tuesday, and she had to stay home from school until Thursday. My parents swear they didn't give her anything with milk. This week, Little Miss had diarrhea that went away quickly on Sunday afternoon, but maybe it's the food she's getting at Sunday School. Did they accidentally give her Goldfish? I think she really is allergic to dairy. Wow, that's going to be rough as she gets older.

7) I'm exhausted. I'm really tired. I need to get more sleep. But even when I got more sleep and went to bed before 10, I'm still exhausted. Maybe the blood bank turning me away for low iron in my blood (11.0 on Saturday) really is something I should pay attention to. Or maybe I just need to sleep more. If only people wouldn't wake me up and I could sleep through the night. Would it be wrong to wear earplugs to bed?

6) Is my thumb healing ok? Every time I accidentally bump it, it gets so sore. Is that normal? And it feels bumpy in a way that's different from my other thumb. Maybe it's just scar tissue that needs to break down. How long before I call the doctor? I really should get a physical anyway. It's been awhile. Oh, and I'm due at the dentist, too. I need to remember to call the dentist tomorrow.

5) I can't believe Mister Man is going to kindergarten next year. The kindergarten roundup meeting is on the 24th. That seems so soon, and I can get the registration packet then. I hope Mrs. F isn't retiring. I've heard such good things about her, and the other kindergarten teacher is a first year teacher this year. I hope he gets someone who gets him. Or maybe we can get into the dual language program. But that's so competitive with the lottery. I wonder how many slots will even be open with all the siblings from previous years. It would be nice to get him fluent in Spanish though....

4) I was the featured blogger for SITS last week. That was way cool. I can't believe I had 237 different people (yes, I counted and kept an Excel spreadsheet -- shut up) visit me. How interesting that of all those people, only a few people had the same name. I would have thought that there would be far more overlap. I wonder how many of those people will come back again. I hope at least some people enjoy what I write. Did I choose good posts? What if I would have put out some other ones. I'm so far behind in my blog reading after this though... I feel badly for the people that I haven't visited in awhile. And what about the BATW people. I need to focus on them, too. I still feel badly, but I just got so overwhelmed then, but the SITS was so much more and I got through that. I need to add them to the to do list.

3) I hope I can do a 5K. I've been learning to run for so long, and I want to do the St Patty's Day run. I can't believe that's only six weeks away. I'm working on week six right now, but I didn't get beyond week 8 before. And I have the worst part yet to go. But at least I have done it so far. I'm due to run on Friday, but when will I find the time? I have chiro with Mister Man after Little Miss gets on the bus. Will I have time to get to the gym and back before she gets home from preschool? Otherwise, I'm sunk since my husband has basketball until late that night. Saturday doesn't work, and I don't want to just skip a day. Maybe if I just take a quick shower to wash the sweat off but then come straight home and do the hair and makeup thing while Little Miss is taking her nap.

2) Can we pull off a book fair? We stopped doing the Scholastic one over a year ago because we can't get the volunteers. Usborne is too expensive, especially with this economy. It's not fair to ask the parents to buy those books, and we need to get the books into the hands of the families who can't buy the Usborne and need the $1.99 books. If we try to do this though, will we end up with Scholastic hounding us non-stop after this? But really it's the right thing to do, isn't it? Maybe I can help get things settled. At least another elementary is donating a ton of their book fair profits to us. That helps. How are we going to get teachers to choose their books though if they can't see and touch them? Maybe I can take a trip to the warehouse with the principal and a teacher representative.

1) I so don't want to go to work. I don't like the work I'm doing now, but there's no way I can justify quitting my job in this economy. It's so bad for so many people, and I know I couldn't find a similar job even in a good economy because I'm part time and work from home and do get challenging work. We really should just sock away whatever money we can, as this environment is so shaky. The way things are going, who knows how long my division will even be around. If they shutter my division, I definitely won't have a job. It would be nice to be able to spend more time with the wee ones and do more volunteer stuff, but who knows what will happen with the economy. It's looking so deep right now. And protracted. And I see high inflation coming. Really high. How do we combat that? My parents haven't mentioned the word Florida even though the wee ones keep talking about how they want to go back. How bad does that mean this is?

Wow. I promise I'm not really that neurotic. All the time. Actually, I think I feel my blood pressure going down just typing this out. Ohm. Ohm.

I love how I have one small train of thought that goes so many different places so quickly. All I really need to do is make a list of what I need to get done and start cranking away at it. Although (hello school district accounting people I've now left two messages with and have yet to call me back), it would be nice if when I try to cross something off the list anyone else involved would cooperate!

So what have you been thinking about this week?