Gymnastics

I remember this fact from the 1992 Olympic Summer Games in Barcelona… the width of a balance beam is five inches, only slightly wider than the average TV controller. I was so into gymnastics that year. Those were the days of Kim Zmeskal and Shannon Miller. My sister and I would run across our family room, doing carwheels and landing with our arms held high like real gymnasts.

If I look around for a remote control in my living room, I won’t find one. We don’t have a TV! That’s right – we spend our nights eating dinner, reading, cleaning, laughing, browsing the Internet, occasionally watching a movie on the laptop, but we never watch TV. But if I look around for a balance beam in my living room or anywhere in my life, I won’t find one of those either. I feel like I have NO balance right now. Poor Kim (my fave) fell off the balance beam in the games that year. It was disappointing to say the least, although she bounced back with outstanding performances on her other routines. I feel like I fell off my balance beam too when the semester started about a month ago…

Here’s the thing about my life. I am busy. Very busy. But I have always been busy. I have always been a work two jobs, coach a volleyball team, lead a Bible study, go for a three mile run, meet two friends for coffee today kind of girl. I don’t know how to not be busy. (I know this can be a bad at times…) But the thing is, I thrive on busy. I love having a schedule and having to be disciplined about how I spend  my time. If I have a free day (which is rare), I barely get anything done. But if I only have 20 spare minutes in my day, I might get the bathroom cleaned AND the dishwasher unloaded in that time slot.

The problem I am running into right now is that I live in too many worlds. I am a wife and a teacher and a student. And it’s hard…and often confusing. Literally, confusing. Like I can’t keep track of what my next priority is because it’s almost time to eat dinner (wifey), I have 20 drafts to read before tomorrow (teacher), and I have to read three cantos of The Faerie Queene by Wednesday (literature nerd). All these things are TOP priority in their own little world.

So I have to admit, three worlds is a lot for me. I am loving my new role of wife more than I thought I would. I have loved setting up our little AZ home, and I enjoy finding new recipes and cooking dinner a few nights a week. I like hanging out with my husband and going on little adventures around our new city. I even kind of like cleaning my own kitchen and bathroom, knowing that only one other person lives there to make it dirty (cleaning with multiple roommates is always complicted and never ending… especially when they are all girls…five heads full of pretty girl hair do not a pretty shower make). I would LOVE for Micah to help me a little more around the house (hint, hint…I wonder if he even reads “our” blog…), but all in all, I like being a wifey.

I also like being a student…and a teacher…but I am quickly discovering it’s hard to do both at the same time. I am so thankful to be back in school pursuing my dream of getting my PhD. I love school, so I came up with a way to stay in it as long as possible. I have secured myself SIX more years of school. Pretty impressive, huh? I am challenged by my coursework and excited about the all the possibilites with my degree.

But I also love teaching. In some ways, teaching is easy this year. Compared to teaching high school, my job is a breeze. I only teach three days a week. I only have two classes with 38 students total…which means I only have to grade 38 essays at a time, instead of the 120 essays I was constantly hauling around with me last year (not joking). But grading 38 essays is a little different when you are also trying to read the 3,800 pages of reading assigned from your own teachers and are currently writing two 38 paged papers for your own classes. (I am exaggerating…but only slightly…grad teachers are pretty generous with their reading assignments).

Basically, all I am saying is that my life is crazy right now. I feel like I could do the wife and student thing well or the wife and teacher thing easily. In the past, I could have easily survived the teacher/student combo, but I don’t plan on getting rid of my hot hubs anytime soon….

Truth be told, I don’t plan on getting rid of any of my little worlds, because I love them all so much. I am taking suggestions though on how to manage my time better. If you have any ideas on how to find my balance beam, get back up there like Kim did, and walk evenly between these three world, I would love your suggestions! I am loving this calendar by Emily at Jones Design Company. It has a place for prayer requests at the bottom, which I think is the only way I will make it through this semester!

At least TV is not stealing anytime out of my schedule….