Some Play

Had anyone told me that someday, in the future, I'd have a large plastic play structure in my house, taking up most of our one spare bedroom, I would have smugly replied, "Oh, no. No plastic. You must have me confused with someone else. Someone who's in favor of large plastic play structures."

Whatever. This kid loves to climb, crawl through, slide, and stand tall on said plastic abomination. She sends her friend Bob down it. It's awesome. And Craigslist is awesome. One evening of tutoring = many long winter months o' fun ahead. Ahh... plastic. Mwwwah!

Some Work

Before Storey was even born, Jason and I decided we'd do what we could to keep one of us at home caring for her rather than both of us work and pay someone else to do the caring. Just last month it appears we've finally managed to piece together a solution that keeps us out of the red each month. Triomphe! Here's a little rundown though of life as we currently know it:

• Jason gets up super early, so that he can come home early after working all day.
  
• I watch Storey, walk around town running errands and keep the house in repair/less-filthy all day.
  
• In addition, I work about an hour each day from home for a local non-profit while Storey is napping. Sometimes she doesn't nap, so I get to ignore her and work with her crying and eating my knees during that hour. Fun.
  
• Then, when Jason gets home, I go off to work, to the library up at the end of our street to either teach or work the desk in the computer lab or tutor.
  
• While he watches Storey, Jason also makes dinner and runs a few loads of laundry, goes grocery shopping etc.
  
• Then on Saturday I work at the library again all morning, while Jason has Storey again.
  
• On top of all this, I still paint, print, package and sell art most weeks.
  
• Jason also volunteers for LEAF and coordinates a hot meal at a local church.
• Somewhere in there we also feed the dogs, scoop crap out of the yard, clean the bathrooms and the kitchen once in a while, run the dishwasher and try to vacuum all of the dog hair off the floor before Storey exceeds her ingestible limit. In the time that's left, if there is any, we maybe watch an episode of Weeds together, go for a nice walk, or read a sentence or two in a book before surrendering to sleep.
  

There's never enough time for everything. The dogs are bored and seem more like furry furniture than pets, spousal-only time has become a distant memory, and the hours I used to enjoy to myself... talking with a friend, going for a walk, laying in the sun, reading a whole book, gardening... I've come to accept that there isn't that kind of time anymore.

All of this to say, we're really tired. But here's the thing: these are our choices. I sometimes wonder what a life where we worked just as hard or harder towards ends that were not of our choosing would be like. So, we're tired, but we're also very lucky.