Spice of Life

Wikipedia describes drowning, Drowning itself is quick and silent, although it may be preceded by distress which is more visible. [3]  A person drowning is unable to shout or call for help, or seek attention, as they cannot obtain enough air. The  instinctive drowning response  is the final set of  autonomic reactions  in the 20 – 60 seconds before sinking underwater, and to the untrained eye can look similar to calm safe behavior. [3] [4]   Lifeguards  and other persons trained in rescue learn to recognize drowning people by watching for these movements. [3] This definition describes pretty perfectly what I witnessed happening to my husband two nights ago, not literally but emotionally.  The kids were talking to him while he was getting them dessert, he went to our room, closed both doors and climbed under the covers.  I gave him a few minutes because after 10 years of marriage you know when your spouse needs space, you know the sign...

Today we got our Jesus Storybook Bible in the mail so I started reading some to the kids.  We read about the beginning, creation and the garden.  Life as God meant it to be....perfect, no sickness, no tears...only love, perfect love.  Sigh...the worlds greatest fairy tale, love story and adventure all rolled into one.  This has not been a good week for me.  I have been pretty low, feeling depressed, lonely, like a failure at life.  Sure that might sound dramatic but it's real.  Homeschooling has been hard, fucking hard.  Excuse me, but I think it deserves an expletive.  It's been rewarding, when I see my boy excelling in reading, but the tough times have begun to outweigh the good times.  I've been depressed because I rarely see my husband and when I do it's either a hi/bye when he gets home and I drive in to work or after putting the kids to bed, when we're both tired and drained.  Throw on top of that the fact that he's in school ...

Lately I've been thinking about our culture and how busy we are.  I work at a physical therapy clinic and a large part of my job is scheduling patients.  Sometimes it doesn't take long for them to figure out the best day and time to come in, other times they're standing there for what seems like hours hemming and hawing..."Umm, next week I'm slammed.  I have this thing and that thing and I have to take my kid to this and that."  Which brings me to my main point, are we training our little people to be busy, over committed adults?  Don't get me wrong, I think organized sports, dance lessons, music lessons and martial arts are excellent things for our kids to be involved in and absolutely plan on finding the right one for our kids (when we can afford it); but I also think it's possible to do too much.  I know so many adults that are over committed in their lives and lack the ability to say "no".  I learned in college how important boundaries ar...