This past week has really been a rough one for me on many fronts. My schedule was incredibly hectic and full. I feel completely drained and on empty and there is another week looming ahead of me.
I have always been that person. You know the one. She has fifteen balls in the air, and it looks like all is going well, then a ball drops. And then another. And in most cases, I don't get to pick which ball drops first. This time I made a choice. Maybe it is one that everyone doesn't agree with but a hard decision had to be made and for once I made it. Let me explain more by starting with naming my balls in the air (in no particular order).
Ball #1 Relationship
Ball #2 Leisure (Darts, Golf)
Ball #3 Work
Ball #4 My dogs and their training/flyball practices
Ball #5 My school to become a dog trainer
Ball #6 My Spark Family (The Spies)
Now these may not seem like time consuming things on the outside however the casual observer doesn't know how much time that each of those balls may consume. Ball #1 and #3 are obvious and most can relate to the amount of time needed to be put into both of those...at least if you want to do it correctly.
Ball #2 is tied into Ball #1. These are activities that we do together. I have taken time away from darts and it does show in my rankings nationally and how I place in tournaments. It is something that he does not completely understand because of my natural talent for it and I could excel at it, however, it is no longer my passion. We do spend at least one weekend a month in another city/state competing at tournaments not to mention the weekend tournaments that are local. It is what I do now to spend time with my fiance. Golf, I enjoy. It is definitely something we do together and I want to get better at and down the line it is our plans in the retiring years...so I am not giving that up. Plus it keeps me active.
Ball #4 are my dogs and their training. I have 3 dogs and they each have their own issues. Two are rescues and have fear aggression issues. I am currently doing intensive training with my newest addition (black dog Hydro) and it requires ALOT of patience and time. It takes me 20 minutes to walk 5 houses. That is NOT an exaggeration. My yellow dog Cali does training one night a week for Rally and the has flyball practice on another week. Starting this month one or two weekends there are flyball tournaments. Towards the end of summer I will probably be entering her in Rally competitions. This also means training with her on days she is not at class.
Ball #5 is going to school to become a dog trainer. This is 4 semesters of work which entails 20 hours of in class study (2 weekends both days) and 120 hours of observation for the first semester then an exam at the end of the semester. I currently have 75 hours logged and about 2 weeks left to go. The biggest issue is that only time that is not spent working with your dog counts and it has to be at an event that one of the instructors are at. This means that for the past two weeks it has been basically work all day, come home, eat, go to Fortunate Fido get home around 10 pm.
Ball #6 The Spark Family. I am a co-captain of the Silver Spies. Part of my duty is to make the challenges for Thursdays and to ensure that LCW Tuesday runs well. I have been sending the challenges out to all the participating captains and then tallying the results and posting them on the pages (yes, I know I am behind on that right now....working on it after the blog) I also do an Informational Corner each week to help guide the team on this journey. It also means being there for everyone on the thread in ways of support and encouragement and cheering and boosting morale and spirit. At times it can get to be much but I do love it. I have not logged on and read but time really has been of the essence in my life right now. It is not because I don't love and care about all of you, but because if I don't take care of myself I can't take care of you.
Ball #7....yes, it wasn't even in the air much these days so I didn't list it out. Exhaustion. Is it a reason or an excuse? I don't even know anymore. I have been losing weight consistently without it and I don't want to even think about it at the moment but I do know that alot of it is because I have been moving non-stop so my BMR is higher than what is calculated and I have been keeping my calories in range. But I do know that there will come a day that I have to stop this crazy juggling act and things will even out. At that point I will have to put this ball back in the air.
So I had SIX balls in the air and I dropped ball number 6. I had to step away from my Spark Family. I will say I am sorry if I was needed and wasn't there, but I cannot apologize for doing it. I currently still have FIVE balls in the air. I have to figure out some balance or I am going to go insane. I am sitting here typing this with two ice packs on my back and neck because of all the stress I am dealing with and I know that I have to figure this out. I was hoping that by writing this something would click in my head. Alas, no click occurred. Maybe after I let it ruminate it will start to make sense.
All I know is I have to figure this out in case we decide to raise children. I will need to have this balance before then because I don't know if I will be able to be healthy if I don't have good habits already in place.
If you are still here, thank you for reading!
