Working Up To My Potential

The ottoman is covered in cat hair. So is the rug. So is the couch underneath the sleeping (snoring) culprit. She sleeps in various places around the house to spread the hair around. I can never brush her enough; there is always more loose fur and dandruff (yuck!) I can never vacuum enough.

Our kitchen table needs to be cleared off every day before we can eat on it. The house needs caulking and staining. So does the garage/apartment. Behind the house is the excavation for the foundation for the addition that we need to erect this summer, that we've been planning for years, which is stalled, waiting for the concrete guy (not that we'll have much time to work on it once he gets here, but for now we can blame our inaction on him). By the woodshed is a pile of logs that is only very slowly being cut and split to fill the shed for this winter. Someday we will get a year ahead on the wood, so the next year's wood will be seasoning outside while the current year's wood is stacked nicely in the shed. Not this year, though.

My teaching semester starts in three weeks. I need to plan my classes. I have to finish my summer class. Both cars need cleaning. There are trees crowding the driveway that need to be cut. The driveway itself needs a load of gravel. The garden needs harvesting, weeding, and training. The grass by the pond needs mowing. The trails need to be cleared, and encroaching branches need to be trimmed. Meals need to be planned. A budget needs building. Email needs answering.We have a weirdly shaped storage area upstairs that is full of things we haven't seen in years which would be lovely to jettison. I've been planning to do it for ages. All around the house are boxes and bins that have been used as receptacles for anything lying around that I've wanted to put out of sight. One of our computers is old and full of unsorted pictures and documents that need to be gone through so we can either replace the computer or just scrub out all the unnecessary stuff so it will run better.

There are many more chores and projects that need doing: a shelter built and a trailer bought for the tractor, rooms painted, a floor sealed to prevent the splinters that happen every winter when the wood dries out, and more, and more, ad infinitum. And these things have needed doing, some of them, for years. But then there is work, parenthood (all the fun stuff PLUS rides back and forth to camp, soccer twice a week, playdates...) and service obligations. I keep wondering who has time to watch all those great TV shows people are always talking about.

This is one of the reasons I began this blog. Things always pile up, priorities all seeming equal. Enough always gets done, somehow, but it really is not enough, ever. Is it enough to just do enough not to end up on the street (from lost job, unrepaired house, unpaid bills, etc.)? Or is that not enough because there is so much more to do? I feel like the students I am always telling that they are "not working to their potential". Of course, my teachers always told me that too. I thought I had changed since high school, but maybe I haven't. The assignments are just different now.