It's raining

Sometimes when it rains, it pours. At least that's how it has been the past week here in the Parks' house. Both literally, with May rains drenching our land into the rare green that we'll get here in Colorado for the year, and a leaky roof that has us searching for a more legitimate repair option than we did 2 years ago when the same spot was leaking. And it is raining in our office, where details fairly flew at us from the moment we sat back down in our black rolling chairs and pulled up to our monitors after a week off.  I wonder if it's worth taking a week off when the rest of the world is still working and dragging you into it too? That is, of course, despite your best intentions for deep-breathing and practicing good time-management skills where you can only do one task at a time, so why kid yourself into trying to multitask? (At least that's what those books say - I'm convinced that I really can do multiple things simultaneously and give it my best effort on an almost hourly basis. And that, my friends, is the difference between knowledge and knowledge as power.)

Jason is bowling through editorial rounds on his Thesis and, every time I look over my shoulder, it appears he is making good headway. I'm wrapping up our internship this week with Dan and Sarah which involves various meetings, sending in internship review and activity forms to the powers that be, generally thinking through how to be helpful in their transition to their next space (they are headed to ND for school this summer, to teach and take linguistics courses, but are keeping their home here in Longmont so we'll enjoy seeing them again in a few months), and making sure all the loose ends of the Ecuador project that they have been primarily responsible for in their internship are in the right place.We are about ready to submit our internal-to-the-organization SL survey report from Ecuador...it's just under 50 pages. A mini-thesis, marking hours and hours of work by our team. It's beautiful.

And then there's planning. That's the toughest part, I find. Needing to plan future events in the midst of a present that feels rather overwhelmed with to-do's and details. Not that our life is different than most others - we are busy people in this world! I love what one of my favorite professors told me in undergrad (I've taken the liberty to adapt it to my current context because she was talking about course requirements):  

"Your work will always expand to fill the time you give it. Decide how much time you have for every carefully chosen task because, at the end of the day, your day will have been filled - either with tasks you chose, or those that chose you."