My plate is overflowing

My life is presently too busy. It just so happened that several things that won't happen for very long are all happening at the same time. A small group Bible study at my church, which only lasts for 5 weeks, started 9 days ago. On Sunday after Paul's 1pm football game was done, we headed to PictureMe for pictures. Then we came home and had dinner, and then I went to the Bible study (left our house at 6:45pm and returned home at 9pm). I have been staying up later than usual. For years (decades) my average bedtime was 9:30pm. Sometimes I'd even go to bed as early as 9pm, but it was rare for me to be up past 10pm. My average wake time used to be 6am. I always felt like the optimum amount of sleep for me was 8-9 hours a night. I was only in "sleep deprivation mode" with Nadia for about 6 months (the worst being the first 4 months). Once she started sleeping through the night, I returned to sleeping 8-9 hours a night on average. The sleep deprivation stage was MUCH longer with Ian. The strange thing is that even though he's now sleeping on average 11 hours at night, I am averaging about 7 hours a night. Often I am in bed for 8 hours, but I usually am only resting at the end because I can't seem to sleep until 7am. My average bedtime has shifted to 10:30pm for the first time in my life, and sometimes I stay up as late as 11pm. What makes it even weirder is that Paul has been going to bed 2 hours earlier than usual. Our trends are going in opposite directions. I honestly think that due to missing so much sleep for more than a year, I got used to functioning on less sleep. Sunday night I stayed up until midnight. That was only because the Steelers were playing. I haven't moved my bedtime THAT late!

It was a very last minute decision to join MOPS again. If I had to do it over again, I wish I had declined. I'm going to stick it out for the next four meetings (October -December), but unless I have a change of heart during that time period, I'm going to make December 5th my last meeting. Monday just feels too busy with MOPS in the morning (9-11) and then Nadia having ballet from 4:00-4:45. The biggest plus of the MOPS thus far has been talking with a woman whose daughter also has eating issues. It's been encouraging to hear that her almost 3 year old can now eat soft table foods (without them being put in a blender). It gives me hope that maybe that will also be true for Ian. Ian screams when I drop him off. Nadia has a blast. At least Ian doesn't cry for very long, but it's hard on me emotionally to go through this 3 mornings a week (Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday). The next MOPS meeting isn't until October 24 due to the Columbus holiday in between now and then. So the next few Mondays should be less hectic. We did a craft this morning (painting), which is probably part of the reason I'm second guessing my decision.

I'm not regretting that I joined the ladies Bible study. I did another study by Priscilla Shirer a few years ago, and I wasn't keen on it. In fact, I dropped out part way through the study. I'm a big fan of Beth Moore studies. I have to say that this first week of homework on Jonah has been really outstanding. Today is our second week of the study, which lasts seven weeks. So life is really going to calm down in 6 weeks as both Bible studies will be done (Sunday night and Tuesday morning). I'll miss them I'm sure, but it's been a challenge this past week to get my homework done for both Bible studies (each of them have 5 days of homework). Of course it's never a bad thing to spend more time than usual studying the Bible!

One thing I am missing right now is time to read. I enjoyed reading last semester. I checked out a book last Tuesday morning, but I haven't even read one page yet. I also put in an interlibrary loan request last Friday for a book that Jo recommended. If I stopped blogging and/or reading updates on Facebook, I'd have time to read books. There are other things I'd like to squeeze into my schedule such as doing more lesson planning as to activities I do with the kids each week and also more menu planning for what I cook for dinner (and trying more new recipes would be part of that). One thing I've contemplated in my desire to have more time for these things (Bible study, reading, etc.) would be to hire the cleaning service to resume coming twice a month. I'd still do some of the things on the Motivated Mom lists as they don't do all the things she lists, but I could leave the dusting, vacuuming, and cleaning of the bathrooms up to them. That in and of itself isn't going to free up oodles of time, but it would lighten my load a little. If I find out that my FMLA leave will be paid leave, I am definitely going to call the cleaning service. So far they're telling me I can only have one paycheck (two weeks) at full pay. I am checking with the union to see if they concur because what HR is saying doesn't seem (to me) to match up with what our contract says about FMLA. Truthfully, we can afford the cleaning service even if my leave isn't paid leave. Maybe I should just resume that no matter what.

To add to this busy schedule this week, the faculty meeting we missed due to flooding has been rescheduled for this Friday. I also have 6 appointments scheduled with students/advisees during the two hours before the faculty meeting. I could go on, but I think you get an idea of what is filling my plate right now to the point that it feels like it is overflowing.