The past few weeks I have been busy, busy, busy. A girl at my work quit so I have been covering her hours which means more days but I’m so tired by the time I get home because it is a physically demanding job. I want to curl up and take a nap but I can’t do that!
When I get home I need to make sure that the boys are understanding their school work. Then I need to help Wyatt with the new stuff that he is learning, read a chapter from our read-aloud book (which is probably my favorite part of the school day. This month its Charlotte’s Web), do a science experiment, help Quin with anything he didn’t understand from his work.
After all that is taken care of I have to work on illustrations which takes forever! There has got to be an easier way to digitize the illustrations and clean up the pictures than what I do but I don’t know it yet. So right now it can take several hours to transform one illustration so that it is ready to be published.
Trying to squeeze in some writing time so that I can finish Stalled Hearts has been difficult. By the time I get done reading two bedtime stories to my little boy, watch an episode of The Muppet Babies with him, clean up after dinner and the cats. All I want to do is sleep so I can do it all again the next day.
Here lately I feel like I’m burning the candle at both ends. Have you ever had a period of time in your life when you felt like you were being pulled in several different directions and all you wanted to do was curl up and read a book until you fell asleep?
Angela Schroeder
Patricia Kiyono
Elaine Cantrell
Jeff Salter
Joselyn
Tonette Joyce
Four Foxes, One Hound 
I don’t know how you do all that you do… especially without the benefit of a nap.
Though I do comprehend that feeling of burning the candle at both ends. I sort of felt that way for the last dozen of my 26 years on the administrative team of a large public library. The stress was unbelievable. My only solution was to take an early retirement.
From what I gather of your situation, you don’t have that luxury.
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My kids keep telling me to write a best seller and get it turned into a huge blockbuster then I wouldn’t have to work outside of the home.
I can’t imagine the stress that you felt in that library.
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I had 13 death threats from people I had to throw out of the library for improper behavior.
we had some 200 employees and some of them fought like cats and dogs.
Almost every time I was given a big assignment, I was forced to work through a committee to get it done… instead of just doing it. The committee was selected, not on talent or interest, but on demographics.
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Wow, that sounds like it would drain the joy out of being able to work in a library.
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I think any working mom experiences burnout. And since you have to do it by yourself, it’s even more work. Hope you get some days off soon.
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Most of my life I burned candles at both ends. I worked and took care of my nieces, and when they were bigger and my sister was around,I got married and had two children close together. I worked from home part of the time when they were young, then I homeschooled for years. I went back to work full-time. I was getting up at 3 to work at a bakery when there were teens in the house, so I learned to run on 3-4 hours sleep. They were hardly grown and the grandkids came. For the first, I needed to be on -call constantly even when when I did not have him here, and the others came often. I still ended up running on less than 5 hours sleep for quite a number of years after.
What I am trying to say is that it will pass. The days may seem long, but the years go by slowly and you never know what is coming around the bend…sometimes it’s even GOOD!
Bless your heart; skip what you can until things settle down at work.
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That sounds exhausting! I’m trying to enjoy this time while I can because I know that the years seem to slip away so quickly. I take time out of each day to do something with my kids because I do not want to look back and be sorry that I didn’t spend time with them because I was busy.
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definitely. and when people learn that I worked in a library they usually say, “Oh, I’ll bet that was a peaceful job.”
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Oh yes, when I was teaching I never had time for anything especially myself. I often longed for uninterrupted time to write.
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