Whole Lot of Shaking Going On

It's been a busy few days!

First of all, I spent DAYS getting the taxes done. For some reason my connection to my tax program was running v-e-r-y--s-l-o-w-l-y, so that each question took a couple minutes to process and get on to the next. That doesn't sound *that* bad, but there's hundreds of questions. Believe me, I did NOT want to spend that much time thinking about our finances!

I dreamt last night that I had woken up, and suddenly realized that I'd made a critical error on both sets (Federal and State) of forms, and that I somehow had to figure out how to fix it even though the deadline was about an hour away and my taxes had been filed a day and a half ago.

I don't feel all that rested right now...

My step-mother-in-law had emergency surgery on Thursday. Her appendix had died and gone gangrenous. So I was visiting her at the same time that I was doing my taxes and taxi-ing the Vampire back and forth to his rehearsals and classes, and dealing with several health problems of my own.

This, in combination with moving my grandmother into a nursing home in the last few weeks, has brought up a lot of issues for me. About aging and its effects on one's life. On the loss of independence as we get older/ill, and our growing dependence on others to survive as we age. On my own likely ability to cope with 'Empty Nest Syndrome' at some point in the next few years, given that the Vampire is an only child, homeschooled, and 'Special Needs'; in other words, given that he's been my nearly constant companion for the last 5 years, and that I've invested an extraordinary amount of time and energy and dedicated Fretting Time on him.

These issues will be taking up a great deal of my time and thinking in the coming weeks. I imagine it is good to ponder them once in a while, as to some degree they will apply to most of us (we hope - the alternative is even less knowable and for many, less desirable). But it's not a comfortable thing to dwell on these issues.

We are also entering into the 'panic stage' of the Theatrix production. The kids are enjoying their rehearsals, according to the Vampire, but the set crews are starting to realize exactly how demanding this particular production is going to be, and how much time is going to be required in order to get things done before the show is scheduled to actually begin. And we are having serious doubts that there are enough hours available to get us there. On Friday we were all there, working industriously until after 10pm, and by the end of the evening people's voices were octaves higher than they had been at the beginning of the work session. We can only hope that this is the 'Set Version' of 'Final Dress Rehearsal Syndrome', and that somehow everything will magically pull together on the first night of performance.

So the world is full of Challenges right now. Challenges to which I will rise brilliantly, of course. Right?

Right?