Too Much!

I am in one of my periods of overwhelm, and while my logical self says to "get 'er done" all the rest of me says "run away!" I chose to ignore my logical self today and do a hide-from-the-world nap. I've had a big week of OP (other people's) problems, combined with so much stuff I need to finish before the end of next week. My day would have been better spent focusing on what I have to finish, but after I spent a few hours dealing with my son's dog -- who has been having pain issues for the past few days and came to stay with me yesterday -- and finding out he (the dog) needs expensive surgery, I was kind of done in. The old boy was able to come home from the vet today; his surgery is scheduled for next Wednesday. Even though he doesn't live with me, he did for a long time and still stays with me often. He (like my dog and her baby) is certainly one of my own, and I hate to see him suffer. When I took him to the vet this morning he snapped and growled at the vet technicians. I have never seen him do that before.

My eldest son called shortly after I got home and asked me how it was going. I told him, probably way more than he wanted to hear. My kids and I are good at providing an ear for each other, but I am not usually overwhelmed by things -- or at least I don't usually let people know I'm overwhelmed. In addition to the Angus situation, the class I'm teaching is ending soon, fall classes start at the end of this month (I have five altogether), the class I have to take that I've been blowing off all summer is ending on August 11 and I have got to get it done, and my house is a wreck. I know I can't do everything at once, but today I felt like I couldn't do any of it. Unfortunately, I'm not much of a linear thinker, so rather than planning out the best way to do it and proceeding that way, I see it as a big pile of poo I need to wallow in all at once. The class I'm teaching is caught up so I just need to post some online work for that. The next shovel-load of poo will be the class I'm taking, which I'll do my best to finish tomorrow and Sunday. Whether it is or isn't my inclination to prioritize, I do have to figure out the best way to go about it all and knock out one thing at a time.

Nothing will get done tonight, that's for sure. I gave Angus a pain pill and Mazie and I (both of whom are non-medicated) had no problem joining a drowsy Angus on the sofa for a two-hour nap. Now my youngest son is sitting in his work parking lot with his non-starting car. I could drive down there to help. Instead I gave him some good take-care-of-it-yourself tips. I don't know anything about cars, so I told him to call a tow truck and get a ride home with his friend who works there. Tomorrow he'll have to find a ride to work and hope his vehicle is fixable. I would never tell my sons, "Not my problem," and I'm always willing to help. This week, though, I'm a bit depleted. I'll give advice from afar. That's pretty helpful. I give good advice.