Oh the busy days of now

It was a beautiful fall weekend--no, an exquisite fall weekend, and we did all the sorts of things a family should in this event. We went to a Rockies game, we watched some fireworks, we stood about on the sidelines of a soccer game* and two little league games**. I went for a run along trails brushed by yellowing leaves and ripening plums. I strategized about making wild plum jam and chokecherry jam. I bought plants and planted them in the yard and now one edge of the yard is looking better, definitely starting to look better, less like the chicken-scratched flats of a tarpaper shack and more like something you'd like to rest your eyes on while you have a drink. We had dinner with friends (the long-delayed BBQ I complained about earlier, in fact). There was a sleepover and a birthday party and neither one was at my house. I cleaned the floors.

In spite of all this, or, probably, because of it, I spent the entire weekend holding my breath while I dashed from one thing to another and by Sunday night I was in a vicious, hectoring mood. I need to improve my practice, I can see. My living-in-the-moment zen practice.

*Helen's first. I now have two children in organized sports. This is both a wonderful thing and sort of a slow torture.

**I managed, regretfully, to attend neither. The secret saving grace to having multiple children in multiple activities is that at some point it becomes physically impossible to be present at them all and while this doesn't exactly provide free time, it does provide some respite. Except on the times, like next weekend, when everything is staggered and there is neither free time nor respite--nor time that would normally be occupied by doing things like, say, brushing teeth or securing food.

But am I grateful? Yes. I'm grateful for it all, and already feeling melancholy about its inevitable end.