Swimming in a Hurricane

My husband's current 'job' requires really long hours- a major investment of time and energy that will hopefully pay off with a traditional job that has more normal hours, a steady paycheck, and a cool project to show for it. Meanwhile, we're relying on savings and my energy to keep the household going.

What I'm trying to say, it I have yet to take the kayak out. However, thanks to skate-skiing, I recognize what is going on below the surface: I'm learning to swim in a hurricane. Much like when I added skiing to my life this winter, I am building my stamina to a new level. I get up and take care of our little farm, I clean the house, prepare many meals, run the errands, and parent the kids. All day, all night. And then get up and do it again.

Typically, I'm up at 6:30am and don't go to bed until 11pm, in order to get all the dishes done each day, laundry folded, bills paid, meals cooked and stored for my husband's dinners at the office. I'm hoping that I will have built up a tolerance for this level of activity by next week, so that I can start getting up at 5:30 to sneak in the paddling. I'd really like to start going to bed an hour earlier, though. I don't think I'll last very long on less than 7 hours of sleep per night.

I tortured myself on a friends 'ab roller' yesterday, and it feels so good to be sore. I'm looking forward to paddling a couple days a week. I'm not upset at not paddling yet- I see the progress happening in other ways, and am confident that this will all pull together. I have to look long-term. This is going to happen. All of my greatest physical challenges have had a huge mental component, and I feel like I'm getting the mental conditioning going strong these days, so the physical will naturally follow.