Four Alarm Week

OK, I have to finally admit that I am completely overwhelmed, and I don’t overwhelm easily. How do I know I’m overwhelmed? I just wrote a birthday card to my sister-in-law and I think it might be the same card I sent her last year. I bought a lot of them because I thought they were funny. I hope it’s funny the second time. Or is it the third time?

I’m trying to make it through my most busy time of year at work. I’m a grant writer and I have three big federal grants due out next week. I’m gearing up for six next month. And in the middle of all this an audio company is going into production to make The Call to Shakabaz into an audio book, I’m going into negotiations to sell my house of 16 years, I’m looking for a house to buy, and I’m still managing a household, advising two grown children in college and helping them with their business activities, and running an independent publishing company. And, oh yes, we are doing our taxes now so we can apply for financial aid for my son for college before the deadline. EEK! Wheel me away.

I hope I can keep it all straight. I’m terrified that one of my grant writing clients will call and I will mistake him for my real estate lawyer and start babbling about contingencies and title reports. Or that one of my children will call and I’ll mistake them for a grant writing client and demand those statistics on suspensions and expulsions from the middle school in East St. Louis. Or my husband will call and I’ll start kicking and screaming “no, no, I won’t leave, I love this property, they can carry me out feet first” and he’ll say “we just may have to do that.”