Mmmm. Grilled cheese. Better yet - grilled cheese with apples inside. Comfort food. Dinner at 10:30 pm. I need this today. It has kind of sucked. Not the sandwich - just the day. What makes it worse is that it sucked because I let myself get away from me; or maybe it is that I let myself get me...not sure; but either way, a small portion of comfort food is welcome.

This week has required a lot of adaptations. My daughter is attending public school for the first time, actually school in general for the first time. 6:30 am is early for dancers! We've home-schooled up to this point and it is odd not having her at home. As I was showering this morning, I realized I kind of feel like a huge load of responsibility has been pried out of my fingers but at the same time I feel like I have more to worry about. She is a smart kid though and it is fun hearing about her perceptions of each day. Another adaptation has been re-working the curriculum that I use for my son. He is still at home and we've added a few new subjects this year. My extended family is still working on a few problems that have surfaced this summer. The stress on them has been huge and it periodically flares in my system when I start thinking about being the eldest child and responsibility...you know the first born child thing. I've had a few new situations to handle with students - including a call from the middle of Wisconsin from an elderly Amish man who has back pain and wanted my help. I did my best on the phone but the frustration of not being able to do as much as I could in person always gets to me. Finally, I'm in the last week of a "Dancing with the Stars" thing in Rochester. I love my partner - he has been a hard worker but I've had to rein in my competitive nature a bit and remember it is just dancing (and as we both keep jokingly telling each other - "it is for the children" as if those words will remove all stress associated with the event) Overall I've kind of felt like I do when I am feeding a herd of hungry goats. My goats get really excited when they get sweet feed. It is like getting candy! I know they want it and they know I've got it in a bucket balanced precariously on top of my head (after which I usually realize there was a bunch of crap on the bottom of the bucket and regret that choice). I get in the pen and all of the sudden I can't walk straight. I've got S'Mores trying to get between my knees, Ebby jumping up on me like a dog, Eddie, the fat boy, almost knocking me over and Bo chasing everyone else in a tight circle around me. I just want to give them breakfast! Don't they get it??? So in what looks like a person running away from an alligator in a zig zag fashion, I move across the pen to the feed area and dump the feast into the trough. Periodically I end up getting frustrated and yelling a bit however at that point the goats just stop for a minute, look at me like" what is wrong with her?" and then immediately go back to their game. To my one neighbor, who sees me from a distance, I just look like I am standing in my backyard yelling with a bucket on my head.  That was today. I let too much happen, started to yell, and then realized that I was the idiot standing there with a bunch of crap in a bucket on my head. I owed a few apologies to the other goats in my life today  and am grateful that they just smiled and then went right on playing their games.