recharge

it's just more about tired.  last year at this time i couldn't do nearly what i do now without running myself into the ground real quick.  this year, i can tell i have a greater capacity, but kind of like a cell phone battery that doesn't hold a charge like it did when it was new, i can be replenished after a night of sleep, but if i'm pushing myself too much i see that i'm replenished a little less each night so that i run out of energy more and more easily as the days go on.  this used to happen continuously last fall until i would have a day where i'd wake up already exhausted (physically, because the tired i'm describing isn't really a yawning, droopy eyes tired), and, in the course of a day i could hit a wall, running out of whatever energy i had.  i could sit and take a rest and that would help replenish me, in the same sense that you charge your cell phone for 15 minutes if that's all the time you've got and it's almost dead.  now i can go for longer stretches, doing more, and rarely run out of energy completely.  but in this past week or so my energy has been draining faster and faster every day, but slowing down is not always an option.  this afternoon i finally called greg to have him pick up the boys, which he very happily did.  and for the next couple days i will try to take it easy and see if i can get back to 'normal.'  

when the boys got home tonight, henry was excited to show me his handmade paintbrush (a stick with a frayed end and some scotch tape on the other end).  here he is painting with it... (and there's me behind him with my book in hand rather than picking them up)... 

okay, go plug in your cell phones everyone.  they're tired!