Indigestion

I have a problem:

Everything looks oh-(oh-OH!)-so-attractive to me. No matter what I clean them with, my glasses always end up in some shade of rosy.

This really is a problem.

It's seen most graphically and horrifically at pot-luck dinners, for instance, when I precariously and triumphantly make it to my seat with a plate toppling with a bit of every item on the smorgasbord. Sadly, in fact, it happens at pretty much every meal, when I repeatedly sample what I'm creating in the kitchen throughout meal prep, followed by sitting down and rapidly consuming a full plate, and then continued as I pick away at leftovers in order to have something polite to do with my time at the table whilst Jesse and Josiah slowly complete their first course. It all looks so good!

Symptoms are seen in household projects too. It's a good thing I have a more than full-time job, or our home would be so overridden with crafts, organizational projects, and DIY activities that it probably wouldn't be functional. It's pretty bad as it is, when these activities are crammed into rare minutes stolen from much-needed sleep. I devour how-to and crafting websites. (And please don't ask or get Jesse started on the garden. I'm under a unilateral hold on acquiring new plants, no matter who's giving them out for free.)

My work life is by no means immune and at present is the biggest illustration of my eyes being dramatically bigger and rosier than my little stomach can digest. Somehow this month I ended up agreeing to teach three classes, am doing research, have a lab budget to finish spending down by June 30, and am taking a faculty course as well. It's working out to 14-15 hours of work per day at absolute minimum. I'm going insane. (And we just sold our beloved 1997 Corolla on an incredibly sensible and logical whim last weekend, in the midst of all this, so until it's replaced, Jesse, Josiah and I are juggling carpooling to boot.) 

I think I recall cheerfully extending a dinner invitation to a couple from our church for this Friday evening.

Everything seems like such a good idea in the moment! Every opportunity and idea glows with possibilities! And really, creating is life-giving to me. Nothing gives me more pleasure than generating an idea and actually making it happen, whether that involves making up daily new recipes in the kitchen, shaping a research project or a student's understanding, rehabbing an old piece of furniture, or (a current sewing project as illustration) devising how to chop up and convert old trousers, jeans, and shorts that never fit anyway after my last pregnancy into perfect – and free – maternity clothes. 

Thriftiness also plays a role, I think. Just last week Jesse mercifully convinced me to buy a slightly more expensive IKEA chair cover – for Josiah's in progress "big boy room" – as I was waxing eloquent on how I surely could drown the cheaper, not-really-the-right-color one in strong tea to darken the shade, or else just recover it with my own fabric if all else failed.

Life-giving, yes. But also a bit of a poison, no? I'd *love* to tea-stain some cushions, after all (doesn't it sound fun??!), but do I really have the time? No. 

At 31 I'm still trying to learn that even the most wonderful chocolate cake can give you indigestion. 

And I'm stuck: Which solution is better, skipping the cake or just taking Tums to treat and mask one's disease? 

I don't see myself passing up a fudgy slice of chocolate cake, metaphorically or literally, any time soon...