A One Man Tent

Crispy.

Fried.

Over medium with the yoke broken.

I am burned out. Fried, overdone, sizzling, done. D o n e.

I have a fabulous job at a marvelous church with a great paid and volunteer staff. The children make me smile and make my heart absolutely sing. I love my work. But last week I could hardly make myself go.

This puppy needs a vacation!

My husband is on week two of being gone. He was home for the weekend. Miss Noodles the princess dog has decided that he is the only man for her and she simply pines when he is gone.

I have taken to bringing her little doggy bed with me in the car, out to the patio, even tucking it under the kitchen table while I work. I almost brought the little love-head into the vet today because she was downright lethargic. But I dabbed a little butter on her super heathy food so she'd eat, and dropped drips of water on her nose so she'd drink. And then the boys came home and she perked up, playing and chasing and licking noses. Safe for now. Hopefully her man will come home soon. Don't tell her he's gone til Friday. Shhh.

Yesterday I was out at our local fine "Sheri's" eating emporioum. Read Denny's but not as nice. I was out with my writing buddy and she was telling me all about her kid's going on a camp out. It was stark, I got this image of some glaciated, decimated tundra and a little one man tent. It looked so good, so very, very good. I'm guessing that's not what the Girl Scouts camp out was like. But, ooooo. I salivated even more than I had over the S'more pie (which I brought home to my children, good clean eating here). I want that. I want alone. I want peace. I want it. Please.

This is the time in the Religious Education Year when we dance. We dance the "end of year" dance. We hope the kids learned a lot and had fantastic spiritual enrichment. We hope the volunteers feel appreciated. We hope the leadership sees the impact even though only 12 kids came to church on Sunday but we have 75 registered. We hope the paid teachers feel this is worth their time. We hope next year is good, not as bad, just as good, better, whatever fits the specifics of the year. We hope the parents like what we've done. We hope.

And sometimes we hope for a one man tent, on the tundra with a little pemican and some granola. Maybe a coke can with some fishing line wrapped around it with a hook. Some coffee. Some vodka. We hope!

So, maybe I'll get on that vacation planning,'eh?