Busier than a working mom with three toddlers

I am genuinely busier than I have ever been in my life. And that includes being a working single mother with three pre-school children. Well, maybe by the time I was a single parent the oldest was in kindergarten, but you get the idea. Anyway, preparing for a Worldcon is busier than that.

All my life I've heard about the stereotypical absent-minded professor types who get so tied up in their work they don't know if it's Christmas or Fourth of July. But I never really believed it until early this summer when I got up, dressed for snow, and went out the front door to find hot sun and green trees. Now we do get snow here up into May, but somehow the summer thing just burst on me without my seeing it coming.

I also need to warn you all to be VERY careful what you wish for. Back in early June I was spending 8 hours a day at my office job and eight to ten at my Denvention job. I didn't know how I was going to manage keeping that up and was looking for ways to take a leave of absence and get out of the office job for a few weeks. That's when I fell. Plop! Tripped over an uneven paving stone right in front of my office building at 6am on a Tuesday morning. Exactly six weeks ago today. I knew the arm was broken from the very first, but I didn't realize the hand was also dislocated, or that the pain from chest injury would last longer than the break. I was off work for three weeks, but couldn't type at all with my dominant right hand, and had to waste time with silly things like pain meds and surgery. Now I'm back at work, back typing, but still in physical therapy and have a wrist with only about 20% of normal movement. The doctor and therapist say that I'll regain full movement, which is good, but for now I'm still a crip who can't lift, can't grip, and still has to eat with her non-dominant hand.

My two very good friends gerrydl_va and lisajulie came to my rescue in June. They came out in tandem to sit and type spreadsheets and email at my direction while I took more pain pills and looked on. Without them there would not be any programming happening at Denvention.

I am eagerly looking forward not so much to the convention but to the "beyond time" when the con is over and I have my home and life back. The whole first floor of my house is a convention staging area. We have an inventory list for the truck that is going to pick things up and every day new boxes of stuff arrive at the front door to help fill that truck. Yes, and entire TRUCK load of stuff all sitting in my living room, dining room, and sun room. The cat prowls the tops of the stacked boxes sniffing and investigating. She hides between stacks to pounce out at our feet.

This weekend I took a break to eat some lunch. Warmed up a dish of leftover casserole that was in the fridge, poured out a soda, and sat down - all the while engaged in conversation with my sweetie the con chair. Then proceeded to pick up the salt and shake it into the glass of soda rather than the bowl of casserole.

Yep, really, truly looking forward to having all of this over.