Coming up for Air

I was watching Oprah the other day. She had David Blane on her show. He was going to perform a feat. He wanted to beat the record for holding your breath under water. The previous one was 16 minutes, 30 seconds or something crazy like that. He was lowered into the water and the timer began. After 17 minutes, 4.4 seconds, he came up for air. He now holds the Guiness World Record.

I am gunning for my own Guiness World Record. For the last month, I have been performing a feat of my own breath-holding. My calendar filled up to the brim. I felt dizzy with the amount of activity and planning and implementation I had to do. And yet I couldn't come up for air . I cried out "Get me outta here!" But I had to hold on.

April 30th arrived. Then May 1st took it's place. Suddenly, the timer went off and I had made it through to the end of my record-breaking month. Although no one gave me a standing ovation, which could have been disheartening, I came to the end of the month glad to have so many things under my belt. My husband and I celebrated by going for breakfast at Otter Co-op and watching all the old farmers enjoying Saturday morning gossip. (Oh yes and he chauffered me around while I garage-saled)

One major thing was the trip to New York City that my #1 son made with the band. It was the first time that he'd been away from home - across the border, and without any other family members going with him. It was a whack-load of stress to try and make sure that there was enough of everything to send with him - clothes, money, passports, toiletries, an alarmed watch (which apparently did little good). He just arrived home yesterday. I was so happy to have him back in the nest. All in all, it seemed like the trip was worthwhile and he saw and experienced some unique things which I hope that he will carry in his treasure chest of memories in the "Good Times Charlie" section.

Another major benchmark for this month was doing our taxes. Those of you who know me well, already know what "tax time" conjures up for me. (More breath-holding) Because of our bad experience last year (you can look it up in my April 2007 posts), we decided to do it ourselves. The office became command-central. Papers became carpeting. Little notes written to ourselves to look up various items littered the desks. But V-I-C-T-O-R-Y was ours. We did it and still have our hair. (Although I did have to re-color mine this past week).

May promises to be just as busy. I have taken on the job of making digital scrapbooks for the graduating class of '08 at my second son's school. I have never done such a large-scale project like this so I have no idea what it will entail. But it's the last year at this little school and it's really important to me that he feels celebrated for being the only one in our family to have spent his whole school life at one elementary school.

As well, my daughter is graduating from Grade Twelve. (Sniff). I can't talk too much about this because the emotions well up fairly quickly.

And my Dad is coming to visit (YAY!).

Oh yeah, and I volunteered to help at the Fun Fair. In the Silent Auction no less (anyone out there want to donate something?).

Maybe in June I can come up for air!!!!! Move over David Blane. I am aiming for your record.