Remember the story of the tortoise and the hare? Guess who's the tortoise and guess who's the hare. I think that's why I am my own worst enemy. Maybe it's because while I was a stay at home mom in my younger days, I was a tortoise too. I found that 99.9% of my activities involved waiting for my children. Waiting for practice to be over, waiting for homework to be done, waiting for them to finish their food. (Hmmm. Good preparation for today's situation.) I mean mommiehood is really for encouraging, supporting and waiting on someone else. No point in being in a hurry if you are always waiting. Not too much different than caring for someone who's ill. Course, with children, the waiting has it's positive rewards as you watch with excitement each new development. With a terminally ill person, since the waiting is not moving forward, it is waiting for...well..uh...you know. And with Alzheimer disease, the wait is quite long. While waiting you must create your own motivation to stay positive. Anyway, the tortoise and hare thingie always makes me laugh. Jerry is a total tortoise. It's kind of like comparing an old 1972 VW Beatle to a NASCAR. The VW just slowly putts around all the time and stalls A LOT! The Nascar has a reved up engine and is continually going in circles around the track. Course, in the story of the tortoise and the hare, the tortoise wins the race. (We might need to write a new version of that story.)

Since being released from mommiehood, I've morphed into a hare. Perhaps it's my coping mechanism of maintaining a positive attitude. Continually having a project (or three) to work on, looking for beautiful things to share with the world, capturing those funny moments with friends, all keep my brain just clicking away at a nice fast hmmmm. I love it. The challenge for me, however, is to not get too carried away and forget that Jerry (my tortoise) is trying to keep up, yet, falling further and further behind. My instruction to myself is to create times when he can "help" me. I need to be able to determine when he is capable of "joining me" or when he is better off resting. If I am busy "humming" away, he WILL try to follow. It's a tricky thing to manage. He enjoys priming my canvases and I need to let him . Once he completes a canvas or two (which could take tortoise's hours to do), he's satisfied and can go nap. Then, I can continue painting.

Today, I think we are staying home. No escapades. Maybe even no visitors. Maybe we both need to recharge our batteries so we can continue our race. Afterall, it's not going to be finished anytime soon.