Work. sleep. family. fitness. friends.  (And let’s add BIRDING too– or whatever your *passion* might be!)

“Pick three”, I’ve been told.

Hmmm… As a mom, ‘family’ ~always~ is at the top of the list and for me ‘friends’ need to be in there too.. And if you know me well enough.. then you know that Nature Nancy NEEDS to have ‘birding’ in there too.. And you may know that I’m loving my new job — so I need to include that as well… So, that means there’s nothing left for ‘sleep’ & ‘fitness’.  Hmmm. <Insert head scratch here>

Last week, sleep had to take a back seat.. as friends (and work) needed some more attention. I did try to beat the system and sneak in some extra sleep, however.  😉 I have become an expert at setting a three-minute timer on my phone during the day and taking a nap for those three minutes. I’m not sure that that qualifies as real sleep, but I’ll take what I can get. (And yes, I CAN fall asleep for a good portion of those three minutes.  Just ask my son… Out of curiosity and fascination, he’s actually watched me achieve this feat first-hand more than once. 🙂  )

The lack of sleep finally caught up with me though and the tone of the week took a downward turn. A mommy friend was just diagnosed with breast cancer. . Whenever I hear news like this, I feel as if I’ve been punched in the stomach.  I was planning to go birding that day and blog all about it– but instead there I stood in the grocery store, the get well cards fading into a blur as my eyes welled with tears. I was searching for just the right card and flowers as a ‘pick-me-up’. I needed to do ~something~, anything for this friend.. and birding/blogging would just have to wait.
I ducked into the next aisle attempting to dry my eyes. As a steady stream of tears began to fall, I found myself pretending to read the cans of Raid (of all things) that happened to be in front of me, just to avoid drawing any attention to myself. My attempts to juggle my lack of sleep, birding, teaching, friends and family had all caught up with me… but I knew I had every right to cry, even if I wasn’t spread so thin.

I feel much better after finally getting a good night’s sleep and I know my friend is going to knock the socks off her cancer!

Last week was a sobering reminder to me that a Mom’s Big Year of birding involves a whole lot more than just the birds.