Stress Levels

Stress levels are high in our household.  Looming over it all, of course, is the sarcoma.  But, in addition:

· We've still got flood repair work to do, and Bill thinks he smells mold in the basement.  At least Kevin Holiday agreed to do the painting anytime we’re ready.  And he offered up his nephew again for drywall work. 

· Ben is doing fine w/ work he does, and quizzes/tests he takes, in his High School classes; however, he has turned in a shockingly tiny percentage of his homework. So, his current "grades" are poor because there’s so many zeros averaged in.

· Ben wasn't acting at all concerned about this situation, until his coach called him on it (as did we) Monday.  Now, he's angry at us and claims that he's stressed, associated with starting High School, my cancer and the flood -- even though the latter two are things he had previously consistently denied were stressful.  We expected his transition to high school to be difficult, both because we know he has previously done poorly with school transitions, and because it mostly didn't matter at Horizons whether he got his homework in on time or not.  Because he's had issues with not getting his work done on time previously (dating at least back to 2nd grade!), on the one hand it's hard to accept that it's the transition causing the problem.  After all, his pattern is the reason he has a coach.  It's also hard to believe that the flood has anything to do with this -- certainly during the 4 days he missed of school, he didn't act stressed at all.  Thrilled more likely. 

· Bill has let Ben know how seriously disappointed he is with Ben's school situation.  As a result, they are barely speaking to each other.  Ben is locking his door and rarely taking off his headphones (he showed up with them on for dinner one night this week, although I quickly disabused him of the idea that that would ever be OK).  A couple days ago, he went out to the garage to do his homework (“because it’s isolated”).  It's going to be a long, hard weekend.  Ben will miss a competition because he has to get caught up in at least two of the four classes where he’s got late work (plus keep current on all new assignments).

· My husband is not getting enough exercise.  This causes him to lose weight (5 pounds).  The women reading this blog will understand how unbelievably unfair this seems.   Bill's not getting exercise also means he's getting more headaches.  He asked earlier this week if he was turning into a grumpy old man.  (No, but he is a little jumpy -- as are we all.)  And several of my friends say they've noticed how stressed he is.

· I am not getting enough exercise and I am eating and drinking too much, which is my normal stress response.  Therefore I have gained five pounds since Labor Day. The trails around Boulder, at least the ones on Sanitas, closest to our house, remain closed.  The Camera this morning said they had sustained over $40M in damage.

· At Ladies Night last night, I ordered a cup of tea (because I got there late), and a glass, because Donna and Susie had a bottle of wine to share.  My glass and mug arrived.  Donna handed me the bottle.  I started pouring into my mug.  Just a tad distracted.

At least last night at Simchat Torah, there was dancing and singing under the stars, as our Congregation joined with the Congregation of Bonai Shalom, which is currently using our synagogue’s south building because theirs was even more damaged in the flood.  That was lovely.