Some things just are not meant to happen. Right now, journal entries seem as though they are not meant to happen. The competitions for the computer and for my time are fierce. Even now, I finally have the computer but this entry is getting only half my attention. The other part of my attention is helping guide Day-Hay through a book review. She knows what she needs to write but she likes to confirm every few lines.

When I started this journal, I wrote several entries at a time and posted them daily. I would sit down one day and do the entries for most of the week. I was burning with things to say and with topics. It was nearly summer and most of the worst pressure of the winter schedule was off.

As time passed, I started writing one day for the next. I would write in the evenings and post the next morning. Sometimes I was inspired. Sometimes I wasn�t. Still, it was part of my evening routine to write. I would sit out by the computer, usually after the kids were asleep, and write. I would get up the next morning and post.

And then we hit recent days. The kids never go to bed. They are up as late as I can stay up, often working on homework and occasionally asking for help. When I come in to the computer, Mr. Philately is working or is up on e-bay buying stamps. By the time the computer is free or I�m free of people, I fall into bed.

I always have some trouble as spring comes on the calendar (which is at least a month sooner than it comes in reality.) In prior years, I chalked it up to the lack of sun in the winter. But we have had sun this winter and I have a wonderful lamp. I look around and I contemplate the possibility that it never was the lack of sun to begin with. I�m considering whether it is the early spring schedule.

School (my children�s) may be part of the problem. Teachers have not yet begun the slight slack off that happens in the real spring. Instead, they look around and panic about what they have not yet gotten accomplished before spring fever�and pile on the work. We have reports due, we have tests, we have book reports, we have band concerts and on and on and on.

Part of the problem is the campaign. Oh how I have come to hate the campaign! I can be on the school board but I am not much of a campaigner. I can listen to complaints patiently at the rate but I hate the current implied threat that if I don�t agree I�ve lost a vote. Worrying endless about what people think about me is something I generally try to avoid. It�s hard enough to worry about what I think of me.

Nevertheless, I�m still fighting to post daily because that�s what I do. That�s what I started out to do. That�s what I plan to do. And it�s what I�m going to do.

Even if I have to sit here at midnight and post�and it may come to that.

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