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Juggling

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Today’s post is from Barbara in Rivertown

I just made a list of activities for the next several days, and made a copy in case I lose track of it. We are preparing our friend – I’ll call him Will – to move from a 3-bedroom house (with full basement and 2-story studio out back) to a 1-bedroom apartment in downtown Winona. He has Parkinson’s disease which has progressed over the past year, so there is a core group of six friends who are helping with this project, and a son arriving on Saturday.

Having just moved ourselves over a year ago, we’ve at least had practice, and remember (most of) what needs to be done. Of course there are differences, and a few wrinkles, like a bed delivery, in addition to the usual phone connection transfers and truck rental. Since Will is pretty slow moving, there is still a lot of sorting to do before stuff can be packed. And once he’s in, we need to seriously get going on house selling. It feels like we are juggling a lot of balls in the air, and I just hope I don’t drop one.  I used to be able to juggle three balls, wonder if I can still do that.

When have you had a lot to juggle, either figuratively or literally?

51 thoughts on “Juggling”

  1. Life has been one big juggling act since spring. To simplify life, I sold the Miata and we sold the lake cabin. Then we signed up to buy a townhouse for single-level living. The townhouse needed (and still needs) extensive redecorating. The house we want to sell needs lots of care and cleaning. (I’m trying to get the deck painted before the big freeze.) It’s all juggling and I don’t know how many balls are in the air.

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  2. its a lifestyle
    it took me until i was 20 or so to learn t juggle the three balls. i had friends who were good at tit but i couldnt get it. i think it was was one of the first idiot books out. how to juggel for the complete idiot. taugut you to juggle two balls then three.
    in real life the task of juggling the stuff i choose has been an ongoing challenge. im nt sure if im getting better at it or not.
    trello is my helper. a tak management ap that alows notes files progress reports and a to do update.
    happy weekend. off to the pre 9 oclock appt.
    see you tomorrow for bbc
    note
    if you are coming on 494 form the east the westbound ramp to 169 south is closed. go past it and come back or just arrange to come in from a different spot like 62 crosstown.

    11695 mt curve rd
    eden prairie mn 55347

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  3. Is it a day ending in y? Then I have stuff to juggle. Or at least that’s how it’s felt for the last few months. Big events at work, start of school, keeping up with Darling Daughter’s comings and goings…I have simply had to let a few balls drop here and there so I can be in bed at a reasonable hour. (And apologies to my delightful baboon pals for neglecting you – a walk down the trail here is always balm for the soul.)

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    1. 😥we miss you when you are not here, but I get it. Last year during the heart of selling my practice, I could not partipate much.

      Baboons are the best.

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  4. Rise and Shine Baboons,

    To me it usually seems like juggling is a lifestyle, as tim says. Sometimes it is too much, yet I don’t enjoy a life in which doing my laundry is the only thing scheduled for my day. I like clean laundry but it is not worth that much focus and attention. I like at least 3ballls in the air to feel interested in life.

    One ball presenting itself is sad and unwelcome. The colleague and friend I now work with has a critically ill child. The situation arose rapidly and is heartbreaking. I want the family to feel my love and support. This is one more ball in the air. I remember all the people who stepped up to support me when I was sick and I remember how clearly that signaled my value, a new concept to me so long ago.

    Last night we met Renae and her husband for dinner. It was a push to get there after work and added a juggling ball, and it was worth it. It was no surprise that yet another Baboon is the loveliest of people.

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  5. People always tell one that this or that can wait, it will still be there when you get back to it.

    They say that like it’s a good thing.

    While the care and maintenance of the s&h is no longer in the daily mix, all those tasks I put off because I had more important things to do are still right there, waiting to to be dealt with.

    Plowing through is only different than juggling, it isn’t better.

    For several years I had a couple of income streams, the s&h, and my voluntary involvement with the aged aunt all going at once. No wonder my house is neglected.

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  6. This week we have juggled being at the play therapy conference, emergencies at work, tasks related to the regulatory board I am a member of, and the usual family/child interactions that occur via text and phone. Not too many dropped balls.

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  8. Bought the book “Juggling for Klutzes” decades ago and learned to juggle three objects but that was my limit. Three activities at once seem to be my limit too. Unfortunately, two of them are writing books; and marketing the book I’ve written. That can consume as much time as I allow it to consume. So ball number three is “the rest of my activities and relationships.” Not complaining, just noting how much time being an author can take.

    BTW, if you’re bored and staring at a gloomy rainy Saturday afternoon, I’m doing a presentation for Indie Author Day at the Owatonna Library, 105 N. Elm, in Owatonna, at 1:00 pm. I’ll talk about my journey as a writer and how it coincided with the writing and publishing “revolution” that started in the 2000s with the advent of eBooks, eReaders, ubiquitous internet access, and the explosion of independently published books.

    Chris in Owatonna

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  9. I went to college in the 70s when they were trying to be loosey-goosey and make everyone happy. This moeant that although there was a physical fitness requirement there were lots of things that you could do to meet that requirement. So I took a modern dance class. The boyfriend who was to become the wasband and I took a ballroom dance class one quarter … that was a bomb. But then there was juggling. I took juggling for 2 quarters and got proficient at it although I never could do the around the world … only the Cascade and never with more than three balls but I did do pins for a little bit and I was able to do team juggling with other members. I still have some hacky sack juggling cubes but haven’t used them in years. Maybe I should take those out and play with them today.

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  10. I used to be quite good at keeping several balls in the air at once until this past spring, when we moved mom (92) from an independent senior apartment in Cambridge to assisted living in Edina because of short term memory and confusion issues. The logistics of the move itself was challenging (I was preparing to go to Italy at the time), her transition has been tough, applying for VA benefits has been a time consuming endeavor, and dealing with day to day mini crises is exhausting. I’ve been a list maker for years and now it is crucial – some days I think my brain is as forgetful as hers. Through all of this, I am trying to take care of myself: getting enough sleep, having monthly massages, getting together with friends, etc. Unfortunately I have dropped at least one ball – getting regular exercise. I am determined to fit that in somehow.

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    2. Oh, K-two, can I relate! We just moved my mother (93 on 10/4) and her husband (will be 94 on 11/5) from a 1400 sq. ft. townhouse with a basement, to a 900 sq. ft. assisted living apt. Exhausting, stressful for one and all. Same issues with VA benefits (did they tell you 6-9 months?) Same issues with the daily mini crises, many involving individual items that didn’t make the move (selective memory impairment?) A second set of children (his) who are in denial regarding aging issues, an entitled dog, and on and one and on… You have my sincere empathy and admiration for a job well done. I’m confident (or at least hopeful) that eventually, new normal will just be normal.

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      1. Early on in the blog we had a plan for a Baboon retirement community. Maybe we should start that now and include a support group for Baboons with aging parents… We moved my mother out of her house in 2008 to my brother’s house. I thought I would lose my mind. Then in the next transition nearly two years ago to memory care, we were without the stuff, but it seemed just as disruptive.

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      2. OC – the VA stuff did take about 5 months and now the last step (appointing me as fiduciary is almost done). We do have the mini crises re: items not making the move. We just tell her one of us (3 sisters) has the item and she is satisfied….that is, until the next time she asks! She also asks if we took everything from the old apartment/storage area/garage, etc. What makes this whole process even harder is mom’s very poor vision (macular degeneration plus very weak near vision) and the fact that she is aware her brain doesn’t work well.
        Jacque – a support group is a great idea!

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  11. I just this instant, dropped a ball. I suddenly realized that I hadn’t paid a credit card bill that is due today (10/13, right? Wrong, but that’s what I thought). I paid it online but it wouldn’t let me choose today (10/13) as the payment date. I completed the transaction, but called immediately to challenge their system for cutting off today’s payments before today was over. The friendly young woman on the phone, gently informed me that today is 10/14, I was skeptical but did recall that yesterday was Friday the 13th, so I was probably wrong about today being Saturday the 13th. Fortunately for me, she was friendly enough to delete whatever late charge I would have incurred. Sound of balls bouncing all over, and I have always been challenged in the catching arena, let alone juggling. Taking a deep, cleansing breath…

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    2. I find it interesting how I can hold two mutually exclusive ideas in my brain at the same time. Your knowing that yesterday was Friday the 13th yet thinking that today was Saturday the 13th reminded me of that. Usually my – what is it? ability? delusion? – takes the form of thinking I can do two different things in two different places at the same time, but sometimes it’s closer to your example.

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  12. Once I was an editor, father, husband and outdoorsman, and it was a trick to keep all the balls moving. Now I’m just an Old Dude, and I can’t claim my life is cluttered. The truth is that my daughter is now the one juggling so many responsibilities, one of which is helping me deal with stuff. I’m so lucky to be her dad now. So lucky.

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      1. And, I might add, you’re also still a father. In addition you’re now also a father-in-law and a grandfather, although you have shed the roles of husband, editor and outdoorsman.

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  13. I realized, after I’d been volunteering for some time for an organization that does tax preparation for low income people, that the thing I most enjoy about that volunteer gig is that it allows me to focus pretty much on one thing without interruption. Every so often someone will interrupt to ask me a question, but it doesn’t happen all that often. In that way it’s very different from most of the paid jobs I’ve had in my life. Almost every job I’ve had involved dropping everything to answer a phone or deal with a customer. I’m working on a spreadsheet and an e-mail arrives and I start to answer the e-mail and then the phone rings and after that’s been taken care of I return to the a-mail and type two more words and the phone rings again and so on for an hour or so. Then I don’t remember were I was on the spreadsheet, and the e-mail reply still has not been sent.

    I’m a very, very bad juggler. It gets worse the older I get.

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    1. I am also a bad juggler, LInda. That’s partly why I have yet to answer the question. How can I say I’m juggling anything when in reality all the balls are on the ground because I’ve dropped Every. Single. One.

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    2. That seems like a particularly useful insight, Linda. Incidentally, one of my convictions is that few (if any) of us are really good at juggling. Some of us think we can do it, but we fool ourselves.

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  14. Those days I can’t juggle, I call those days when I “can’t focus”. Yep, hate it too.
    Last week I had a set unit that needed work and I rolled it back in the shop every day. And every day there was students in and I’d spend the day helping them and when rehearsal started I’d roll it back out onstage, untouched. Took me until Friday to get it done. Maybe not necessarily
    too many balls, just trouble picking the right ball.
    Show doesn’t open for two weeks. It’ll be fine.

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        1. Oranges are a great way to try it without going to a lot of expense. Another one for beginners is scarves – 3 light- and identical-weight small square scarves. We had sets of them at the consulting firm I worked for – used in activities to get executives to loosen up…

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