Life of Grind

Life has been firing on all cylinders lately, not that I'm complaining, but sometimes when I stop and take a long look at what's going on, it's pretty amazing. This year we have incorporated skiing into our repertoire, and it's doubled the amount of equipment that we need while seemingly tripling our level of activity. A testament to the versatility of our Honda Fit, I might add.

In years past hockey has dominated our lives, and for good reason. With the kids playing in a higher age bracket, they have practice 3X a week and games both weekend days. Since they play on different teams, we're pretty much on the ice 7 days a week. It's crazy, who has time for skiing? Actually, we as homeschoolers do. When we were neophytes we didn't think it wise to ski and get tired before the almighty hockey practice, but we've since come to our sense and realized that's not true. There are good mid-week deals to be had locally, and in combination with knowing the right people, we've been able to ski on the cheap on weekdays. In fact, I think N skied four times last week, including the world class ski hill at Killington.

This means, however, that my life is all the more complicated because I have to coordinate meals, shopping, part time work, getting the kids to and from the ski hill, and then to hockey. Here is what a typical day might look like for me. I wake up and if we have hockey and skiing, I need to make supper in the AM, as well as lunch for later that day. I will whip together some soup or stew and a veggie dish, maybe some pasta and bread, then sandwiches and snacks. If I'm going to work, I'll leave after that's done but not before loading all the skis and hockey gear into my car. R will oversee the kids' school work and then take them to their morning activity. I will get a few hours of work in and then meet up with the crew wherever they are at, at which point R will go into work and I will take over.

We've been doing late morning skiing over at S6, so I'll take them and meet up with friends, best case scenario before noon. That leaves us about 4 hours of skiing, which is fine with me. The kids will eat lunch in the car and by the time we're at the ski hill, we're ready to rock and roll. We'll ski until closing, and then head over to the rink for hockey practice into the evening. Then we'll come home and by that time, R is back from work and has heated up supper and built a fire, so we have a nice warm house to come back to.

How's that for living the good life? I'm glad we're getting lots of skiing in, it's a great sport and something the kids can continue to do long after hockey has left the picture. Plus, it has the cool factor, especially if you're a hot dog skier like some of us are. The kids are trying out snowboarding, as well, so we're definitely putting the load capacity of our Fit to the test. I'm sure it will pass with flying colors.

Until then, thanks for reading, and thanks to skindleshanks for the pic.