During the three weeks or so that I was unable to blog I had such great ideas for posts. I started so many interesting, intelligent, intriguing posts in my head. Did I put pen to paper? Did I record any of those ideas? No. Today I spent about two hours riding the lawn mower. When my sister-in-law mows her yard, she puts in her headphones and jams; I never do that. I have always used lawn mower time to collect my thoughts - plan lessons, dream up the plan for carrying out whatever endeavor looms on the horizon. I have discussed this a bit before. My family sometimes accuse me of being a huge procrastinator, and I am a bit of one. But much of the time that I am doing other things, like riding the mower, I am thinking and planning. When I was trying to finish college, I often had several papers to write and more than one novel to read. I usually can't just sit down and write; I have to mull it over while doing something else. Many of my essays were planned as I cooked dinner or went for a walk. Today when I got on that mower, I might as well have put in the headphones. My mind was blank. Or maybe spinning so fast that nothing could drop out enough to focus my thoughts.

I have had a very busy week helping to decorate for my nephews wedding. And I am moving into my it's-almost-August-school-starting-what-am-I-going-to-teach panic mode that hits me every summer even after almost 20 years of teaching. There are some other issues just buzzing around in this head of mine. I am blaming all of this for my lack of focus. Am I the only one who lets so much get to spinning around in my head that it can't fall out? Like that ride at the fair where you stand up and the thing spins so fast that you are held against the wall and couldn't move no matter how hard you tried. It affects my sleep. I wake up with a million things running through my mind. I feel like I could think clearly if I could just get a good night's sleep; but I can't get a good night's sleep because I can't clear my thoughts. It's a vicious circle. Are there any men out there who do this? Is it a woman thing? A momma thing? A crazy thing?

So many ideas are lost when I am in one of these sleep deprived phases. I wake up in the middle of the night with a great idea, or I think of something when I am nowhere near a computer. And when I can finally get to the computer, the  idea is completely gone or is missing a key component. In hopes of grabbing a few of those potentially brilliant moments, I bought a cute little journal last week. And it has been on the kitchen table since I brought it in the house. Until yesterday, I honestly haven't had time to even think about it, and as I've said already, today was a total blank.

After mowing, I worked on some lesson plans for the new school year. I managed not to take that much wanted nap this afternoon, and now I am very sleepy. I am going to take that journal and put it on my bedside just in case I wake up with a great idea spinning around in this head of mine. And if I don't wake up, maybe I'll get enough rest so that I can focus on one particular thing instead of not focusing on a million things.