The past few weeks have been the kind of busy that I have tried to keep myself from since last fall. From early August until December last year, I was booked solid on weekends with rehearsals, races, work obligations and family obligations. I reached the end of December pretty spent and promised myself not to overbook to that extent. I cut back on pretty much anything during the week and limited my weekend responsibilities…ok, I didn’t. I’ve stayed busy since January as well. And February. And March. And now I’m here at the tail end of April, at the end of another cycle of being too busy and I’m tired.

At least now we are moving from the sudden spring into the inevitable summer heat and I couldn’t be more excited. I love running in the heat. There is something about knowing that I can feel my fingers the whole time, that I can drink and fuel appropriately to keep moving and if it gets too bad, I can always shed a layer. Sunday we went out to Eagle Mountain Park, one of the few trails with significant elevation and one that doesn’t close when it is wet, and glided through a 12 miler under perfectly blue skies, the sun crawling from sunrise to almost high noon and I am feeling hopeful.

Big things happening are the DMA project with Spiderweb, summer projects with Spiderweb and a book project with...Spiderweb. A new race is also in the works for June 8 at Johnson Branch and since TWU canceled our summer theatre camp, I won’t be pulling double duty that week.

For the DMA project, I working from a painting called Portrait of My Mother painted by Philip Evergood. In the next few weeks, I’ll create a piece that will then be recorded along with 49 other creators and programmed into old handset phones. People that come to the installation will dial up a piece that corresponds to one in the collection of the museum. I’ve always been fascinated with the way people process an artistic experience and this is such a unique way to experience art through another person and their given circumstances. Mine, with relation to my own mother, are decidedly complicated.

This week on Wednesday, I’m headed down to the State UIL-OAP contest to watch the shows that made it to state at the high school level. I’ll be gone Wednesday and Thursday, decided to take Friday off and then am timing a race in Plano on Saturday. It’ll be a long week but I’m hoping that Friday will be a good day for a long run in the country and some relaxing before I get back into the push for summer.