Chaos

My life is Chaos. I looked it up. "Utter confusion or disorder." Yep, that bout sums it up.

I was going good. Curves for moderate exercise, Pathways to Health for moderate attitude adjusting. Then . . . rather late in the game my husband decided to run for political office. How late? About two and a half weeks ago, well after two other candidates for his office had formally announced, developed campaign teams and strategies, and spent months politicking and fund raising. But, bottom line he was offended by the current operation of the office he is seeking and by the shallow qualifications of candidates vying to replace the retiring incumbent. So when urged to run, he decided to do it. What?!

First, we are NOT what you would call social animals. Second, other than my persistent tweeting about universal health care (I want it), we are not political animals. Ya think that might deter him? Not in the least. He started contacting basically everyone he knows and, dang, they all kept encouraging him. Then he started trying to contact politicians to identify consultants or somebody with campaign experience. Suffice it to say, the few consultant types that exist in the rural area we live in were already engaged - by our opponents. There was a moment that first week when it looked like we were facing insurmountable odds. Then, danged if he didn't connect up with a very high powered politico (hpp) who assured him it was not "too late." While too busy to consult on our campaign, hpp agreed to "advise" and lend the use of his name as a way to get calls returned. Seems politics is all about relationships. Call and leave a message in the black hole, or call and say hpp suggested I call and ta-dah, your phone rings in no time flat.

OK, as long as I'm looking up words, another one that seems to fit here is serendipity, "an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident." Or maybe it's fate -- the way we connected up with the big wig. It happened like this. We weren't getting anywhere with our efforts to find someone who could help us crack the old politics nut. Then my husband met with a fella who lost an election. He said if he had it to do over he'd just shell out the dough for high priced talent from out of the area like his victorious opponent hired. "Oh yeah, like who?" The answer was the guy who ended up being our very own high powered politico. Turns out he isn't from out of the area at all. He lives quietly in our own little town and cyber-works out of an office with no sign on the door. In fact, not only does he now live in our town, it turns out he grew up here. He's the son of a neighbor who lives just down our country road and he use to ride the bus with our oldest daughter 20 years ago. What are the chances of that?!

Within a week it was pretty clear that my husband was digging in and running for office. I actually felt kind of sick to my stomach at first but then I quickly got consumed by the process of trying to "get a clue" about campaigns. It was initially overwhelming, intimidating, daunting, scary, discouraging, distressing, etc. . .

I'm over feeling sick about it. No time or energy to waste on that. In the last two weeks my husband has filed his notice of intent, I became campaign treasurer and we recruited a couple of highly educated, energetic but underemployed young women to serve as campaign manager and assistant treasurer. Our candidate website and facebook account is up. We issued a press release announcing we are planning to announce (next Monday) and ended up on the evening news and in local newspapers. We have the endorsement of the mayor of the town we live in and a councilmen is on our steering committee. (One city down 4 to go in a county wide election.) We've raised almost $4,000 (about $31,000 to go) and we are all getting acclimated to talking to people and asking for things.

It's been a blur and seems it will continue to be until at least June and maybe all the way to November. In the last couple weeks, for me that blur has included writing and submitting a grant application and preparing and delivering a half-day presentation for a teacher training program on tribal sovereignty. Excellent results each time, but MAN have I been busy. Simply because all I've had time for is one of those healthy nut bar things for lunches and light dinners, I have actually lost 5 or 6 pounds. But I know I can't sustain that. Finally taking some down time today, I find I've been nurturing myself with food. Old habits die hard.

I haven't been to Curves for three weeks. I did not fulfill my weekly Pathways to Health action plan last week. This week I totally missed the last Pathways meeting. So much for exercise and healthy attitude ajusting. But I did learn something in Pathways to Health. It has to do with those action plans. They were all about discrete, achievable steps that take you in the direction you want to go. My plan is Curves at least two times each week. Baby steps.