I’m not sure how I get into these situations. I feel like I was on a roll a couple of weeks back and then realize that I have lost all control. I am awake 20 hours a day and I still can’t seem to accomplish what I set out to do.

I’m going to refocus on tomorrow and hope for the best. Try and look at what I did accomplish today. Finished indenting this weeks Torah portion. This is good as this week we finish counting the Omer and Shavuot is the giving of the Torah. The years that I grew the wheat are still vivid and keep the tracking alive for me. Growing wheat for Matzos on Pesach is more than a 2 year process, but it brings perspective on the ancient texts which have all but lost their strength of analogy due to modern production processes. There are 3 first rains, each that has its own danger to the crop. The first rain might be too early and the seeds that you plant may sprout and dry up before the second rain comes. The second rain may cause the sprouting to come when the hail season arrives and this may damage the crop. The 3rd rain may be too much into the raining season and the crops could be washed away. So you have to plant 3 times to protect against all the possible elements. And there is a holiday to mark this season. And then the winter rainy season causes the first seeds to appear around Pesach. Of course this is too early to make into wheat, so following the first night of Pesach, a sample crop is taken, a small amount. Each day for the next 50 days. For me, after about 35 days the stalks had dried and there was no more growth. Perhaps the dew and dry is a curing process, but once it stopped changing visually I collected it, stripped the grains from the stalk (threshing), rolled the husks (which I guess is also part of the threshing process), separated the chaff using the wind as an aid, and then stored the wheat for a year (minus 50+ days).  There was 10 kg of wheat from a 70 m^2 section of field which seemed like a pretty high yield for such a small space. Each stalk grew about 65 grains – that a potential gain of 6500% per year. Which really makes the 5% interest rate that the bank (hardly) gives, quite disappointing. But the actual gain on the first trial was about 10 to 1  – planted 1 kg, received 10 kg. Still 1000% gain. It would seem possible to carefully plant one week of food to get enough back for the whole year. Bought a coffee grinder, turned it in to flour – took ages because you can only do a few grams at a time, but after a few hours of grinding and then sifting out the outer shell, I got white flour. I had to build an oven, which I did in a panic using cinder blocks and concrete and the side of a washing machine. I know how to make it better now, but it was sufficient. With Emma on the stop watch (after running around trying to find the right kind of water to use) I turned the flour into Matzos. 3 of them were big and perfect and although I burned a lot of hours on what a combine can do in less than a second, I have a better feeling of what the analogies presented are trying to say. And those teaching need to be wrapped in modern analogies because the valueable ones are still relevant today. So that’s a recap on what I accomplished then in this time period.

Today I biked 16 km to file my taxes. That’s one headache out of the way – one more year checked off. Not a very profitable year but can only get better from here. I hope.

Tomorrow I have to finish the mantel. If I manage that I will call it a successful day despite the fact that I have a hundred other things to finish. I am not going to look at anything else until that is behind me. I have the website meeting at 5:30. That gives me about 6 hours to accomplish that goal. I know that it is enough. I just need to successfully ward of distractions.

My Rescuetime rating was 75% last week. Not too bad. Moving in the right direction.

But starting Tuesday we are back in the holidays and time starts slipping again until the end of the week.

Drove Mom to the doctor too. Luckily she phoned me and she seemed to have a breakthrough with her knee. I sure hope that keeps up for her, she was in a lot of pain.

So I feel entirely overwhelmed, but I know that I will get through this somehow or another.