You know the sanity has been sucked out of your life when you've raced out of the office at 4:50 p.m.(in Saratoga Springs), sat through multiple lights in a mad dash to the babysitter's house (in Wilton), and fought through summer tourist traffic to get your kid to football practice (in Ballston Spa) by 5:30 p.m. so he doesn't have to run extra laps for being late.

To address the first part of that whole mess, trying leave the office at that time of day requires the stars alligning nearly perfectly. With all the buzz in the newsroom between 4 and 7 p.m., I have a lot of difficulty having everything set for the evening crew who are putting together the next day's newspaper by quarter to 5. So often, I'm high-tailing it out the door with the words,"I'll be back in an hour," trailing behind me.

Then, after I've gotten the kids to their respective cheerleading and football practices, I'm off -- bee-lining back to work to clean up the mess I left. Usually it's just editing a couple stories and tying up a couple loose ends for the next day's assignments -- just enough to have to return for.

Some days, the jaunting to and fro can be maddening. The other day, I was determined to get a haircut, something I hadn't made time for in about 9 months. So after leading an afternoon reporters meeting about a project we're working on, I dashed out to my hairdresser (about 10 minutes away on Geyser Road).

Then it was back to work to get as much done as possible before doing the daily "run-the-kids-to-practice" routine. A return trip to work was necessary, so after making the drop and starting the drive back to the office, I called my husband to find out his ETA to the ballfields. He was coming from a job site in Saratoga.

"You're about to pass Price Chopper? Wait, so am I, but I'm going the opposite direction! We're about to pass each other. I'm gonna stick my head out the window. Hi honey! See my new hair-do?"

See what I mean about the sanity being sucked out of our lives? There it went, right out the car window.