You know stress has seriously begun affecting your body when a nagging eye twitch won't subside.

About three to four weeks ago, I noticed a strange pulsing or twitching in my left eye. Its onset seemed to coincide with an uptick in the demands in all areas of my life. While I always operate at a high stress level, once school started and the getting my son through fifth-grade homework (exhausting) was piled onto an already demanding work and fall sports schedule, there it was, a strange sensation like my eyeball was beating.

"It's lack of sleep, stress, and too much caffeine," a co-worker told me.

Hmm, I'll have to work on those areas.

Wait, what's this? My right eye also has now developed the twitch. I stared at myself in the mirror the other morning to verify that, indeed, the problem had spread. What had exacerbated the problem?

Just when I thought the pace couldn't get any more harried, last month my side-job as adviser for the Skidmore News student paper kicked in for the semester. Yes, it's basically a once-a-week commitment, but preparing for my meeting with them on Sunday nights takes a good chunk of my Sunday afternoons. Once we get home from church on Sundays, it's lunch time. Then I have just a couple of hours to try to catch up on laundry and clean the house before I need to settle into work mode.

It hit me this past Sunday — a beautiful fall day — when my husband had a great idea of taking the bicycles to Spa State Park for a ride. And I just couldn't go — so depressing.

All work and no play makes Mommy very cranky. Just ask everyone else in my family.

So I've come to the conclusion that something has to give. I keep thinking things will slow down — after this big project at work, or this sports season ends, or people in my house stop making dirty clothes. But at the risk of my face exploding, I probably can't wait any longer for something to change.

Stay tuned — it's time to prioritize.