The end result

What a wildly awesome day. When my eyelids fluttered open this morning, I was very aware that it could be the best of times -or- worst of times type of day. I knew what was on the calendar and knew it could run me over like a squirrel on a six lane freeway.

First choice: I had to choose between doing a Mega Large task on my own or hiring help. I couldn't decide. With my superwoman cap on a bit too tight, I wanted to do it by myself. I also wanted to hire it out so I could have the much-needed practice managing helpers. Here was the pivotal factor:

If I do it myself, by the end of the day, I will be drained and the house will still be a disaster. I might get 1/2 of the work done.

If I hire a few girlfriends to help, I'll spend my morning cleaning the house (because heaven forbid someone should see it a wreck) but at the end of the day, I'll have: 1. a clean house! 2. most of the work done, and 3. some more experience under my belt in hiring help.

I chose to seek help and I'm so glad I did. The benefits were immense. Yes, I was nervous; yes, I didn't explain things as good as I could have; and yes, I wish I didn't babble on, but I got by. With the safety of working with girls I know & love, I was able to practice being a not-too-terribly-bad director. They were *awesome* and it helped me built to the next step.

This evening was another case-in-point. Hubby had surgery today and since his car had been stolen earlier this week, he had to bike to the hospital and bike most of the way home. (I was able to drive him part way before I had to go get the kids for karate.) Poor guy x10. He didn't have time to pick up his prescription pain killer which he most definitely needs to make it through the night.

In hindsight it's funny -- first pharmacy has a computer glitch and can't fill any RXs, second pharmacy is so packed, there isn't a parking spot for miles, third pharmacy is great! Only, I don't have the right card to prove medical coverage. I spend the next hour in the car (traffic) wishing I was home cooking dinner and caring for my children (I get to hear all the good stories of the day during dinner, argh!) I zoom home at a breakneck 5 mph, get the blasted insurance card, go back to the right pharmacy, submit the card only to find out that the meds were only a couple bucks more than the co-pay. I wanted to drop my head on the counter and wail, "Why? Why? Why didn't you tell me? I would have just bought it and gone home!" but instead I smiled politely and said thank you. It was going to be a best of days no matter what.

Now my kids are asleep, husband is wiped out, and I'm going to go revel in the beauty of a clean house. Or at least I'm going to pretend it's clean because we all know that a house doesn't stay clean when you leave four kids in it unattended for the entire evening.

Ack.

Decision Overload

A dear friend asked me why I slowed down on blogging.

Easy answer: "There's simply Too Much to blog about."

It's funny how we can easily and quickly pick a choice when there are limited options, but when given a wide range, we can't make a choice at all. (See "The E-myth Revisted" or "Made to Stick" for back-up on that point.)

So, with one eye closed, I tell you that I'm not blogging today since it is by-the-numbers the most busy day I have ever had and/or will ever have on the job, my husband is having surgery and has no car to get to and from the hospital, but my body can't be driving him and doing what it needs to do to keep work and children going, also, he can't have the car. I need the car. I got someone else to cover my carpool and half a dozen other obligations, but...

So, no blogging, just a recognition of the decision overload.

Tennis. Finally.

Perhaps the most blog-appropriate note for me this last week was that I can now play tennis. Well.

See, when I was a kid / teen my brother tried to teach me how to play tennis. It was an exercise in futility. Every concept he taught me didn't stick. I made the same mistakes again and again. He never gave up on me, but he never made progress either.

As an adult, I can look back and see with crystal clarity that at that point in my life I had not a clue how to learn certain tasks. My mind was shut to skills that might indicate ability outside a certain scope.

Now as an adult I am on hyperdrive trying to learn from my mistakes. All my mistakes. Since I am making a heap o' mistakes, the learning is occurring at a breakneck pace. Ha.

I didn't put this all into perspective until last week when the kids and I went out to play tennis, the first time in years.

I hit the ball and it went where it was supposed to.

I lobbed it back again and again. I could play! Well!

All the lessons my brother taught flooded back. Apparently they had been catalogued in some dusty corner of my brain and they were there for the asking. It was so liberating to finally be free to play.

Jee and Aee were wondering why their mom was so psyched about it all. I was delighted to see that Jee has natural talent and can hit it hard and fast like his pappa. Aee learned how to serve. It was awesome.

The first meeting

Jee and Aee are now on their first baseball team. One of Jee's old friends (the one who "lives in the castle on the corner") invited him to join the team as soon as registration first opened.

I had "Sign up for Baseball" on my To Do list for a few months and, of course, never got to it. This afternoon, mere hours before the orientation meeting, I got an email from one of the baseball commissioners, a friend of the family, saying that one kid had a request to have Jee ___ on his team and was it the same Jee ___ that I call my son?

Uh, yes.

I should have signed up by now, huh?

So, I do the online registration for both kiddos, getting them into the same team and several friends. The coach is also a friend of the family. Everything looks great, better than great.

Then why did we leave the orientation meeting with Aee in tears? I haven't seen such a desperately sad little face in a long time. Her cheeks were red and her eyes were puddles. She had on her new team baseball hat and looked like a batter ready to hit a home run. Why the tears?

Because she misunderstood that the orientation meeting was just a meeting where a bunch of old people talk and the kids say "hi" to each other. No ball hitting. No running. Not yet.

She was so sad! All I could think was how wonderful it was that she wanted to play.

Bizarre truths

Do you ever wonder if your kids are telling the truth simply because their story is so bizarre?

Vee and Kee: "We went to Ultimate practice today and there was one really short kid who tried to do a throw when a really big kid blocked it with his knee. The short kid might have a broken arm. One of the guys called his mom. His mom called the paramedics. The paramedics couldn't get in because the gates to the field were locked."

Me: "Well, then, how did you get in if the gates were locked?"

Vee and Kee: "We all jumped the fence..."

Me: "The whole team?"

Vee and Kee: "Well, yeah."

Me: "Where was the coach?"

Vee and Kee: "Stuck in a meeting at work. So, the paramedics got there and couldn't get in so they called the fire department so they could bring their ladder. You know, they couldn't get the kid out since he couldn't climb the fence with the broken arm... then the mom showed up and the coach showed up with the key to the gate and he let everybody in. And THEN the fire truck showed up with the ladder."

Me: shaking head, "Are you serious?"

Of course.

Time

This has been an exceptionally busy week, thus no blogging, resting, or playing. Now it's Sunday so I'm re-evaluating it all. I am looking at the big picture as well as the details, trying to determine if I am on the right path.

When my oldest was only two, I wrote a very specific list of New Year's Resolutions. It listed big, life-changing goals alongside the minutiae: "Own a house with four sky-lights, one garden window, and a three car garage." The list was tucked away in a box for three years (that's only 36 months folks) and when I pulled it back out, I read it over seeing that nearly every item on the list had been fulfilled. Wild.

Somehow those specifics were tucked away in my memory and all little decisions I made over those three years led to the big picture I had envisioned. I had forgotten about the list, yet...

I haven't written New Year's Resolutions yet this year and I have been feeling floaty, like no one is in the driver's seat (a fairly scary proposition when you think about it). I'm pulling out a pad of paper now. "New Yea...."

Resolutions get a bad wrap, but honest-to-goodness, I seriously want to know where I'll be three years from now, could be a lot of different places and I have to at least try to effect that outcome.

Interesting reasoning

I was at a conference last weekend & let the teenagers have a weekend worth of practicing their independent living skills.

They did *great* except for one thing -- there were an awful lot of dishes in the sink despite the fact that they have been well-trained in the finer points of doing dishes.

Upon questioning the 15 yo: "Why didn't you do the dishes?"

Kee: "We didn't run out."

Doh.