47. If At First You Don’t Succeed . . .

Sometimes things just don’t go quite according to plan.  And it seems I’ve had a streak of sorts of things not quite going according to plan lately.  It started at the end of last week when I proudly presented my son with a bean bag chair that I had sewed for him in my spare moments during the week . . . with in seconds, he jumped and landed on it with all the force his 8-year old body could muster.  Guess what didn’t survive . . . yup.  The bean bag chair.

On the weekend, I embarked on a series of little projects around the house – we are hosting Thanksgiving for our entire family next weekend, so what better time to get the house ready?  Well, one of these projects involved removing the fabric from our TEN antique dining room chairs and replacing it with new fabric (that I’ve had stored under our bed for at least 2 years).  Well . . .that little project ended up taking an entire day . . . and still isn’t done.  Turned out there were FOUR layers of fabric under the top layer, with each one held in place by about 1000 staples.  I wish I was exaggerating.  But sadly, I’m not.  My fingers are still raw from prying all those staples out . . .

Yesterday I tried a new muffin recipe that I thought would be an awesome addition to our nut-free, refined sugar-free snack rotation . . . I was so excited, I thought they were pretty fantastic, I couldn’t wait for the kids to get home to taste test them . . . and only one of the kids will eat them.

And then there was this morning.  Let’s just say it wasn’t my ideal kind of morning with the kids.  Tempers may have flared (mine), feelings may have been hurt (theirs), and it really wasn’t the start to the morning that we normally have in our house.

While the kids were still at school, I took advantage of the quite time I had to myself so I could think about what happened this morning, why I got so upset, and how I could change things to keep that from happening again.  Turns out, I was a little over-tired (I’m back to getting up at 4:30 with the Husband so I can get things done in the morning when the Kids aren’t yet out of bed), I’ve been a productivity machine this past week, methodically ticking items off my to-do list, but possibly over-extending myself in the process.  And the kids are still adjusting to their schedules for the year, leaving them a little more tired and cranky than they might otherwise be.

As pick-up time neared, I sat down, took a few good, deep breaths, and rather than dwell on feelings of guilt that I had over the morning, I resolved to try again.  And so far . . . post-pick up, our afternoon is going swimmingly.

If ever you find yourself all wound up, with things not going the way you wanted them to, stop, take a deep breath, or ten, and try again.