my frustrating, run-around, exhausting, very-good day

Yesterday was one of those days where I knew, from when my feet hit the floor, I couldn’t waste a minute. I had bought a ticket for a women’s missionary luncheon at our church, and in the evening we had cell meeting at our house – this on top of my usual several hours of typing. So I planned to start out in efficient mode by picking up my work early (the building opens at 7:00 a.m.). Of course I immediately set out on the wrong foot by taking too long posting in my blog.

I was merrily typing by 8:30 though. My first email break at 9 o’clock (I check my email on the hour - "haloscan - you’ve got a comment" is such a nice break from the doc’s droning voice), handed me another hiccup... or two.

A note from a friend, telling me her dad was now ill too, and this on top of her mom in the hospital the last four months, broke my concentration.

And this email from my daughter re her wedding photographer: "She (the photographer) called me back last night to say that she is very, very sorry but something that she was booked for on May Long weekend got moved to the weekend of my wedding. She won't be able to do my pictures. So I hung up the phone and had a little cry," put me in a mother-spin, as every cell in my body cried out I’ll rescue you! I’ll rescue you! But at the moment I was three hours’ drive away and had work to do. So I forwarded that email on to hubby, to deal with if he wished, and pushed on toward my goal to finish my work by the time I had to leave for the luncheon.

My 10 o’clock email check handed me another interruption. It was from one of my March Treehouse column contributors. The poem he’d submitted was missing a line. Yikes! So my typing went on hold again as I searched back through our email exchange and discovered - he was right!

(Now I thought his poem read ok without that line, though he insisted it didn’t make any sense at all. But, I know the frustration of having my work appear not as I’d submitted it. A year ago I had a poem published on the back cover of Bird’s and Blooms. The first stanza, as I’d sent it in to them went, in part: "To-whit, to-whee, to-whit, to-why, / Sunrise has come and gone, now I / Remember autumn with a sigh..." But it was published: "To-whit, to-whee, to-whit, to-why, / Sunrise has come and gone, no I / Remember autumn with a sigh..." Argh!)

So trying to fix my blunder meant another flurry of emails as I contacted him, got his approval of how it should be, then wrote the editor, cap-in-hand, pleading, could she get it changed somehow, please?

By now it was time to leave for the luncheon, in fact I was running late. It didn’t help to arrive to a gym-full of women and not recognize anyone (ours is a large church, we live a fair distance from it so don’t attend everything, and have only gone there under five years). But then (sigh of relief) there was Jean, from my cell group, and Ardeena, whom I’d met through a class we took together, and an open spot at their table.

The luncheon was fabulous – interviews of six fascinating women, and a multi-ethnic meal (samosas, some kind of oriental roll, curried rice, Russian cabbage salad – and Canadian lemon slice for dessert, washed down with jasmine tea! - yum), served on a banana leaf.

Then it was back to reality. I stopped by Sears on the way home to check out something to do with mom’s proposed wedding gift to Sonia (duvet, duvet covers - that sort of thing), and discovered that, as usual, my interpretation of items in their latest flyer was faulty – another dead end. But all in all, I got home safely through the building late-afternoon traffic and was back in my home cubicle by 3:00.

Before I lit into my typing again I opened my email (of course!) and discovered the dropped line had been added (whew!!), and that Hubby had written a reassuring response to his distraught little girl.

I finally managed to finish those letters, before dinner, and got through the whole routine of printing labels, backing up work etc., after the dishes were done. By 7:00, I’d tidied the kitchen, put up coffee and all associated paraphernalia, chosen a worship song for our meeting but was exhausted.

"I feel bruised," I remarked to Ernie. "This is the kind of night I’d like to do nothing more than go up to my room and lose myself in a book."

"But you can’t do that," he said to me.

True.

Our cell group members came right on time, and immediately I began to re-energize. Who wouldn’t with this great group of friends and fellow pilgrims? Last night joining our usual seven was Steve.

Now Ernie prayed at the altar with Steve several Sundays ago, when he came to re-dedicate his life to Christ. In a manner that would make Pastor Anne (DON’T DROP THE BABIES!) Donkers proud, Ernie has kept in touch with him in the last weeks, encouraging him, praying with him, and helping him through the stuff that new Christians face as they deal with the grunge of a messed up life.

It was a great evening of laughing, singing, talking, crying, praying, hugging!

I read one whole page in my book last night – before I fell into a deep and peaceful sleep. Real life, as in a frustrating, run-around, exhausting, very-good day, is definitely not always as neat as fiction, considerably more tiring, but all in all a heap more satisfying!