My Day Was Not As I Planned

***Warning – boring post ahead***

Today hasn’t been the day I had planned.  It hasn’t been disastrous by any stretch of the imagination it has just been far more awkward, frustrating and annoying than it should have been.  It all started much as any other day, an early walk around the river toting my bag of rice.  I expected to walk into a quiet house, dump my rice and put the kettle on for a relaxing cuppa before the madness began.  Of course I had forgotten that man-child was heading off to the airport mere minutes after I returned.  Since he was going away for the rest of the week he had woken the kids to say goodbye to them.  Of course I get that he wanted to say goodbye but I had stupidly assumed that the farewells had taken place last night and they would get to stay asleep.

You can imagine the kids after being woken to say goodbye.  They were tired, emotional and very fragile.  Within minutes of returning home from the tranquility of my walk I had 2 kids snuggling on my lap, lamenting the tragedy of having to go to school, being rudely awoken and not having pancakes for breakfast (go figure).  I was tempted to just stay snuggling on the couch with them both for the remainder of the day until I remembered that it was the day that I take 2 others to school.

Once I realised that we would have more kids knocking on our door in less than an hour, we had to get our butts into gear.  Just as breakfast was finished and there were porridge bowls scattered over the bench and the kids were deciding what to eat next the doorbell rang.  I was expecting 2 little girls but instead it was the delivery guy – our new dining chairs had arrived.  I figured that as the kids were dressing I would get the chairs out and let the kids climb in the boxes with their friends when they arrived.  Simple plan but it didn’t happen, the chairs needed to be built!

Building chairs wasn’t what I planned on doing but I like building things so I got started, just as the other kids arrived.  I had pretty much given up on the concept of the kids playing their instruments this morning, I was simply happy for them to be dressed and ready before we had to leave so I left them to play and went to shower and get ready for work.  I was surprised when I came downstairs to find boy-child playing his clarinet and being accompanied by the older of the girls.  We had a few minutes before we should leave for school so I started to hurry them all up but no-one wanted to move.  The older kids kept playing music until I began screeching.  Of course by the time they all put their shoes on and grabbed school bags, that few minutes and a few more had disappeared, we were now running late.  Rushing 4 kids into a car at any time is hard work, rushing 4 kids who were now pissed off at being rushed is nearly impossible!  Eventually we were all in the car and on our way but the school bell was about to sound, in fact we heard the bell ring from the traffic lights at the top of the hill!  Hooray, the kids were late and by default I was late too.

Once the kids were left at the school gate, running to class to avoid being late enough to have to get a late pass, it was time for me to get to work.  I had a 9.30am meeting and planning to do prior.  I was hoping to get a few things done before going out.  I was deluded in thinking I would get enough done to be able to head out at lunch time to actually have lunch and a break during a split shift.  That was far from the reality.  The 9.30 meeting was late arriving, making me late for my next appointment.  The late start to the meeting did give me a chance to get some planning done but of course it gave me an opportunity to answer phone calls and as a result create more work.

The second meeting ran even later than the first and my workload seemed to increase twofold in only a few hours.  Needless to say, I was more than happy when a third appointment was cancelled.  By now it was lunch time, I was famished and wanting to escape.  All I had to do was copy some lesson plans and I could disappear.  Cue phone calls and urgent emails and I kissed my lunch goodbye.  I did have to leave the office for a personal appointment.  There is nothing like a trip to the dentist as a pick-me up on a day that has been all wrong!

I really should have thought about the mess that the day had been and cancelled the appointment but I didn’t, I was only going for a clean and polish, no dramas right.  Well let me say OUCH.  I have only had the dentist clean once before and I don’t remember it hurting.  Actually, to be perfectly honest, the clean itself didn’t hurt.  In fact the hygienist was lovely, she was very conscious that I may be uncomfortable.  In reality it was merely annoying but the sounds of metal being scraped across my teeth was akin to fingernails down a chalkboard.  Now, nearly 8 hours after the clean my jaw is aching and my teeth all hurt.

From the dentist straight to school pickup and back to work again.  Fortunately there were no dramas in the arvo session and we were home for dinner at a reasonable hour.

As I served up dinner I was met with a resounding yuck, followed up by an argument over who got to sit in the new dining chair.  Yep that’s right, I had only a chance to make up one of the 8 chairs so we ate in the lounge.  It wasn’t until we were eating dinner that boy-child mentioned that he didn’t know what to write in his Information Report.  A little more questioning and I found out that said Information Report was due on Wednesday, as in tomorrow Wednesday not next week Wednesday!  Crap, there goes my plan for  an early night for the kids.  Dinner was scoffed, second dinner was scoffed also and then we dragged out some books to do research.

An hour later, not only had a topic been selected but a hearty discussion had taken place in which comets were compared to dirty snowballs.  A rough draft of the Report was written and the technical drawings were completed.  There was more than enough I figured to be deemed acceptable as a first ever Information Report so I sent him off to bed.

Instead of being productive, I have spent my evening cuddling with the geriatric cat and ignoring the fact that we still don’t have 8 dining chairs and the dinner dishes are waiting to go into the dishwasher.  I really should get off my butt and do something now but I think bed is calling, either that or I will waste some more time trying to get my laptop to recognise my old camera so I can add a late Sundays in my City post as I contemplate turning off my alarm to allow for a sleep in tomorrow.

I now that tomorrow will be a loooong day but here’s hoping that it will be nice and predictable.  I hope your day is predictable, in a good way, too.