Perfection

Life is not perfect.

A couple weeks ago I forgot to bring my laptop home which was a disaster because Thursday PM at the Cassidy's is all business. Shawn "does" the money on our computer and I typically plan my meals as I mentioned in "Success Secrets". This time I was at a loss, but I figured I'd be okay without a meal plan since I kind of have the whole thing in my head. Big mistake.

I bought the usual items that I buy for all the meals we eat. No problem.

I didn't take into consideration how busy I would be with work. For the month of March my job "overflows it's banks" while I plan and execute our annual national conference.

All of a sudden I'm staying late at work and Shawn is picking up the slack. The vegetables I've purchased are slowly wilting in the fridge and the meat I've defrosted for dinner is still waiting when I get home late, hungry & tired.

In particular, a couple nights ago, I came home at 7pm to find the ground turkey back in the fridge and the smell of burnt pancakes in the air. No dinner for me because they figured I wouldn't eat the pancakes (they gave the leftovers to neighborhood kids!) and although they're right, I feel a little neglected. At moments like these I really wish I had a mom to take care of me. Oh yeah, I forgot for a moment that I am the mom!

I'm not up to fixing a healthful, balanced meal so I put a pot of water on for pasta and begin tweaking that meal plan. I'm a bit bleary eyed but there's no way I'm going to start another 2 weeks unprepared, especially with conference travel approaching. That and the only opportunity I have to do the shopping is the next day after work. I eat the pasta at 7:30pm and am in bed by 9pm.

The next morning I find myself scrambling to find a suitable lunch. I end up grabbing a shrivelled and slightly moldy yam to bake at work and any quick bars, shakes and trail mix I can find. I made a decent vegetable omelet for breakfast but didn't have time to fix any veggies for other meals. I forgot to make any plans at all for dinner.

At lunch I realize that the baked yam is not enough and I'm really craving protein so I pay for a piece of chicken that is ordered in for the volunteers. My whole body relaxes. Something about cooked animal protein (sorry vegetarians) signals my body that I have eaten a "real" meal.

After work it's off to the grocery store and the plan is executed perfectly. Everything we need for a successful couple weeks is bought except for the veggies. I need to take an inventory of what we have at home and go to the produce market the next morning because they closed before I left work. By the time I'm finished I get a call from Shawn saying pizza has been ordered and I need to pick it up. We have somewhere we need to be in a couple hours so I'm grateful dinner has been taken care of no matter what it is.

As I put away the groceries later I see those wilting two-week old veggies and the ground turkey meat still waiting to be cooked and sigh. Maybe tomorrow.