The {what is most useful? podcasts, doing it well and popcorn} post

I haven’t written in forever.  And it really is one of the things that I would like to do more of.  Even though it may fly in the face of what I am going to write about a few paragraphs down.  For today, writing it is.

I wake up around 5:30 some days and I can’t go back to sleep because my mind is racing.  Today’s thought that my brain HAS to answer:  What do people find most useful after a family member dies.

And somehow, in the part of my brain that does all the cool stuff, I laid in bed trying to create an imaginary poll so that I could find out just what that thing is that would be most helpful to have someone show up and plop in your hands after you lose someone.  I wasn’t sure if a Facebook post would be the right platform.  And blogging can be iffy – it might not reach all eight readers that I used to have.  So, how, my mind asks, do I find the answer to this question?

Earlier this week I heard about Mom Struggling Well podcasts and I have started listening to them.  

I have really enjoyed all 1.8 podcasts that I have managed to listen to even though I have to fight my way through interruptions and have had to restart the podcasts about sixteen times per show. 

Laura Kelley was the guest on Episode 61 that I listened to yesterday and the one thing that I took away from her story is that she sliced her commitment list and decided to do the things that she HAS to do and do them WELL.

This got me thinking that I need to do a few things well too.  I have taken on the task of homeschooling and I don’t always feel like I do it well.  I am also in charge of preparing food for my family and some days I do that well.  And other days they would be better off scraping sludge off the bottom of the oven at the bakery.  

But her insight was pretty good – do the things that you are going to be doing anyway and do them well.  Not as an afterthought.  Not as the thing you have to rush through to get to the good stuff.  But well.

I have already applied this concept.  As I was driving home and listening to these wise words my brain – the part with the never ending to-do list – was going.  I needed to send things to a client, I needed to pick up my kids, I needed to help my parents with some furniture –

funny story by the way – little blue chair got stuck in their stairway.  There I am, trying to calculate which way the chair needs to turn to make the turn in the stairway – and there is my dad, fully aware that the space I am trying to turn the chair is smaller than the chair itself.  Meanwhile, my mom is downstairs offering us a Sawzall and telling us “It went up there, it should be able to come down.”  Because, let’s face it, when you have a blue chair stuck in the middle of a stairwell that truth is exactly what you need to hear.   (I love you mom!)

I also needed to get coffee for TDM so that he isn’t forced to drink the equivalent of coffee sludge tomorrow (I mean this) morning.  But the process of buying coffee isn’t just buying coffee.  The grocery store has a spend $75, get a gas coupon deal going and If I am spending $6 on coffee, by heck and by golly, I am going to spend $75 and get my coupon.  So I had already planned my grocery list out earlier in the day and just had to decide if I was going last night or if TDM was drinking sludge again.  I was pretty sure that I could just run into the store quickly and grab my list’s worth of things.  The variables were:  whether or not they had two bags of popcorn ready to go for Miss E and Smiley Girl.  If only one half-full cup of water would fly tonight.  Whether or not the car-carts had been hidden adequately prior to our arrival.  The time of night that I would be arriving on scene – since the time change has kicked Smiley Girl’s tush and she is ready for full on melt down at 7pm.  

And hormones.  

Yes, popcorn and hormones are a factor in how successful the shopping trip would be.  Because popcorn and hormones are the difference between me walking out of the grocery store like this:

{Insert picture of happy lady shopping with two angelic children.  I would, but that would require more clicks of the mouse and several log ins and I just don't have it in me.}

And like this:

{Insert picture of crazed angry mom with cranky non-angelic children in tow.}

I was pretty sure that I could do it last night.  And then the words from the podcast hit my brain.  And I realized that there was no way on God’s green earth that it was something I would be able to do WELL. 

Crap.

So I sent the work into the clients, ate a piece of chicken, got the blue chair stuck, packed up the kids and we came home.

Where I sat on the couch and talked to TDM and Miss E for a bit before carrying Smiley Girl – who was dressed in a polka dot Minnie Mouse dress, purple cow pajama pants, hair in a bun that didn’t start out messy and the remains of lipstick that DID start out messy – to bed.

And I did it well.

So that leaves TDM drinking sludge this morning and me pondering my 5 am question and wondering what time out be optimal to do the store well this morning. 

Feel free to weigh in on those subjects or any other one you care to mention in the comments.