As I sat at breakfast yesterday reading the local paper, the story that jumped out at me was that former President Clinton had visited our relatively small community on Sunday to campaign for Hillary. The article noted that he had made similar stops (an hour speech, plus ten minutes of hand shaking) on Sunday in Wichita Falls, Abilene, Houston, and Marshall. Click on this map to blow it up, then view the territory he covered.
This seemed like a pretty hectic day. By the time I finally put Erin to bed last night, I had decided the Bill Clinton had nothing on Erin. She started her day at school (8:00-3:00), did her study council hall monitoring duty afterwards, flew straight to piano lessons, then to Honor Choir rehearsal. After that she went to a Girl Scout meeting. No, she has not started scouting. She was the invited speaker for Troop 9080. These girls have decided to support Lunch for Life as their philanthropic project this spring, and wanted Erin to fill them in on the details of having cancer and what funding cancer research means to her. By 7:00 we were back in the car to meet Walter and Davis for dinner at Chef Cao's, leaving only homework and ablutions before she could hit the bed.
I, on the other hand, eventually crumble when faced with an ever-expanding, impossible-to-maintain schedule. Case in point: last month, Erin's soccer team that I coach, was scheduled to play in tournaments over three consecutive weekends. This, in addition to my professoring, housekeeping, and wifing duties was probably too much, as evidenced by the fact that I never remembered to look for my toiletry kit hanging behind the bathroom door in the Georgetown hotel where we stayed for the second tournament. I had to phone and sheepishly request that they mail my kit, having to add "and quickly, too, because I need it for the tournament next weekend." Not a huge slip up, but a sign that I wasn't dotting my "i"s or crossing my "t"s.
Unfortunately, that was not the worst of it. Here's a dirty little secret: I've been looking for our family checkbook for over a week. I remembered writing a check on February 20, but had no recollection of it after that. Yesterday, I found it. It arrived in the mail with a note of apology for its mangled state from the Dallas, Texas post office (you can check out the map again to note that Dallas isn't the next city over from Bryan). From what I can pull from the dim recesses of my memory, I must have finished paying some bills, walked outside to place the envelops in the mailbox and to return the checkbook to my purse in the car and absent-mindedly put the whole stack in the mailbox. . .and off went my checkbook like a stowaway on Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.
Luckily for me, with coaching school behind me (that's right I am now Licensed to Coach, sort of like James Bond), and spring break approaching, I think I can get a handle on the runaway schedule. We leave tomorrow for a little break down in Corpus Christi, and I will still have some time to catch up and re-group before we have to get back in the groove. I guess I'm lucky in a way. I have this built any alarm system that let's me know when I have taken on too much. I just start dropping stitches, then I know I need to cut back.
Don't feel bad. I once lost the checkbook, closed the account and all, only to find it 3 months later under the seat of the car where I'd looked for it at least twice!
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