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An Object in Motion

It’s nearly 11:00 a.m., and I have already failed a lot of things starting last night. Rick is out of town, and when he’s out of town, I tend to stay up too late. This time, I talk too long on the phone with Karitza. We neglect to acknowledge the time difference of three hours between my house and hers. I also ignore the fact that I must get up for seminary before the sun rises because it's nice to talk about things. After we hang up, I ponder our discussion about scripture and life mysteries. It's not easy to fall asleep with my brain still going. (Why don't I have that problem in the daytime when preparing seminary lessons??)

I fall asleep about 12:30 a.m. My alarm goes off at 6. It's an easy phone tap to set the snooze, but in my exhaustion, I turn off the alarm. No problem, I have another alarm set for 6:15 a.m. When I hear that one, I usually drag myself to the bathroom to begin spiffifying myself (like that word?). But today, I must sleep-cancel that alarm because I don't wake up until my 6:40 a.m. alarm, which is normally my cue to hustle upstairs and wake up Andrew so we can be out the door in about 10 minutes. On a non-failure day, I'm showered and dressed when I head upstairs to wake up the kids.

Today, I'm in my PJs, with puffy eyes and lines on my face from the creases in my sheets. Ricky pulls the kids out of bed while I go back to the kitchen to slap together some lunches for school.


Gavin is always up first. He gets up on his own very responsibly at 6:30 a.m. He's already dressed and pouring cereal for himself in the kitchen. Normally, about this time, I give him a kiss and head out the door.


Today, he scrutinizes my natural morning beauty. “Aren’t you going to seminary?”


“Yep. I woke up late but’ll leave in a few minutes.”


Gavin's eyes widen, “What about your hair?”


"My hair? What about my pajamas?"


"Those are fine. You can use the excuse of fun Friday, but you should do something about your hair.


Well, I DID have to do something about my hair. And everything else.


I am pretty speedy when the situation necessitates. Andrew and I arrive at seminary only a few minutes late.


We play a rousing game of Book of Mormon Family Feud. Friday Fun Day is always a hit. As I tally up the final points, I think about Friday breakfast, which is another key to the success of Fun Fridays.


I refer to the parent sign-up sheet because it's a new semester, and I wonder if anybody thought of signing up. Scroll, scroll—-Oh yeah!! I signed myself up for the first Friday! Poo. I didn't bring a thing. I mollify the masses with prizes from our game basket. The hungry kids take a few fruit snacks and granola bars, but I know most of them were counting on breakfast. Still, they’re magnanimous about my apology, especially since I promise to bring breakfast on Monday.


After seminary, Andrew drives us to Sam’s Club to pick up the grocery order. I pull up the app on my phone and discover I’m still mid-purchase. I didn’t complete the transaction last night! No groceries for us because I certainly don’t have the oompf to actually walk in the store and get stuff.


At home, I’m sleepy, sleepy, sleepy. So why do I sit at the desk instead of doing something more physically active? After all, "an object in motion stays in motion," right? Wrong. The other part is “unless acted upon by an equal or opposite force.” I sit at my desk, NOT in motion, and pretend efficiency by skimming and deleting emails. Then I rest my head on my arms to pray. “Help me get things done. Help me find motivation. I want to do a good job.”


I wake up about 15 minutes later to Ricky walking into the office with the latest service missionary schedule update. With two teen boys at home with me all day, I’m rarely uninterrupted for long, and since I can’t manage to stay awake, that’s not a bad thing.


I pretend I wasn't sleep-praying and begin scanning and deleting emails again. One email draws my attention--a reminder for a passport appointment for Andrew at 10:30 a.m. It's 10:52 a.m. We missed it. I missed it. It's not on Andrew this time because I didn't tell him about it. I scheduled the appointment yesterday when I was half-asleep at the desk (see a pattern here?). So much for crossing that item off my list!


Am I going to be successful at ANYTHING today?


Blog post. Check. Give this girl a high five.

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