I know I just said this- but holy cow- it’s really the first week of December.
And it’s Friday Saturday.
How did that happen?
All I know is that it’s been a crazy busy time but so full of good stuff- and the hard bit here and there.
So here’s this week’s edition of Do-Overs and High-Fives
Do-Overs
Well- I’ll top the list of Do-Overs with remembering to draft my posts in Word- before I import them to WordPress…. I just lost half this post for reasons I’ll never know. So here we go again!
Trusting my gut…
AJ was invited a couple of weeks ago to play with the orchestra his teacher conducts. Despite my reservations about his reading skills, ability to sit through an hour and a half rehearsal, logistics, overscheduling, etc., we gave it a go. Not once, but twice.
After the first rehearsal, AJ was crystal clear that he didn’t want to go again. But with his teacher’s encouragement, and my rationalizations, we went a second time.
Not the end of the world- but really, I could have saved myself and AJ a bit of wear and tear this week if I’d listened to my gut sooner rather than wait until it was painfully clear that my first instinct was right.
Cairene MacDonald has a great post on just this subject which you can read here. I highly recommend it!
Speaking of sooner rather than later…
I had a heck of a time getting the PDF of the Overwhelmed Mom’s Rescue Kit up on the blog. I knew it must be an easy thing to do, but I didn’t know how to do it. I tried and tried and tried. I searched online for help and tried some more. I grumbled and cursed and just about tore my hair out.
Not because it was hard. But because I knew it was easy.
I knew I was going to feel really dumb when I finally figured it out. And I’ll do almost anything to keep from feeling dumb.
(How smart is that, huh?)
Even when I knew that there was someone who knew the answer to my question, I stalled, preferring for some perverse reason to struggle just a little longer.
Why would I do this?
Well for one thing, I don’t like to look incompetent. And even if I am clueless, I don’t want to look like a wimp.
Somehow I felt a need to bang my head against the wall for a certain amount of time before I asked for help.
Finally, in desperation, and able to honestly say I’d tried everything I could think of, I called in the cavalry. Or more precisely I called the fabulous and talented Ms. Suzanne Bird Harris- wordpress wizard and smart-ass southern mama.
I won’t do a full on commercial for Suzanne here- but suffice to say- if you need help with wordpress websites or blogs, she’s your gal. And if you dig smart southern women as much as I do, well, you won’t find a better steel magnolia!
The best thing about Suzanne is that she is a techie goddess AND she knows how to talk to normal people without making them feel stupid…
So anyway- I finally called Suzanne- and we talked for 45 minutes. Five of those minutes were spent with her showing me the missing step- the rest was purely recreational!
The point is – I could have asked for help sooner rather than later and saved myself a few grey hairs and hours of frustration.
High-Fives
Giving Thanks
Thanksgiving was one big high-five. My mom came to town and we shopped, played, cooked and had a great time all around. I love rituals of all kinds that encourage us to notice how much we have to be grateful for. (It’s one reason I love the high-fives!)
Rescue Kit is out!
My mom left on Saturday morning and so I took Dave Navarro up on his challenge to make a product in a weekend. There was no beer involved, and (lucky for you!) it’s a free product for now. I worked really hard on it and I’m really pleased with the way it turned out. In case you missed it, you can find the original post here, and the Overwhelmed Mom’s Rescue Kit here.
Patti Digh!
If you found your way to this blog via Patti, Hi! (waves!)
So glad you’re here. Honored really.
If you don’t know Patti- please let me introduce you. She’s the fabulous author, coach, diversity trainer, blogger and all-around world-changer.
I picked up Patti’s book 37 Days this summer and fell in love with her immediately. Then I found her blog. When I started using twitter, it wasn’t long before I saw her in someone else’s stream. Well of course I started following her immediately – and you should too if you’re at all inclined (she’s @pattidigh). She might be reason enough to jump onto twitter- cause she gives good tweet! Anyway…. We tweeted a bit about random things and when I wrote the tooth fairy post, I knew it was something she’d appreciate. So, conjuring up my courage- I sent her a tweet, linking the post and said something like, “I thought you might enjoy this.” Gulp.
Well apparently she did. She immediately sent me a sweet tweet right back, which said, and I quote, “Lovely.”
Well that was enough right there. I went to bed with a smile on my face a mile wide that Friday night.
But as at least some of you know- that wasn’t the end… On Monday, she included the letter I wrote to AJ as part of her post which you can read here.
I can’t even tell you what that meant to me. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined such a thing. This is exactly the sort of situation for which the word plotz was invented.
I’m still kind of speechless over the whole thing- but when I figure out what to say (besides a huge THANK YOU!) I’ll let you know!
As always, there’s more- but I’ll stop here for now and invite you to play along. What’s happening in your world that you’d like to do-over? What would you like to celebrate with a big High-Five?
Let us know in the comments!
Have a great weekend and I’ll see you back here on Tuesday!
