all good things come to an end

A topsy-turvy wave of confusion spread through our house as my husband moved from room to room, moving furniture, taping the walls and painting. Just because I asked him to please have the walls inside the house re-painted before company came for Christmas, wall clocks and calendars have landed in the piles of odds and ends to be reconsidered for wall placement. Beds, chairs and tables cluster in the middle of the room and we hunch over the counter for meals. We lack order around here. That’s my excuse for what happened last week and I’m sticking with it.

Actually the week began perfectly with a five-day trip to Indiana, Michigan and Missouri to visit the boys and their families.
We left my daughter’s home in Sherwood just before sunrise and made it to my sister-in-law’s home in Indiana by supper time. She proudly showed off all the painting and fixing up she has accomplished. We caught up with each other’s families and then went on to visit the sons. We shared a few meals and snacks, handed out simple gifts, took lots of pictures, delivered packages and kicked back to enjoy conversations and a game of Monopoly.

Sure we had to miss the church social and the office party while we traveled, but we had great timing the entire trip. As we drove up to take care of some small business issue, the woman we needed to see came outside. We left 10 minutes later with everything arranged. The two high school friends my husband wanted to see had time to chat when we found them in public places. In spite of the miles, we even managed to make it to hotels and homes in time to get a decent night’s rest. Shoot, we even took in an art museum in Detroit and the Lincoln Museum/Library in Springfield, Ill.

The first part of the week went so smoothly, no dropped opportunities, no missed folks. So how could we go so wrong at the other end of the week?
I don’t know how we lost our social precision, but we did.

Maybe beginning my work week on Wednesday disoriented me? Disoriented me to the point that I woke up thinking “Hurrah! It’s Saturday” and began planning my day free from the constraints of the office — only to open the newspaper and begin reading it before I realized, “It’s not Saturday. It’s Friday.” I literally turned to the front page and studied the date before I began switching gears mentally.

And then it still took me several seconds to realize, “Hey! I have to dress and scat if I want to check out even one garage sale before work.”
My excellent timing did not return to normal the rest of the weekend.
I totally confused the time and day of a funeral and even told my husband the wrong time. He stopped at the funeral home a day late, and had the nerve to tell the funeral director “my wife told me this time.”

He wasn’t doing much better. Immersed in the painting process, he did not notice until he had finished the hall that they did not glow with just a hint of sunshine yellow as I chose, but glared with something more akin to pumpkin chiffon. Someone made a mistake, but no one admits it.
But we both admit we made another mistake last weekend. A while back, my husband told me his Sunday School party was the 18th. He was thinking Saturday, not Friday. Saturday afternoon, he said, “Hey! We a Sunday school party tonight. This is Saturday the 18th.”
With my weekend confusion still intact, that did not sound right to me, so I said, “You better check the calendar. I don’t think that’s right.”
He looked. He had missed the party that I really had looked forward to attending with him.

We sighed and settled down completing our preparations for Christmas visitors.
Maybe, if we keep working on that one thing, we will get it finished and get our sync back. Maybe. Just don’t hold your breath.
(While getting her act together, Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times. E-mail her at joanh@everybody.org)


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