A Gift

Today I received the best possible gift besides world peace, financial freedom, and eternal health. I was supposed to have a couple of appointments in western Mass, which would have required about 5 hours of driving and 2 hours of meetings. Last night I got everything ready for the morning rush (backpacks, lunch money, snacks, my IR uniform, etc.) and went to bed early. This morning I only hit the snooze button twice, and got the kids whipped into a frenzy of competing to see who would be dressed with clean teeth first, who would be done eating first, and who would be at the door with coat and backpack first. This method usually results in a few tears, but they might as well learn that it's eat or be eaten out there in the real world.

Somehow I got everyone into my CLEAN (thanks Ben and Aliya!) car, dropped Norah off at Lina's, and arrived at Adlani's school 10 minutes early. This probably doesn't seem like a big deal but since we usually have to break several laws to arrive in time for the morning drop-off drive-thru, we were shocked and amazed to be there before drop-off even began. I decided to drive Aliya to school instead of waiting at the bus stop, in hopes that I could get a jump on my trip west. We arrived at her school a half hour before school started - again, an unheard of occurrence.

As we pulled into the parking lot I got a call cancelling today's appointments. Wow...a whole day was suddenly mine. What would I do with it? First, I got to spend about a half hour with Aliya's teacher. Aliya loved showing me around the classroom. Then I stopped at Panache for a non-fat sugarfree caramel latte, and headed home. I could have filled my day with answering emails and all the other stuff that was calling out to me, or I could have filled my day with internet research on whatever struck my fancy, but instead I decided that I would pick one task that has been bugging me, and DO IT.

I chose to re-vamp the invoicing system for work. I know it doesn't sound that exciting, but it has been driving me crazy. I audited all of the projects for last year, transferred unpaid invoices to the new system, sent out invoices and late notices, and I'm done! It feels great to actually get something accomplished. Of course, a few emails piled up, just as they would have if I had spent the day on the road, but tomorrow's another day.
.