Where did I park my Focus?

I purchased everything I needed.  Clinton helped me set up the decorations, videos and books.  I had the seat set up in the appropriate room.  I had prayed and prayed and prayed.  I even checked the Farmer's Almanac to be sure it was the best time.

And it was.

And it worked.

Mostly.

On Friday, April 9, I potty-trained Nathan using the book "Potty Train Your Child in Just One Day" by Teri Crane. I had planned to blog last week about how well the book worked for Nathan.

If you follow her plan, it can work.

If you only partially follow, you may have a major problem on your hands. 

Friday was okay.  Saturday started out shaky but he really was getting the hang of it that afternoon.  Sunday showed continued promise.

Monday came.  It all went down the tubes--literally and figuratively.

I had thought I would have at least another week before Clinton got into the field to begin planting.  I was wrong.  Oh, so wrong. 

Between meals and other farming chaos, final rehearsals for my Ladies' Day skit, Matthew's 3 track meets, trying to convince the family that it would all work out just fine if I left for two days, and just keeping my head above water with the house, I lost the battle. 

I had planned to have the whole week relatively free to be able to drop everything when needed to help continue Nathan's success.  The reality was that it was one of the most frustrating, nerve-racking, tear-filled weeks I have ever had.  No exaggeration.  There was not a single day last week I didn't break down sobbing at least once.  No PMS involved. 

I was SO ready for Ladies' Day. 

It was obvious that God had been at work in this event long before we started planning.   Everything from the anointing on the speakers to the weather to the decorations to the timing of everything was truly amazing.  Other than the fact that it was very cool that morning, Ladies' Day was absolutely perfect. 

It wasn't until keynote speaker Linda Mirante's second speech that I received what I needed, the message I had come to hear.

One word.

FOCUS.

She began by saying that when you have a bad day, you need to ask yourself, "What did I focus on today?"  I don't tend to be a very focused, driven person anyway, but I realized that I had had NO focus WHATSOEVER that week.  Or rather, I had no GOOD focus.  My focus had been on my distractions, duties, discouragements, and disasters.  I was looking around me when I needed to be looking up.

So that is the word that keeps coming to me this week as I try to repair the damage and continue on.  Focus on the next thing I need to do.  Focus on the child and not the clock  (So lunch is 45 minutes late.  They'll get over it eventually).  Focus on The One who has it ALL under control, if only I will get my grubby mitts off and give my chaos to Him. 

FOCUS. 

I never should have gotten up...

I should have known better than to allow the annoying beeping to get me out of bed Friday morning. It was 4:30am when Clinton and I began hearing a beep. It was only once every three minutes, and we couldn't decide whether or not it was worth worrying about. Finally at 4:50 we decided we were getting annoyed and better figure out what was going on. It wasn't the smoke detectors, CO2 alarm, house alarm system, it was...my cell phone. At 11:41pm someone whose number I don't recognize called and I missed it. We'll never know what happened there, but by this time it was 5am. I decided I was too wound up to try getting back to sleep, so Clinton joined me in watching the tail end of a movie I'd started watching 3 weeks ago.

Fast forward to lunchtime. I needed to go to town to deliver some frozen pretzels I had been storing (don't ask), so I volunteered to run to the bank for Clinton so he could go farm. This particular bank is a 25 minute drive from the house, and it would be a good idea to be there before 2:00. I packed up Nathan and 3 huge boxes of pretzels and prepared to deliver them to the freezer in Carrie's garage. First of all, I couldn't figure out how to get into Carrie's garage (don't ask). I called Carrie and we were good to go. I parked on the street and carried the boxes to the back of her property, down some stairs, around the usual stuff people have in their garages, and located the freezer. After rearranging the freezer I realized I could only get 2 boxes in. By now it was almost 1:30. What was I going to do about the third box of pretzels, and in the next five minutes? I had a brilliant idea. I called Stephanie. She is part of the same organization as Carrie and I, AND she has a restaurant closeby. Phone call to Stephanie. She could take the other box! But I couldn't find the backdoor to the restaurant among the 6 other backdoors. Finally she steped out of the one back door I could swear it couldn't be. I finally got rid of the partially-thawed pretzels and I was on my way to the bank. I would make it right before 2:00! Yeah!

Clinton has assured me I could make these transactions through the drive up. I believed him. Unfortunately the teller let me know I had to go inside to complete one of the transactions, but she did take care of the other one for me. I parked across the street, gathered my to-this-point-well-behaved 14 month old, and we went into the bank. We finished our business and left. On the way home Nathan became not-so-well-behaved, and I got behind a slow moving armored car. For nearly the entire way home. Nathan finally gave up and fell asleep. This did not bode well for him taking a nap later in the afternoon, which meant he would be very cranky this evening.

When I got home, there was a stray dog in the yard. Lucy was barking profusely and the cats were nowhere to be found. The stray followed my car into the garage and I shooed it out the walk-in door. This poor bird dog was very, very thin, and I felt sorry for it. Although not sorry enough to feed it or keep it. I brought Lucy into the house with much difficulty. I placed Nathan on the floor with his toy four-wheeler and dialed the humane society. No answer. Not even an answering machine. I tried again later. And again. And again. On the 5th try I got an answer. Unfortunately the guy who does the "collecting" was working his other job today. He MIGHT get finished in time to come out, he might not. Lucy wanted to go out and do who-knows-what to this dog, my cats were traumatized, no one could come into our out of the house without being snuggled to death by this dog, and it's a 3 day weekend.

By now it was time for Matthew to be home from school. While I was waiting at the door to let him in, I saw a wasp. And another wasp. And two more. I watched them for a minute. I could tell that these, and several of their friends, probably are building a nest in the ceiling of the porch. At this point it is only 4pm. I'm wondering what the evening holds.

I guess it could always be worse, right? At least no one is sick, dying or on their way to the ER. The house is neither on fire nor being flooded. No tornadoes are baring down on us. I just need to go back to bed and stay there until tomorrow, before anything else happens...

Nothing terrible, just many minor annoyances that build up, and up, and up. Have you ever had a day like that?