Wild and Wooly Weekend

Well, I feel like I've been in a marathon this past week. My business partner and I are going to a conference in Atlanta next week and we've got those mixed feelings a lot of people probably have about travel. You know, you want to go but you wish you could just snap your fingers and be there - packed/unpacked clothes and all?

Both her full-time job and mine are assistant jobs. She the Administrative Assistant to our Pastor at our rather large church (way more than a 40-hour a week job) and I'm an Editorial Assistant at a very worthwhile-but-still-considered-a-startup company that is doing quite well and therefore has me happily hopping on a daily. She and I both spent this past week trying to get things to a place where either anyone could handle it for a week or no one had to think about it for a week. She loves it. So do I. It's amazing how her life and mine run so parallel:

• We were pregnant with our first children together (along with her sister) and we were not planning it. People swore we did or must have been drinking the same water. We figured it was God's way of making it less scary for 3 first-time moms. (And oh, my friend is 10 years older than I so she was having her first at 40.)
• We're both Sagittarians - and no we don't follow that like a religion but it's still a similarity, though she's November born and I'm almost a month later in December.
• Our Spiritual Gifts inventory had some of the same gifts for helping people and administrative ability.
• She's had her job for - I don't know. Maybe 7 years or more. I've only had mine for what will be a year this coming June 27. I've been a copy editor for the past 12 years, which was cool but the last place just wasn't fulfilling for me and I couldn't use enough of my talents. So now, my friend and I find ourselves in similar positions suporting busy people and worthwhile organizations (though mine is for profit) and loving every minute of it. And in return we are appreciated by these people who understand that we are mothers and want to participate in our children's lives. They understand that things come up and allow us to work from home. They understand that we work well independently so no one micromananges us.

She and I are blessed and don't want to take anything for advantage so we give it our best and sometimes that means weeks like this past one where we are just plain tired. But she still picks up her daughter from school and I was still able to volunteer for a couple of hours for my son's Field Day. We are blessed indeed.

Now this weekend I have to go to a meeting this afternoon regarding my son's summer literacy program at my afrorementioned church. I have a writing lesson I MUST finish and mail out today. (I "go to" the Institute of Children's Literature and it is fantastic!) After the accident, I got busy with work and it was hard because I must be inspired when I write. I'm sure lots of published writers would tell me to work through the lack of inspiration but I just don't think writing should be work, per se. The revising and all that may be, but the initial putting of pen to paper should be muse-led, I say, and it was but it was about 4 times too long. Not suprising for someone who is as full of words as Tom Cruise is of ego. (He's an idiot.) So today I MUST finish it. I MUST mail it. I MUST move on. I'm sure my teacher - who knows I had the accident - is going to say, "Deadlines, dear. You MUST adhere to deadlines." I did start the thing on time. I just lost my mojo and I've got to reclaim it this morning.

I've also got a scary refrigerator I have to clean because someone spilled red Kool-aid in it. They did a better job cleaning up the Exxon Valdez spill. The fridge is one of my peeves. Somehow it has fallen to me to maintain it and I'm doing it grudgingly only because my food and my children's food has to be in there too. Otherwise, it could grow fur for all I care.

This is it. Blogger doesn't seem to want to upload images from my computer right now so I had to do the go.blogger.com thing and it's placed itself here. So anyway, somewhere along the way cleaning needs to happen. And Son wants a classmate to come over for a playdate. God give me strength. I wouldn't mind. I'm a good hostess, if I do say so myself, and I actually enjoy company but in MY OWN HOUSE. It's just not the same at my MIL's and I'd rather not have new people over unnecessarily. But the school year is winding down and they've been itching to do this, I know. So I've got to give soon. Who knows what will happen next year. They may suddenly decide they don't like each other and I do want to nurture his friendships with kids from quality families wherever I can.

Anyway, after all this, I need to wash clothes and iron some things - I hate ironing too - and start packing. We take off on Tuesday for an almost week's worth of time away from distractions and time to focus on this business we both so love and believe in. If only we could hire some help.

It's 9 a.m. I need to give myself about 1 1/2 hours to write and get it in the mail. (Stop stalling, Monica!) I'll let you know how it goes.