Does This Happen To You? Or...How I Lost Five Hours

 This is a tale of expectations vs reality. 

In case you're wondering, expectations lost. 

Last night I went to bed earlier than planned and when I wasn't really that tired with the intention of getting a good night's sleep and getting up early today to really get a lot of writing done. 

Thanks to an impressive nap yesterday afternoon and possible caffeine abuse later in the day, I tossed and turned until 4 am. Fine, I'll just take a little nap after Mr. Jones leaves for work and everything will be fine. 

The alarm goes off at 6:30 and Mr. Jones tells me there's been a change of plans. He's now going to work at 9 pm instead of 7 am. No problem, I'm adaptable, right? 

I roll over and sleep a couple more hours. Okay, maybe three more hours. 

Due to the changes in my husband's schedule, I text three people to rearrange Zoom meetings for the rest of the week. Sigh. 

However, I'm not concerned about my work because once I get up, I'll have all afternoon and well into the night for writing and I prefer writing after dark. (Of course, that begs the question, why don't I get more done in the winter when it's dark at 5 pm...but that's for another day). 

I start making breakfast by putting bacon on to fry. While that's cooking I put away the clean dishes. When I try to close the drawer with all the plastic containers and lids, one of the lids slips back behind the drawer and I know I shouldn't ignore it. 

I peek back there and see about 10 assorted lids and containers. I wondered where they'd gone! 

I could ignore it and I'm tempted, but I'm trying to be more proactive about dealing with things in the moment. Fine. I remove the drawer and get down on hands and knees (insert creaking bone noises here) dig them all out and toss them in the sink which I've filled with soapy water. 

Concerned about burning breakfast, I turn off the bacon and inspect the grossness behind the drawer. *Shudder*. 

Next I get the vacuum and attachments and clean up what I can of that mess as well as the kitchen floor under the baseboards because...I'm there, why not?

Put away the vacuum, spend five minutes trying to get the drawer properly lined up on the sliding gadget. Mr. Jones comes and fixes it. Then I finish cooking breakfast, about 20 mins later than planned. 

It's not like we're on a tight schedule and I'm glad I got that task done. We have breakfast, I wash the breakfast dishes, including all the recovered containers and lids and sit down to start my tasks. 

I pay a couple bills, transfer some money around (high finance stuff for sure!), check my book sales, check Facebook and make a cup of tea. Time to start work. 

Wrong. 

Amazon says they've delivered two packages for us at the campground office. Off I go to retrieve them. The packages include new pillows. Of course we have to take them out of the boxes and plastic bags, watch them puff up and put them in fresh pillow cases. 

Also delivered, a blood pressure thing for Mr. Jones to keep tabs on his blood pressure. Again, we must test it out. My blood pressure is a bit high. I wonder why? 

Mr. Jones decides to take a nap since he'll be working late. I'm just about to get my chance to start writing when the phone rings. My new glasses are in. 

I rarely have a car during weekday hours because of Mr. Jones' schedule and the fact that we only have one car, so I take the opportunity to go and get the glasses. It's about 10 miles down the highway and I arrive without any issues, but the traffic going the other way is completely stopped for several miles. Ugh. I consider alternate routes for the trip home, but that will add a lot of time to the trip.  

Once I get the glasses I decide to visit the fancy grocery store and look for a couple things I haven't been able to find elsewhere and also hope it gives traffic a chance to clear up. Not only do I not find the stuff I'm looking for, but I'm so shocked by the prices that I leave without buying anything, not even a guilt-induced purchase to compensate for the fact that I used their restroom. 

Good news. Traffic is cleared up so I don't have to take the detour I'd planned.  

I stop at a not fancy grocery store (WalMart) and buy a few things. 

Come home, put that stuff away, take the dog out, start dinner and sit down to write. 

But then I think: This would make a funny blog post. 

And that, my friends, is How I Lost Five Hours. 

Does this happen to you? Tell me about it in the comments.