What a week!

It's 7:07 on Wednesday night. Thus far, I have: 1.) taken my Mother's Day Out to 2.) clean my parents' old house; 3.) taken Daniel to Hermann Park to 4.) ride the train, 5.) pretend to eat a picnic lunch, and 6.) splash wildly in the fountain at Hermann Park; 7.) dealt with a bloody mouth (which turned out to be a bitten tongue); 8.) killed a flying cockroach (shudder); 9.) driven to Cypress and back; and 10.) had a nearly napless day. Holy smokes. What a week.

My father-in-law sent me an e-card for my (gasp) thirtieth birthday. The card was sweet, but his note was really, really sweet. He reminded me that I will look back some day, and realize there are no bad days! Only some that are outstanding... It occurred to me that (gasp again), he's almost 100% right. When I worked, I had what I called "red X" days. Anytime I had a day so tragic and terrible that I felt like I wanted to quit my job, I marked that day on the calendar with a giant red X. If the red Xes ever outnumbered the blank white boxes, I knew it was time to hang up my red pen and move on down the road. I worked for six-and-a-half years, almost to the day. I'm certain that I had at least one red x day every quarter. Strangely, I can only remember one of them.

Three days into my week, I can list 10 "significant" things that have happened. Next week, I may remember four (namely the train, the picnic, the water, and the blood). As I sit here blogging and enjoying my glass of wine, I'm trying desperately to convince myself that if it won't matter next week (or even in the next hour), I shouldn't get worked up about it. If I could capture this mindset, the absolute certainty that in the end, little things DO NOT MATTER, I would be a better wife, mother, and daughter. Heck, I would probably even be a better Christian. I would stress less, I would laugh more, and I would probably need fewer massages. I would smile more, frown less, and chances are, I wouldn't even have to ignore the things that make me crazy because they wouldn't make me crazy!

Somehow I doubt that this wisdom stems from the e-card or from the glass of wine. Some day, I will be wise enough to apply this to my entire life, not just to my weekly blog.