Considering the Lilies

One week from today I will be back at work with a bang...headed to Salt Lake City for a business trip. Ouch--I will be away from the family for 3 nights--leaving Tuesday morning and returning Friday afternoon. The good news is that I should not have to travel for a while after this trip and at least I get a lot of frequent flyer miles since it is a long flight out West!

The other good news is that I think I have managed to secure the flexibility of working from home one day a week (probably Thursday). I was so nervous about talking to the boss about it and it actually turned out to be a non event. If you read the last blog you can better appreciate my anxiety. Here we are in the red and I am asking for more flexibility at work. Who does that? All the way to the lunch meeting I kept repeating, "consider the lilies". It turned out to be a great meeting and I feel much better about going back to work.

I can tell the boys are a little anxious, but they are being the troopers they always have been. The trick for them, and I suppose any 9 year old boy, is keeping them focused. If they get off schedule in the afternoon we are doomed. This is very delicate because getting off schedule is incredibly easy. For instance, feeding the dogs can lead to an ice cream sandwich (the dog food is beside the extra freezer). Opening the freezer for ice cream leads to questions about what is for dinner. What is for dinner leads to a discussion about how many times we have had chicken in the past week. Too much chicken leads to both boys agreeing they would like to order pizza. Then one is off looking for coupons and the other is digging through the piggy banks. They talk it over and devise a plan. One of them calls me at work to see how my day is going and pop the pizza question. All the homework is forgotten and lying on the kitchen table with a pencil or two in the freezer. Basically, the nine year old boy's ability to focus on one task at a time is pretty much non existent. So we have been working on this and have decided to make an afternoon check list. I'll let you know!


Little Abigail will be home with the au pair. It should be a smooth transition for Abby since she will be in comfortable, familiar surroundings. I just need to make a schedule for the au pair, and get over my own misgivings about going back to work.

So if you see me around and I am muttering about lilies, it might have been a rough day. Just offer a silent prayer for me...I am a work in progress!