Friday, June 23, 2006

PANIC!!!

I am a member of a book club. I absolutely love it!! I love getting together with the other 11 members and socializing and talking about the book we have read that month. Everyone hosts their own month and picks a book for that month. It is fun to get to read different books than the ones I usually pick for myself. It is really a highlight of my month. We hold book club on the fourth Thursday of every month. This month it was at my house. Now, I am kind of a perfectionist, and have been planning the "book club" experience for months. I picked out the book: Into the Blue: A Father's Flight and a Daughter's Return by Susan Edsall. It is a great book about a father, an avid pilot, who has a stroke, and his daughters that undertake his rehabilitation so that he can fly again. I picked the book several months ago after reading several books to find one that I thought would be good. They only had two books in our library system, so I bought 4 more so we would have enough books to share. I have been "preparing" my house for the event. Adding new decorative items, washing curtains, etc. And my current project, painting my living room. I have been planning the perfect dessert...cookie bowls with homemade vanilla icecream, topped with fresh raspberries from my garden, with chocolate curlies served in my new china bowls. I was planning to do extensive dusting and clean my carpets (which were splattered with orange Tang from our last house guests). Everything was going to be perfect! I was going to get my living room painted by then and get to show it off for the first time. I was going to be absolutely prepared when book club came next week.....
Yesterday, I had just returned home from the library when I received a phone call at 5:38p.m. "Are you all ready for book club?" my friend Nicole asked. I responded, "No, it is next week.". "Well, isn't it the fourth Thursday of the month?" Nicole asked. That's when I glanced at my calendar. And looky there, sure enough it was the fourth Thursday! Now, in my defense (so that you won't think that I am stupid and cannot count), when I went through my calendar at the first of the year and wrote down the book club dates, I hadn't noticed that the 1st,2nd, and 3rd had not been PRINTED on my calendar. Well, that one week can make a huge difference!! So I flipped into PANIC mode, and assessed the situation. I had 1 hour and 20 minutes before my fellow book club members arrived at my door. My brother-in-law and his family had been at our house the day before for our zoo trip, and I had spent the whole morning shopping with my sister-in-law, consequently, the house was a disaster. I had a living room that was half painted, library books all over my family room, the baby had removed all the children's movies from the cabinet, and then removed all the movies from their sleeves, several weeks of dust lay over everything (I have been working on my living room, and totally disregarding any other non-essential household chores), a totally filthy kitchen floor covered in sand, a pile of dirty dishes in the sink, stuff covering my kitchen counters, no curtains on my windows (they had been washed and were awaiting ironing). And to make matters worse, my husband was teaching a class that night and would not be home for 3 hours....so I had no babysitter for my kids. And I had absolutely nothing to make for dessert. I called my good friend across the street, and asked her if she was coming to book club. She said yes and that she was excited to come. I told her that I had thought it was next week and, being the great friend she is, instantly flipped into PANIC mode with me. She called her husband and asked him when he would be home and if he would be willing to watch my girls. This man is a saint! He watched my 3 girls, and their 4 girls (9,8,5,4,3,2, and 1 years old) that night until my husband got home and could get my girls. My friend also showed up at my door with two frozen Marie Callendar's pies from her freezer to serve for dessert, and then she whisked my kids away so I could get busy cleaning. She was a life saver!!! For the next hour I ran like a maniac trying to get my house cleaned up. I washed the kitchen floor, sprayed down the curtains with water and tossed them in the dryer, cleaned up the cold cereal I had thrown at my children to eat for dinner, ironed a tablecloth, emptied the dishwasher and threw the dirty dishes in it (in no particular order), wiped down my counters...after throwing everything that was on them into my laundry basket and hiding it in my laundry room, ran a dust rag around the really noticeable spots, russelled up some leftover birthday party plates to serve dessert on, cleaned my bathroom, and managed to take a quick (very cold) shower because after running around like crazy I was stinky! I never washed my hair that day (I figured I didn't need to look fabulous to go shopping with my sister-in-law), but I didn't have enough time to wash it. I actually managed to get most of the important stuff done before everyone arrived. We had a great time visiting and discussing the book, and laughing at me for forgetting book club(it is especially bad that I forgot because I am the president of the book club!). It turned out to be a good evening despite it's wild beginning.

13 comments:

  1. way to go- way to let the adreline panic pull it off

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  2. I am proud of you! Way to not cave! Wow, was this ever inspiring. I need to start a book club at my house - maybe it would motivate me to get busy more often! :)

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  3. If I had been in your situation, I would have panicked too! That perfectionistic side of us just creeps in and can throw things WAY out of wack! I'm glad you had a friendly neighbor who could help you in your time of need! :)

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  4. I'm glad you were able to have fun without everything being "perfect". What a great neighbor you have!

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  5. It's seems like just when we think we have everything planned out perfect, that's when disaster hits. Sounds like you pulled it off just great though!!

    The book sounds interesting, I might have to check it out.

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  6. whew! I am breathing a sigh of relief...way to go! If I had a dime for every time I got my dates/days of the week/weeks of the month confused and had to pinch hit...:)

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  7. You, a perfectionist? Really? And I thought your house was always perfectly presentable, too. My image of you has been shattered. ;) Although, now I know you can scramble with the best! Glad your evening turned out fun in spite of your panic. Just think of all the time you saved by not having to prepare for the "perfect event" all week!

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  8. Wow! That was quite a situation! I felt stress for you! I'm glad everything worked out in the end though!

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  9. This is like my worst nightmare! LOL. Great job pulling it off though.

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  10. WOW I am impressed. I just go stress reading the post. Glad you had a great time. :)

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  11. You are amazing, girl. Way to go taking the bull by the horns! If you're like me, you kind of thrive on that kind of pressure. Lol.

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  12. Oh NO! Glad it turned out well in the end.

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  13. I belong to a book club too and I totally love it. It has been fun to read and discuss with other women, especially with no kids around.

    What a great neighbor you have! And what a great way to pull it all together. I think I would've been a basket case.

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