Going into this weekend, I knew I did not have a clear plan for how the days would unfold. There were lots of options on the table…the book club potluck at the park at 4pm today and/or the Wild Foods class in Asheville on Sunday. I was up in the air on both of those as I knew I have a bunch of stuff around here that needs my attention, but who wants to miss out on such good times, right?! Hitting the Madison County Farmer’s and Artisan’s Market and my Weight Watchers meeting today were the only givens. So, even though I like to have a clearer understanding of what my weekend agenda will include, I fell asleep last night confident that things would just fall into place on their own.
Boy did they.
I woke up late, still sore from overdoing chores the previous day. The day was grey and pouring rain. Obviously I was not going to be able to continue staining the deck and picnic table so fine, I would just switch gears and plan on focusing on various overdue housekeeping tasks once I got home from errands. I was good with that. That was a good, productive way to spend a rainy day, right?
Then while I was on my way home I got horrible text from hubby telling me the quail were gone. Apparently something came and removed all the big heavy rocks away from the edges of the coop and then dug under the hardware cloth to get at the last 5 of our (well-loved) quail. Nothing remained except their otherwise intact coop and some scattered eggs shells. This unexpected tragedy set the very depressive tone around here today with everyone sort of moping around sadly. The husband who took care of the quail day to day was especially hard hit and I was left feeling like a failure (as usual) because I did not protect them better or something. I often feel this way when things go wrong….like it’s my fault…like I coulda/shoulda/woulda done something better if I had not been so distracted by all the other things life includes…
Needless to say, I was in no mood to head out to a fun book club or class and instead knew it would be best to just stay home and handle the undone stuff around here in attempt to make myself feel more on top of things.
I have managed to clear away a lot of clutter that was building up, do up the dishes and pots, tend to the cats and chickens, handle the recycling and trash, and get on top of the laundry (despite having no dryer on a rainy day). Now that I feel more on top of things in the house, I plan to finish up a crochet gift I am working on and then start the next book I plan to read, Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv.
Funny how life has a way of determining how you spend your time whether or not you’ve made other plans.
My other family members have finally started to emerge into the freshly cleaned common areas and there is now talk of going to see the new Star Trek movie in 3-D tonight. After a day full or reality, I could so go for some sci-fi.
