You know what I think is the worst thing for people who like (or need) to plan their time??
The service call.
When the plumber/ electrician/ cable guy/ person with tools tells you they will show up at your house “between 12-5” or, in my case yesterday, “sometime before 3, but they’ll call 20 minutes before to let you know they’re on the way.”
We have a strange issue going on with our water pipes. A plumber was out a couple weeks ago to replace a valve on our hot water heater, and ever since then, any time someone runs a shower or flushes a toilet, it makes a (loud) high pitched squealing sound from somewhere by the water meter in the basement.
The good news was that the plumber was able to get out to the house quickly after I finally called on Monday. Bad news- his mysterious arrival time totally threw off my afternoon AND the visit took way longer than I thought it would. Double bad news- it’s apparently not related to whatever they did last time, and he is now in the works of “writing up an estimate”….ugh. We just spent like $375 on the LAST visit, so I am really looking forward to seeing what they come up with this time. Hmph.
I had my day all time blocked nicely, including enough time for a longer run/walk over lunch, planning to skip my shower (to allow for the longer run) and still be done by about 5-5:30 pm. Figured the service call would just fit in there quickly and be a short, minor disruption. Well, it was more like a 2 HOUR disruption.
Good things though:
🔷It was 60 degrees out!!! I ran/ walked for just over an hour and listened to a couple great podcasts.
🔷As much as I despise things “throwing off my day”, at least my evening was pretty open. I was able to shift those 2 hours of work I missed to 7 pm- 9 pm last night. Not a super fun way to spend the evening, and I was really tired from my crappy night of sleep, but, I was grateful to have the window of time to get caught up. I feel still on track now for the rest of the week.
🔷Carpooling is key to success when kids are in activities. We have recently begun doing some carpooling again- and yesterday that was another big help. Ethan’s friend’s parents picked him up for soccer practice- saving me at least 20-30 minutes.
🔷I had Cheerios for lunch after my run. I randomly grabbed a box at the store the other day- although I don’t eat cereal often, I got a sudden craving for them! I love them with sugar and blueberries on top. Bonus- they are currently a “limited edition” with “hearts” instead of O’s.
Why yes, I did take a close up photo of my Cheerios and stage a photo of my cereal bowl with a floral arrangement behind it. Stop back tomorrow for more exciting content on gratefulkae.com!!! 😂😂😂😂😂😂
🔷I also still found time to throw together some sort of dinner in the few minutes I had. The kids and I were joking that I made a “school hot lunch” for dinner….lol! Spaghetti with meat sauce, frozen veggies and bagged salad with cheese on top. It really did kind of look like a lunch I would have been served on a tray in 3rd grade. Oh well. It was actually quite tasty. 😄
Daily Gratitude:
I am grateful that I am not, and have never been!, an addict of any kind (drugs, alcohol, tobacco, whatever).
GRATEFUL KAE 
glad you see your spirit is still up despite the interruption. I stopped time blocking because I am constantly interrupted by calls/emails. I figured I will do serious time blocking if I need to do creative writing or research, but otherwise just go with the flow and take breaks intuitively.
cereal for lunch? that must be fun!
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Service calls with wide windows are the worst. I especially hated it when I was working in the office as I would have to take time off to wait around for a person to come. I am glad Covid showed my company people can be productive at home so I will always have the option to WFH on days when a service provider is coming by. I hope your bill isn’t too bad!!
But yay for nice weather for running! It’s been so beautiful here, too. Yesterday was super rainy but I didn’t mind as I will take that over snow!
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