One Step Forward, Ten Steps Back

I have no idea where this day is going to go but if it continues to go the way it has, since I woke up this morning, I think I may end up in yesterday.

Did you ever have one of those days where you think you'll get up with the alarm so you can do those "impossible things" before your workday officially begins?

Me too!

Today was the day I was going to those hard things before my daycare day walked in the door. I was going to wash sheets, send off my columns, troubleshoot the Leap Pad and be ready for my day before 7:00.

Spoiler alert. It is now almost 10:00 and I have accomplished only "one of the above".

I went to my Excel spreadsheet where I track all of the columns I have written, sent and I have linked this information to my Word documents so I can quickly click on a link and read the attached article.

I tried that this morning and it sent me off into a Netherland called:  "C:\Users\Colleen\AppData\Roaming\AppData\Roaming\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Excel\Yoked.htm"

I tried all of my usual troubleshooting skills and ended up feeling a little ill. Kind of like maybe we (the computer and I) caught a bug.

I googled and eventually I ended up redoing the entire workbook on a brand new Excel file. It took forever but I thought if I didn't do it before the kids arrived, I would not get back to it. So I persevered.

In the meantime, I closed the original spreadsheet. When it asked if I wanted to make changes, I said "No". And I went on my merry way.

I worked and worked and finally finished the job. 

Then I reopened the original file. And it worked just fine! The computer had restarted itself after some updates and my Excel file was saved as a repaired file with this perplexing linkage problem. All I had to do was close out the program without saving and then reopen it.

I wasted a good hour doing something that should have taken only one minute.

Excellent usage of time, wouldn't you say? 

When I tried to reread the articles I wanted to send. My words sound dull, lifeless, worn out and overused. I can't find one thing I've written that feels worthy of sending out into the big, scary world. I am stuck.

So I moved past that and thought I may as well try to figure out what I couldn't fix yesterday, after I bought some new games for our Leap Pads and couldn't "sync" them onto both Leap Pads.

It took two phone calls, several more attempts of "rinse and repeat" after the Leap Pad technician told me how to do what was impossible for me yesterday and while I was on the phone, one of my daycare charges peed all the way to the bathroom within fifteen minutes of just "going".

Aaaack!!! I couldn't even manage to effectively take my children to the bathroom! "I'm all done, Colleen" was her refrain when she supposedly "went" right after breakfast.

Just like my Excel spreadsheet troubles, something that should have been taken care of in one minute took at least twenty minutes of blotting and scrubbing the path of urine out of the carpet. From the middle of the living room, all the way to the bathroom. Perhaps it took a half hour. I don't know. 

I just know I have been spinning my wheels all morning.

But I'm headed to a better place than I was when I started. I have learned several lessons as I sat here and spun my wheels.

All I can think is, "Is it yesterday yet?" I would really like to retry everything I did this morning with all I have learned along the way.