The Lost 22 Minutes

I planned to get up by 6:00 this morning but stayed in bed until 6:22 a.m. Those crucial 22 minutes could have made all the difference in the world.

IF I had gotten up 22 minutes earlier, I would have been finished coloring my hair when my son got up and headed towards the shower. And the rest of this story would have happened in an easy to handle sequence of events which would have resulted in a completely different outcome.

Instead, I was panic stricken when my son appeared in the hallway so bright and early in the day. I was in between waiting for my roots to take the color and adding the remaining color to the rest of my hair. "I have five more minutes to wait before finishing my color, then I have to wait five more minutes before rinsing the color out of my hair. I need the bathroom!"

While I was adding the remainder of the color to my hair, I missed a phone call. 

When checking the messages, I hit the wrong buttons on the phone and accidentally called my boss. I hung up as soon as I could remember how to disconnect the phone while on speaker (my hair was still saturated in hair color so I needed to use the speaker phone and I hit "speaker" when I meant to hit "exit" and I still don't quite know how I dialed my boss. No worries. She called me right back. "I need a little help with my grocery order". I hoped I could sign in, help her pay for the order and try to return the call I missed while I was coloring my hair. It wasn't to be that simple. Her postal code had changed over night and my trouble shooting skills had not yet woken up yet (it was only 7:09 a.m.) AND I still had my hair saturated in hair color.

While I was trying to figure out the grocery order gone awry, my timer went off. "Make sure to use the $15 voucher" was her advise to me when I told her I had to go to tend to my hair-color-in-progress.  

I could finally rinse the color out of my hair and I wouldn't be beholden to the clock. Conditioning my newly colored hair is normally when I have my coffee, work on my puzzles and do whatever sweating I must do before I hop in the shower and officially start the day. That wasn't happening this morning.

My middle son was coming by to pick up his younger brother at 7:30 a.m. (yes, it is not yet 7:30 and my morning is spiraling out of control). I stopped to chat with them momentarily before they headed off on their day trip and immediately went back to trying to save the grocery order I was trying to salvage.

I finally got the order figured out, went to pay for it and POOF! It was gone. No opportunity to enter the voucher code. "Can you just call them?" was her request when I phoned to tell her the good news, bad news scenario that just played out. Good news! I got your order figured out and paid for. Bad news! It didn't ask me to enter the voucher.

So ... I called. They couldn't help me. The only thing I could do was cancel the order and reorder it. I was JUST finishing that task when the phone rang. "Did you get my message?..." Yes, I did. I just haven't had a moment to call you back.

And so the day began.

It didn't get much better than this. But it didn't get worse. By 7:30 p.m., I had finally crossed off the items on my to-do-list, that I had hoped to have done before my work day started.

It is now 10:07 p.m. I have just completed my "morning puzzles" and web-surfing I usually do in the wee hours of the morning while the rest of the world is sleeping. I am finally where I usually am by 10:07 a.m. 

 If only I had gotten up 22 minutes earlier, this day would have started out so much smoother.

Tomorrow morning? I'm getting up with the birds! I'm going to savor my quiet morning hours before the rest of the world wakes up. And the best part? Tomorrow is Saturday. The day is "mine" to do with as I please!! And my plans for the day please me very much.