If patience came in a bottle, I’d be all over it today.
Actually, my day started off quite well. I was a chaperone for my son’s class field trip to the MN History Center. You would think that with tons of kids around, noise and commotion everywhere, that my patience would have been tried, but it wasn’t. I was fine with that. I had a small group of four that I hung out with, checking out all there was to see at the museum. We sat in a C-47 warplane and experienced a crash on D-Day, we huddled in the basement while the house shook as the 1965 Fridley tornado went over, we took a walk through time in a house built in 1887 at 470 Hopkins Street that had over 50 families live in it, we took a stroll through life in 1968 and even spotted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. It was all great. The kids were great. We took it all in and the day flew by.
Then I got home and everything went off kilter. My son had a hard time listening and focusing on what he needed to be doing. He wasn’t doing anything bad really, just not doing what needed to be done, when it needed doing. Then the dogs knocked over the lamp for the second day in a row while barking at the mail carrier. I know, I know, just move the lamp, right? I would, but I’m trying to break the dogs of this habit (although I think they’re going to break me first).
I was also trying to do more research for the Garlic Experiment (because I didn’t find what I was looking for last night) but wasn’t having much success, which was adding to my frustrations.
Then there’s my huge pet peeve, lack of communication. Communication is really important to me. Conversation is important to me. When I don’t get a response I get frustrated. That was happening too, or shall we say, not happening.
All of these things combined made me feel like I was loosing my grasp on life. Then I stopped and took a breath. I took a step back and tried to figure out how I could go through the entire day with tons of kids and commotion and be fine, but get so frustrated by the smaller things at home. I came to the conclusion that it’s because I had no expectations earlier today. I was ready to go with the flow and adjust on the fly as necessary. Home is a different story. Even though my personality lends me to like to operate more freely, I still have a need for an agenda. It’s probably more loose than others have, but it still exists. And that, my dear Watson, is my problem. When I do have an agenda with expectations as to what needs to take place and when and things don’t go according to plan I get frustrated. Why? Some may say it’s because I’m a “control freak” but I really think it’s because I don’t have a lot of expectations, so when I do ask something of someone (I think dogs classify as someones too) I expect them to work with me, at least after a few requests!
So, my deal to sort out. Do I need to learn to just go with the flow on everything? Become more strict about my expectations? Or do I take a dose of patience and come back to it with a better attitude? Right now I’m leaning towards the latter.
As for the Garlic Experiment, I’m leaning toward making an educated guess and winging it. More on that later.
Feel free to weigh in on any part! And if you know where to find a little patience, please send it my way. In the mean time, I think I’ll dust off my Guns N Roses CD and breathe.
Kate
Walnuts n Pears 
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