Conspicuous Mud: Why Rushing Around Doesn't Work

Kathy: Luke just loves his blanket!

Some people thrive on fast-pace, little sleep, never-stop-rat-race. Even I often get a kick out of the adrenaline rush from a fast-pace evening, or as much as a fast-pace week. But time and again I trip over myself and prove that rushing around just does not work for me.

Last night I had aerobics, as usual. The monkey-wrench in the plan for aerobics was that now that Derek is working in the office he works until 5:30 (aerobics starts at 5:45). I figured I could start chili and leave it simmering while I was gone, feed Luke and put him down for a nap while I was gone , leave the moment Derek walked in the door and come home to a hot dinner, a happy baby and a clean, showered husband.

I left the chili simmering, I fed the baby and laid him down and as soon as Derek walked in the door I left. I was still ten minutes late. I parked across the street from the gym since the lot was full and raced into the entry. There are signs everywhere in the gym not to track dirt into the gym, to change into clean shoes, etc. So I never wear my tennies to the gym, I always change into them there. Well I kicked off my boots, tied my tennies and ran across the gym into the workout room and started kicking and stepping and punching with the rest of the women.

It didn’t take long to notice the brown patch growing beneath my feet in the mirror. Now I was wondering what to do – pretend like it wasn’t there and keep working out or leave the workout that I showed up late for, clean my shoes, come back and clean the floor and miss even more of the workout. I chose to clean up. I felt so conspicuous, but I figured it was better to be conspicuous cleaning up my mess than conspicuous for leaving a big muddy mess on the floor.

Finally the whole embarassing evening came to a close and I ran – no, sprinted - home. To top the evening off perfectly I came home to find a fussy baby and burned chili. But I can’t complain too much because Luke slept nine hours the night before, had two two hour naps during the day, and I couldn’t end up eating much chili anyway since my throat is still so sore. Still it ticks me off that my feet were muddy…