“The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry,” goes the old saying.  Too true, just ask the mouse who decided to weather the winter storm by sneaking into my house.  Much to his dismay, my four cats found him very entertaining.  After my husband rescued him, he decided the cold wasn’t so bad.  Perspective is an amazing thing!  Possible death by the cold didn’t seem so bad after facing certain death at the paws of four cats, or so I presume.  The mouse and I never talked about the incident.

Perspective was in short supply as I frantically worked to prepare to go out of town.  Owning a small business makes leaving town more work than it’s worth much of the time.  Consequently, I usually don’t even bother, opting instead for day trips to the lake or zoo.  This year I decided I needed to get away more for my own good.  Apparently I’d forgotten what that entailed work-wise: notifying my pet sitting clients that I would be unavailable, reassigning my pet sits to staff members, organizing which clients want to meet the fill in sitter before their trip and scheduling appointments, turning down the last minute sits due to being short handed (that nearly kills me every time).  It was 7:30 PM the day before my trip and I was still returning phone calls and posting checks.  I’d been working since 6AM and apart from a break to take a spin class I’d worked all day, eating lunch out of my lap as I drove to the next pet sit. Why had I thought leaving town would be a good idea?  No matter how I trudged along it seemed the work would never end.

I plowed through anyway, a new trend for me the happy procrastinator, and finally found the bottom of the pile of work.  The next morning I packed my bags and headed to a neighboring city for a few days of rest and writing.  I was looking forward to the long, uninterrupted days of quiet with a good book and my lap top.  I arrived, changed into my bummiest clothes and snuggled in with the first of many books.  Sigh, finally!

I swear I wasn’t there for thirty minutes before the phone rang and the news came: my sister was in labor three weeks ahead of schedule and the baby was coming fast!  Off flew the bummy clothes, back into the much dressier jeans and t-shirt I’d started the day in.  A frantic dash to my car and back to Augusta in record time, no really, record time!  Even more notable was the absent of an usually large and aggressive police force.  If they were out they missed me!  (Nah, nah!)  I whipped through two road detours and one detour in the hospital where renovation forced me to go up an extra floor, dash to another set of elevators and go back down to the correct floor.  By the time I found the room with a lot of help from hospital staff, I was exhausted but I made it in time!  My niece was born a few minutes after I arrived. 

My brother-in-law started his day planning to paint the baby’s room, never dreaming he’d end the day holding his new baby.  The room is still unpainted.  The crib has to be located, moved to my sister’s house and assembled.  The changing station is in pieces.  The linens require washing.  There are a million things to do to get the house ready for when the new baby arrives at home and that’s not counting the general duties of life that were discarded and abandoned when my sister went into labor.

Mice and men may not be so great with plans but God is downright brilliant with them.  My work is done and my hands are free to help my sister and brother-in-law in their preparations while my very capable staff runs the business in my absence.  Suddenly, the hours I spent plowing away at the drudgery of mundane work don’t seem so bad.  Like a certain mouse I mentioned, given my options I’ll take doing all my work in one evening so I can spend a few days visiting with the new baby.  Perspective can make even the most tedious tasks seem pleasant when you view the alternatives.