Are Those Spoons Mixed in with Your Forks?

So the other day Jenna, Sierra and I were invited to lunch by the mother of one of Sierra's friends. We were all really excited since it had been a few years since we had the opportunity to get together.

I of course, embarrassed my children before we even arrived. When we made the lunch date, I asked for the address, wrote it down and then left it on my desk at work, so I couldn't remember the house number once we arrived on their street.

I took a guess, jumped out of the car and rushed up the steps of the house I thought was theirs. Of course, it wasn't. The girls (who stayed in the car) told me I was crazy for ringing some stranger's doorbell.

Seriously girls, if you think that is going to be my biggest worry of the day...you are the ones who are crazy.

I doubt that lady told her family over dinner about the person who rang her door accidentally. I doubt I really made that much of an impression that she even remembered the situation ten minutes later.

We all worry too much about what other people think, but honestly they are too busy worrying themselves about what other people think, so they don't spend that much time thinking about us!

Anyway back to the lunch.

We walked into the correct home (next door, see I was close)and I was immediately impressed!

The mom had made wonderful egg salad sandwiches, homemade chocolate chip cookies, smoothies and had fresh coffee available with real cream.

Great..apparently my children don't like egg salad, don't like melon smoothies and don't care about making a good first impression.

We still enjoyed a lovely lunch (my girls made themselves peanut butter sandwiches) and then went the girls went to play outside we had an opportunity to talk.

We started speaking about marriage and the numbers of women we knew who were leaving their husbands. I suggested that all relationships are hard, but when you throw children into the mix they get even harder.

Everyone knows how much I love Jenna and Sierra, but that doesn't mean I don't recognize how hard they were on my marriage. Not because they were bad children, but because I was sleep deprived for years, worried about making the right choices, frustrated that I couldn't be everything to everyone and basically not the person I wanted to be.

My friend agreed with me and told me that she loves her husband and is in love with her husband, but sometimes she thinks he does things just to annoy her.

"For example" she says, "When he unloads the dishwasher, he just dumps all the cutlery into the cutlery drawer. He doesn't sort it!"

I looked at my friend, took a breath and replied, "I have to tell you...I do the same thing."

The look on my friend's face was priceless. She looked both shocked and appalled.

I laughed out loud and told her..."You know sometimes it just doesn't matter if you don't do something perfectly. Life is short...we all walk around spouting this well known statement, but then we still spend five extra minutes a day ensuring that all of our cutlery is lined up perfectly and in the right spot. Does that make any sense?"

How many strangers go into our cutlery drawer?

Who, but our loved ones is ever going to know that we took a shortcut and spent those five minutes playing with our kids, walking our dog or cuddling with our spouses?

Now some people will never be able to sleep well at night knowing the spoons are mixed into the fork slots, so for those people I say...fine keep your cutlery organized, but then please find some other little guilty pleasure to make you feel vindicated. I promise being a little bad sometimes feels really great.

Here are some thoughts.....

Don't bother matching every one's socks...just throw them in a big bin in the closet.

Don't pack up and refrigerate the leftovers that you know you are going to throw away in three days anyway.

and

Don't forget life really is short...enjoy every moment!