Disorientation is the Name of My Game!

When Bryan is away on a business trip I often feel like the universe is totally out of alignment.  I'm not sure what is so special about his presence being within the bounds of NJ or PA, but as soon as he goes beyond the borders of these states without me and the kids life as I know it falls apart.  On Wednesday Bryan left to do disaster recovery in Boulder, CO for his company.  It was one of those dreaded trips where we weren't sure if he'd be home on Friday, Saturday or Sunday.  Thankfully, everything he had to do went smoothly and he was ready to come home by Friday.  Sadly, the plane tickets were over $1,000 for a flight on Friday so he had to wait until Saturday to fly home. (It was cheaper for his company to pay for his lodging and food on Friday than it would have been to put him on a plane a two days early.)  I was really happy that he made it home a day early, but by the time he had made it home I was sufficiently disoriented.

It was an odd trip.  The kids were pretty good and I didn't have any major issues like I normally encounter. Instead I encountered aggravation from a plethora of outside sources.  I didn't feel the need to angrily call Bryan in frustration over stupid issues, and I wasn't short with the kids because I was stressed (I hate to admit it, but I do this frequently when he's away.)  Instead, I just entered a state of disorientation that I wasn't fully aware of until last night.

I knew I felt a little out of sorts on Friday, but I couldn't place what was bugging me.  On Saturday morning I became keenly aware that I hadn't planned my lesson for my kindergarten CCD class (that was this morning).  The same thing had happened on Wednesday night when I realized I didn't have anything planned for my 7th grade CCD class, but I chalked that up to me being worried about Bryan's travel.  Being the planner that I am, I wrote out the checks for my church envelopes on Thursday.  I clearly had no idea what Saturday's date was even though I had looked at the date on the envelopes.  It wasn't until after I put the first envelope in the collection at Mass last night that I realized I dated the checks with next Saturday's date.  I have no idea how I screwed that one up.  On the drive to Target (I was procrastinating on the lesson plans and craving a Starbucks frappuccino.) I was recounting all of my scatterbrained behaviors to Bryan who couldn't figure out what happened to me.  Then I got hit with another wave of unexplained disorientation.  I'm not sure what I was doing, but somehow I went to Starbucks and ordered the wrong size drink (I never get the Venti, that's like asking for death!) and I'm still not sure if I ordered the drink I intended to order.  In short, I was a mess.

I think I'm almost back to normal.  I didn't get much sleep last night and the time change didn't help.  I had my CCD class and the kindergarten class from across the hall do the St. Patrick's snake craft today.  Some of the snakes came out looking a bit like I have felt over the past few days.  Others looked a little mutated with their googly eyes in the wrong place and their tongues hanging out on odd angles.  I looked at the mutated snakes and thought to myself, "Hey, that's me!"