(Photo credit: K. Yasuhara)

It’s nearly 10:00 a.m. on Monday morning. My East Coast clients may very well be into their second or third meeting of the day, and my Midwest colleagues are hitting their stride as well. Me? I just got to my desk. But I wasn’t lounging in my pajamas, sipping coffee, reading the news. Quite the contrary:

• Stretched and rubbed eyes while mumbling at the alarm just before 6:00 a.m. Woke teenager so he could get to high school on time.
• Showered, dressed, put on make-up, dried and styled hair, brushed teeth; even made a wardrobe change and justified it to baffled husband who wondered who’s going to see my anyway. (I just like to look and feel ready for a meeting any time.)
• Started teakettle.
• Checked email and Facebook.
• Woke two little girls by singing Happy Birthday (youngest turns eight today); assembled red, white and blue outfits for them to wear for Veterans Day celebration at school.
• Turned off whistling teakettle.
• Made pink pancakes with chocolate chips at request of birthday girl; sliced apple so they’d consume at least a few healthy bites before school. Ate breakfast with girls; resorted to re-warmed cup of decaf coffee leftover from last night, because I forgot to make the tea.
• Carried out recycling.
• Welcomed and generously tipped Peapod delivery man as he stacked sodas in the garage and carried a dozen bags of groceries up to the kitchen.
• Put away groceries, saving out boxed cake mix, canned frosting and jar of preserves for filling.
• Preheated oven.
• Scooped cat box. Carried out trash. (Why couldn’t the cats have pooped before I took out the recycling?)
• Cleared breakfast table; finished loading and started dishwasher.
• Made girls’ beds; noticed them taking craft supplies from bedroom to dining table; discovered they had transformed dining table into crafting station.
• Nudged girls to get to the bus; one went promptly out the door; youngest continued crafting birthday crown until bus was in view; hustled her down the stairs, out the door and across the street, handing her a coat and shoes as she boarded in sock feet, trailing a paper crown in progress and clutching the only roll of Scotch tape I’ve been able to locate in weeks.
• Added tape to shopping list … can’t wrap gifts without it.
• Looked at dining room table; decided even birthday girls can clean up their own messes after school.
• Mixed and put birthday cake in oven. Restarted teakettle.
• Hand-washed dishes that didn’t make it (okay, wouldn’t fit) into dishwasher.
• Asked husband for eighth time what time he leaves for airport; I just can’t retain that information; kissed him and left him to work in his home office.
• Finally made pot of tea.
• Started this list, thinking it would make me feel accomplished (or tired?).
• Heard oven timer and trudged back upstairs to remove cake (toothpick came out clean), thinking maybe now I can get my head into a communication strategy or a writing project …

At last, I’m sipping that tea. And in a moment I’ll dig into email messages from my Spencer Grace clients. I may be getting a little later start than my colleagues—even later than usual, actually. But it sure feels good to know that my family has had a good start to the day, and our household is ready to rock this week. I’ll do better work as a result.

Let’s do this.