Day 9: My life, if it were not up to my goldfish...

It's day 9. Good vibes, still smiling. Coffee is brewing, kiddos are off to school.

How about that blog title, by the way? Intrigued? ;)

Well today, boys and girls, I decided to take you back to day 1 of my stay at home mom-ing. Day one was actually 9/2 - a Friday. (No, I do not count the weekends).

Day one was a little odd. I had been looking forward to staying home, and daydreaming about how my day-to-day would be, how organized I would be, how I had so much to do. If you know me (which most of you don't) I am a planner. Every day, every hour, almost every minute is planned for me. When I don't have a plan, I am less likely to be successful and more likely to become overwhelmed and frustrated.

So I had this incredible idea of how my daily life at home would be. Wake up. Make coffee. (COFFEE IS MANDATORY!) Get kids up, hubby up, get everyone fed, make lunches, and send everyone off to school/work. Come inside. Drink coffee, watch the morning news, do any paperwork needed/pay bills. This takes me to about 8:00 a.m. Get up, put a load of clothes into the wash, take something out for dinner, wash dishes and tidy up/sweep the kitchen. At this time, I planned to meditate. Yes, meditate. It's awesome, it's relaxing, it's just amazing. I figured all this would take me to roughly 10:00 a.m.

I knew that beyond that point I would have to focus on my main house cleaning projects for the week. Each day I tackled a certain room. The house needed MAJOR deep cleaning. It was a little scary.

Here's where day one was sent off tangent. The first few steps were successful. Wake up. Make coffee. Work/School send off. Drink coffee. Watch morning news. Pay bills.

Then, I walked by the fish tank.

We have two comet goldfish. The first goldfish is Lucky. My sons won him at the fair. He will be 2 years old in April. The second is Claudia (aka Cleo). She was given to me by my sister. She will be 4 years old in April as well.

So, when I walked past the 3 gallon fish tank where my little fishies live, I noticed Lucky was just floating listlessly. I knew he wasn't dead because he wasn't at the top, and he was still moving his gills. He has done something similar to this before, and I thought maybe the pH levels or other chemical levels in the tank must be off balance, so I took him out of the tank and moved him to a hospital tank with fresh water. The last time I did this, he recovered shortly after.

Not this time. This time, he went belly up, and stopped moving and breathing. I panicked. I know it's just a goldfish, but for sentimental reasons I am very attached to this goldfish. I like to make little kissy squishy fishy faces at him and baby talk him. He likes it too. Don't judge me! :P

I saw a YouTube video once on resuscitation of goldfish. Don't laugh. You basically hold the goldfish securely in your hand by making a loose fist, and run them under a faucet with their face/mouth pointing up. It doesn't always work, but it can.

Fortunately, it worked for Lucky. He started breathing again, and as I was rinsing him, a white sticky build up started to fall off of his gills, and he started bleeding. I thought for sure he was going to die, but he recovered about an hour after being in the hospital tank. He's fine now, by the way.

So my perfectly planned day was shambled. I now had to make a 25 minute trip to Jasper to go the the pet store for a new filter for the fish tank. The trip there and back would take an hour all together, and cleaning the tank takes about an hour if I want it done right so the fish won't try to die again. A few minutes later I got an e-mail from my insurance adjuster. I still needed to sign the paperwork on my home insurance policy, which was supposed to be done a week ago. So I now needed to go to that office in Jasper as well. In the meantime, I had to go to a conference with Andy's teacher at 1:15 (this was already part of the day plan).

Frustrated and overwhelmed with my lack of constructiveness, I called my oldest sister. "My first day of stay at home mom-ing has failed. I spent 2 of my precious, well planned hours saving the damn goldfish."

To which she responded "How do you really expect to plan every minute of your day?"

Well.... If it weren't up to my goldfish...

Positive Vibes,

Stacy (WW)