Patience... is a Virtue

Yes, I realize that I should be patient.  Patient with my child, patient with my friends, patient with my husband and with complete strangers, for that matter.  Well, truth be told, today I am not.  I am so far away from patient that the sun's light would take a trillion years to reach me!  Why, you ask?  I'm not quite sure.  The first thing I did was check my medication box.  Yep, I took it last night.  Pathetic thing, no?  That that's the first thing I check?  Because we all know that Mama minus medication equals a bad time for all (and yet a sparkling clean house/campsite/craft room/whatever).  If patience was the ice on a pond, it would be so thin right now that no one would be allowed to skate on it.  

Even as I type this, I am waiting for my daughter to get ready for her shower - something that she should have been ready for well over fifteen minutes ago.  Her excuse:  She wanted to show me which were the oldest and the newest countries in the world on an old place mat in the kitchen drawer.  Because that's super important at this moment in time, right?  Right???  Oh, lookie there!  She's ready, yet she ran out into the living room, bare-a$$ naked to look at one of her scrapbook albums from three years ago.  Because that's the smart choice when you know Mommy's at the end of her rope!

Patience with my friends.  Usually it's very easy, but when you rely on one of them to do something and it doesn't get done, leaving it in your hands when it's pretty much too late, it gets very frustrating.  Let's just say that simply because I don't have a job outside of the home doesn't mean that I'm now the designated Chief Cook and Bottle Washer!  I'm actually a pretty busy person!  Suffice it so say, we missed the boat on our normal meeting location for our Girl Scout troop this year and now we're scrambling to find someplace in town.  A town our size has precisely one Community Center, one American Legion and three churches to choose from.  Now we're on to the churches, none of which we have any connection to.  Cross your fingers for me on that!  Or should I say pray?

Patience with my husband?  Well, over the past four-plus months, it's gotten both easier and harder.  When my job of ten years was first outsourced and I was first home all day, it was a huge, and I do mean huge, adjustment.  My husband is a Corrections Officer at a state prison and has 24 years on the job, and he works second shift (in this case 2:30-10:30), which means he's home for the greater part of the day.  He was used to having his mornings to himself just the same way I've been used to having the evenings (after Miss Sassypants is in bed) to myself.  After I'd get her off to school, it was hard for me to know what to do with myself, and it was hard for him to adjust to my being here all the time (though you'll never get him to admit that).  Oh, and there's one other thing.  One huge thing.  The constant nagging about finding a new job.  Well, I'm here to tell ya, pal...  it ain't a walk in the park!  I had molded my job just the way I needed it to be as far as hours went (the advantage of being the senior office staff member), and the flexibility was awesome!  Try finding a school-hours job at a pay rate anywhere near what I was making...  yeah, it's not happening.  I make more on Unemployment, to be honest!  That doesn't stop him though...  Nag, nag, nag.  It's exhausting.  So patience, not so much.

Conclusion:  Today I think the complete strangers win!