Plans vs. Reality

We don't call this blog "The ADVENTURES of Team Johnston" for nothing.  Our annual Christmas letter isn't exaggerating when it says, "Never a Dull Moment in 2011."  We seriously live in the fast lane... and sometimes it drives me CRAZY!  Especially when the PLAN and the REALITY are nothing alike.

Let me tell you how I THOUGHT our weekend would go:

• Friday Evening - Family night at home (we cancelled 2 other events and decided to just hang at home and relax).
• Saturday - morning nail appointment, Moduline Kids Christmas Party at noon and adult party to follow in the evening.
• Sunday - Church kids Christmas concert in the am and wine and cheese with friends later that evening. 

Sounds like a busy, but awesome pre-Christmas weekend doesn't it?  

Here is how it ACTUALLY went... (better pour yourself a stiff drink before you read this).

• Thursday - hubby goes out and visits a buddy that works at Visions... he comes home with a giant tv... and a bunch of other cords with acronyms I don't understand.. but he tells me that for the low price of $1500 I can now watch YouTube videos on my big tv..... SOLD!!  Say no more.
• Friday - crazy day at work.. I'm starting to feel sick (and let me tell you that I DO NOT have time to get sick).  Our "family night" at home quickly turned into a nightmareish gong show.  We loaded up 5 kids (our 4 and a neighbourhood stray) to take the big ones to a youth sleepover.  The little kids are whining... and crying... and yelling... the &$%^%&^% van door isn't working (again).  Side note: I should have listened to Rose when we bought the "fully loaded" used van... she was right... it was just more stuff that could would break.  Everyone is in... about to leave... yelly McYellerson (4 year old) starts SCREAMING.  I'm not calm about it at all.  I get out... whip open the door and send my lovely 4 year old to step time-out and tell him (with scary talking through teeth voice) that when he is ready to be quiet in the van he can come back.  In the process, the van door REALLY broke.  When I whipped it open, the regular resistance function wasn't there and it flew back and a cable came loose.. and now it's REALLY broken.  GRRRRRR.  
• Friday evening: littles in bed, bigs at youth sleepover, mommy is going to have some productive time.  Daddy pours me a paralyzer and I get to work.  I was finalizing the Christmas greetings (mailing, emailing, addressing envelopes, etc) into the wee hours of the night.  At 2:30am I head to bed.  Phew... what a day.  
• Friday - 3am... "mommy, mommy, mommy.... my bed has puking in it."  GREAT!  I'm exhausted.  I JUST went to sleep.  And now I'm on vomit patrol.  It was so bad that we actually threw the sheets into the garbage.  Wasn't going to clean that...eeew.  Hubby and I get J all cleaned up, make a floor bed (which he peed in later) and get a puke bucket.  Thankfully Walmart is open 24 hours now... so I decided to head there for some children's gravol.  It's 4am.. I'm at Walmart... and the gravol is in lock-up... you know, because a lot of moms like to take 40 tablets and get high on a friday night.  GRRRRR.. Oh well, I got some Christmas shopping done.... at 4am.  
• Saturday - Chris sleeps in a misses his run.  I'm soo tired... After nail appt I head to work to print something off.  Should take 5 minutes (at most).  After 40 minutes I still can't get it to work.  $$*%*^^ computers.  After the kids party I go BACK to work to try again... another 30 minutes of my life wasted.  AAARRRRGGGGHHHHH!!  Finally, I gave up and went to Staples and paid top dollar for something that should have been cheap and easy.
• Sunday am- I go to church alone.  J was puking again.  Right before I left, L took the puke bucket that was beside J's bed and dumped it onto J's bed... nice.  So now we have stripped and remade the bed about 7039 times this weekend alone.  
• Other things that we threw into the mix.. you know.. in our spare time
• Uncle Mike (Bless his heart) spent most of Sunday here getting the new TV mounted on the wall.  He also fixed Chris' truck stereo.  And brought doughnuts to sugar up the kids.
• We moved L into the car bed and set up the twin bed in J's room.  BIG BOYS now!
• Did 600 loads of laundry.
• Finished Christmas letters, shopping and wrapping (mostly).
• Called Shaw Cable 4 times to figure out this new HD cable box.
• Cleaned out the toybox
• Now Chris and I are both sick.  I missed work today.  It will be a miracle if Chris makes it to work in the morning.  I don't have a choice.  CRAZY week at work and no time to be sick any longer.  Off to bed I go.

My buddy Forrest Gump once said (with southern drawl), "Life is like a box of chocolates... you never know what you're gonna get."  And that has become my motto.  I'm an A-Type planner and organizational freak... and I'm CONSTANTLY being thrown curve balls.... and I don't deal well with curve balls.