Best Laid Plans

To start, and by trying to keep everyone current, here's the Bushism, actually on the calendar for tomorrow, but I'm giving it to you today.

"I want it to be said that the Bush administration was a results-oriented administration, because I believe the results of focusing our attention and energy on teaching children to read and having an education system that's responsive to the child and to the parents, as opposed to mired n a system that refuses to change, will make America what we want it to be - a literate country and a hopefuller country." (Washington, D.C.; january 11, 2001)

I really wasnt' aware of it when I started this post, chose my title and then put that blurb (i.e. Bushism) in there how much it fits with my title. Yes, really it does.

My thoughts today were that quite often we make plans, think we have a good thing lined up and then, it all falls apart. Just makes that old adage about the best laid plans of mice and men tend to go awry really the truth.

And, if you read this quote by "Dubya" you will see (I think) that he starts out with a really good concept and the words seem to be flowing along quite well, even making a lot of sense, until the end and the literate and hopefuller country he thinks we will have. What the heck kind of literacy does that point to from a Yale graduate - hopefuller? I would think - and I've said this on many occasions to lots of family and friends - that Laura has to just cringe every time this man opens his mouth! Must have flunked "Good Grammar Concepts 101" is my theory.

But back to my reasons for the "best laid plans" - you've probably got it figured out by now that I made plans for something and it all blew up on me. If so, you would be very, very correct in your line of thinking.

In my post last night, I mentioned we would try to get things together this morning so Mandy, the kids and I would get up in time to get ready to go to church and to the special dinner following today's service. I even got the cabbage and onions all nicely sauteed so all I needed to do today was to cook the noodles up, re-heat the onions/cabbage mixture and presto magic, I would have a big casserole dish of fried cabbage and noodles (a family favorite item here I might add) to take to the dinner.

I even went to bed early - well very early for me anyway -crawled into the bed at 1 a.m. and even was able to fall asleep quite quickly. (Sometimes, when I try to do that, go to bed early for a reason that I need to get up early, things work ok like that for me - sometimes!)

But at 3:30 a.m. the freaking shingles decided they would take charge of my system then and they have been wielding complete control since then too I might add.

They woke me up with this lousy stabbing pain that I couldn't shake off and I went and took a pain pill which didn't want to kick in apparently - or not quickly, at any rate, and thus I ended up awake till about 8:30 a.m. which was when I should have been getting up but then couldn't stay awake because the pain pill was doing its thing and making me very groggy. So I hit the sofa and slept then till about 11:30 - something like that - at which time, the shingles again resurfaced, more stabbing pains and I ended up having to take another pain pill just to be able to sit, move around then, half way comfortably.

The good thing that came out of this is that I still have the cabbage and onions fried up, ready to mix into a batch of hot buttered noodles and just had to figure out what kind of meat to fix to have for our meal du jour! Seeing that Mandy had bought one of those already roasted chickens they sell in the deli section where she works, I decided that would be the perfect item to heat up and serve for us for supper this afternoon. And the best part about it is that it's really going to be a low work scale effort needed to pull it all together!

And that, for me, is a good idea on any day - a low-work level meal that is good and tasty at the same time. And especially so when these centipede-like darned shingles decide to harass the living daylights out of me and make me feel miserable for hours on end - or so it seems.

Hope your day is one in which your plans all come through in the manner you had intended.