Brain Lapse

I've always had a hard time keeping up with dates, unless I physically see them on a calendar. Must be a "visual" thing. I go along in life most of the time with a vague idea of where we are in a calendar month, although most (but not all) of the time I do realize what day of the week it is. It goes without saying, that if I did not use Quicken to keep up with the bills, they would never be paid on time, but only because of that vague notion I have of the date. Thank heavens for Quicken!

Of COURSE it's become even worse since in the last few years, how could it not, being over 40 and all? :-)

Even after paying all the bills on Saturday morning, including the house payment, due on the 1st, (because Quicken reminded me it was time, not because I really absorbed the 1st of April was so impending), I was still in the vague notion that we were in the "middle" or "late middle" of March. Thus, when I received my invitation earlier last week about a home party of friend of mine was giving for March 28th, I had it in my head it was not THIS weekend, but NEXT weekend. For some reason, I never managed to get my calendar updated, because, see, I thought I had another week to do it. I did go on and tell the hostess I would attend however.

Imagine my horror when, yesterday afternoon, while working through loads of laundry and watching the ballgames, I get a text from my friend "Are you coming?" I think "What the... it's next Sund.... OOhhhhhhhhhhhh EEEEEEEK!!!!" as the realization hits that I just stood them up.

Now, those of you who know I'm a Tupperware consultant, rest assured it was not a Tupperware party, and I was not actually the SALES consultant for this party. I was merely to be attending as a guest. However... HAD it been a Tupperware party that I was supposed to be there as the seller, I would have STILL completely forgotten. Because of course, I thought it was NEXT Sunday.

Through my mortification, I do have to laugh at myself. Did I not write out a deposit slip AND a check on Saturday that said "March 27"? Yes, I did. Of course, I was just looking at the date in Quicken and copied it down, and didn't "absorb" it.

There's more. Yesterday morning, my husband and I were doing what we do every Sunday from middle/late winter through spring... counting hay bales and stressing. Do we have enough? Do we not? Is there too much, did we overbuy? What if we have an extended cold snap in April like 2 years ago? What about that clinic I'm going to for 4 days and will be stalling a horse there, do we enough on hand to account for that also? The trail rides that I need hay bags for. Do we have a few extra to sell to our neighbor who needs some? What if it doesn't rain much this spring and they don't get a first cutting until later this year... yada yada ad nauseum, and yes we do this EVERY WEEK until the grass has come in enough that we can quit feeding hay for the summer. (Unless there is a drought, see previous post about farmers never being happy with the amount of rain.)

ANYWAY... we were counting bales in the loft from the ground, which adds even another interesting dimension to it, (are there two layers in that part... ok.. now does it go over 7 or 8? Did I mention we do this EVERY week, and it's not like the bales we are counting have moved themselves since the last week, but see... we can't REMEMBER from the week before..), and we said.. "Ok.. we are at Mid-March.. two more weeks, and the first two weeks into April.. then this many for the clinic... and this many for..."

Did anyone else catch the "Mid-March"? Now, to defend my husband, he had just arrived home in the previous hour from spending the night caring for his Dad and was operating on a few minutes of dozing here and there all night.... but I had just the previous day written out checks with "March 27th" on them...

And does anyone else wonder why we have to count the hay every week? Makes sense that we buy a certain number of bales, we know how many we use each week.. just subtract that from the total number, right? And then... perhaps every 6 weeks or so do a good count just to make sure. That makes sense, right? Well, that only makes sense when you aren't over 40 and forget how many you counted the week before. Could we write it down? Or even.. have a dry erase board in the barn? Why sure, but we keep forgetting to buy one. So until Quicken comes up with something that will connect to the barn loft and download the number of bales automatically, we will continue our weekly stressing.

Anyway.... wanted to get this post on brain lapses up before I forgot. :-D

Have a wonderful day!