Gratitude In the Middle of the Busy

I don't know what happened exactly. One minute Johnnie and I are waking up, heading to McDonald's, eating breakfast and then from the minute we got back it felt like work was tugging at me all the way. First the network at Echo Park HC was down. And then of course we had to debrief on that on top of the debrief from Friday's downtime. And then my Team Meeting at 9 AM. I mean I hadn't even finished my Earl Grey yet and it already felt like I was BUSY! How did that happen? On a Tuesday no less. And then as i started to answer my emails I realized I had collected a bunch of stuff to do. Invoices to approve. Surveys to send, surveys to collect answers. Compliance 360 stuff. And let's not forget about a response I needed to prepare for for the meeting with AT&T tomorrow morning. All of a sudden I realized I was BUSY. Again, after the initial how-did-that-happen moment I decided I needed to get organized and just battle my own penchant for PROCRASTINATING. And all this while I'm trying to keep Johnnie occupied and not quite so bored. I actually found some science websites and YouTube videos to keep him engaged. And Oh by the way I was also excited to get on the LAUSD portal this morning to find out his class and teacher assignment for the next school year. And by extension, who his classmates are. Turned out he gets Ms. Wiley. Hope she's as good as Ms Gee. In the meantime, I posted a pic of Johnnie pondering a science experiment while I was on the phone with my Team. Not apologizing for those interruptions anymore. So today I was so pre-occupied with work that it was actually almost noon when I realized we needed to go get lunch. By then I needed a break for real. And so when I suggested to Johnnie that we ride to Whole Foods to go get his pizza I was happy when he agreed.  Sometimes I still forget to be thankful. And today I reminded myself that it simply doesn't get too much better than the feeling of breezing down Stanfield on my scooter, with Johnnie riding next to me on his bike on our way to Whole Foods, just dad and son enjoying a nice and mildly warm August mid-day picking up their lunch. Just look at the pic of Johnnie climbing all over the railing at WF while I locked up the bikes. And then he happily grabbed my hand afterwards to go into the store. Doesn't make a dad any happier than that. And I do say that our ride to WF has gotten to be pretty uneventful and routine too. It's like we go there and get back inside of 20 minutes, even dealing with the lines at the store.

Once I did get started working, I started to knock off tasks left and right. And that went on throughout the afternoon actually. And before I knew it, it was already close to 5 PM and close to getting food for dinner. It was like the afternoon had zipped right on by.  Johnnie wanted to pick up some more Panda express teriyaki chicken. And wanted to bike to the Sawtelle store to pick it up. And so it was that we headed out biking for the 2nd time today. This time though Johnnie was noticeably slower. He had done the Panda Express bike ride once before so I knew he could finish. This time though he seemed labored. Tired even. And that was ok. We didn't go all that fast is all. Still we went there and back and it was all good. And Johnnie wolfed down his Panda Express dinner when we got home. I still had all that work to do I had on my mind. And I did manage to get some more work done while Johnnie watched the Octonauts. Who said you're less productive when working from home? Not me! Still with all that work, with Johnnie still commanding such attention, I still managed to find a way to crank out 11,200 steps today. I didn't do 25 minutes of aerobic exercise like I did yesterday but that's ok, I still got more than an hour of active minutes in. Needless to say, by the time Johnnie and i got to showering, I was tired. It had been a pretty long work day for me, which was very uncharacteristic for a Tuesday. And I still have a couple of meetings to go this week. The one with AT&T first thing tomorrow, and my review on Friday. And even with all these things going on, I think I did a pretty good job of keeping my vibration up all day today. That's a very very good thing.