January 4: An Unexpected Gift

Well, things backfired a bit this morning. Today is my wife's official birthday. So, I set my cell phone alarm for 5 a.m. with the intentions of waking then making her a birthday breakfast before she departed for work. What I didn't plan for was the fact that we were out of eggs, which pretty much eliminated any kind of breakfast plans with the exception of boxed oatmeal, frozen french toast or some Raisin Bran with cold milk. Needless to say, not the kind of dream breakfast one would or should serve the woman you adore. Plan B was my offer to trek over to the local Dunkin Donuts and treat her to a hot cup of coffee and fresh muffin. But, being the angel that she is, not to mention her health-conscious manner of thinking, she politely rejected my offer and suggested I return to my slumber for another hour or so; which of course I readily accepted (hmmm, head out into single-digit weather or go back to a warm bed - not a difficult choice!). I had never made such an effort for my wife on her birthday, and I had intended to "kill two birds with one stone", so to speak: (a) first and foremost, show my wife how much I love her, and (b) use that experience as my new thing to try for 1/4. But, life is a funny thing. And, like my wife saying that this exercise is a great way for me to find opportunity in every day, that statement proved itself true today. For late this afternoon I was surprised with a work task that featured a deadline of tomorrow afternoon. Now, in the past, my typical reaction to deadlines like this, that involve my job or the perception of "success" in my job, is to let the task itself weigh so heavily on my mind over the course of the evening that no one in the house can find any use for me other than to simply let me linger in my own misery. But, not this evening - nope! Call it a miracle, call it a blessing or simply call it one man's attempt to try something new for a change and see the opportunity in the unexpected, but I was able to put the whole work thing aside and spend the evening focused only on playing "guys" (better known as action figures) with my son then "school" with my daughter, nothing more. Something I have never been able to do before, and thus truly a first for me. Granted, it is now 12:10 am and I just wrapped up my preparation for tomorrow's work task...but, going forward, I'll take that trade-off any day of the week.