The Apples in My Orchard

Yesterday started out fine. My son who is in graduate school had come home for the weekend but instead of the usual Friday through Sunday, he arrived Saturday and left in the morning yesterday. I took him to a local breakfast spot before he headed out. His brothers had left for school, anxious to get the next two weeks over and be finished for the year. My husband had left for work.

After breakfast, I went to continue my spring clean up in the gardens at the school where I am the co-curricular advisor for a student garden club. The gardens are large and it has been a daunting task, unfortunately filled with a little drama in the last month. Still, I am planting annuals later this week with the student body and eventually, over 450 plants need to be put in the ground. I worked for an hour and a half, until the sky had darkened so much it looked like it would rain.

It was mid-afternoon that things got interesting. Another tennis match got cancelled due to the rain. My senior, the one who plays tennis, headed to Taco Bell to get an after school snack with his friend. I got a call from him saying he had a flat tire; they were in the parking lot of a local grocery store trying to fix it.  Knowing nothing about patching tires, which is what they were trying to do, I told him I would call Dad who was at work. What followed was a flurry of texts. My husband’s place of employment changed in January and I had never had to call him at work since then. As it turned out, yesterday was not a good day to try that out.

During the midst of all this, I threw in a load of wash. I turned the washer on and it immediately started churning. This was not what I expected. Off and on, on and off, I pressed the buttons on the machine to no avail. It just made the churning noise, never filled with water, and never “weighed” the contents, as it usually does before starting to run. It seemed to be broken!

Needless to say, my blog didn’t get written, loads of wash never got cleaned, and the van ended up with a temporary fix. Dinner was quick, homemade pizzas, after which time I ran to our school board meeting.  I quickly noticed the convenience of texting because my youngest son, while at his AP test review session at the high school, was able to contact me for a ride home before I even left the board meeting which was in a building only a few hundred feet away from his classroom.

During the remainder of the evening, the television set never got turned on.  We had people studying, working on papers, and the fixing (unsuccessfully) of a washing machine.  It was a lot for a Monday.  I hope today does not contain any unexpected surprises.

This blog piece was my contribution to the TwoWritingTeachers sponsored, Slice of Life Tuesday blog forum, on WordPress. It is a chance, once a week, to share a slice of our lives with other authors/educators/ and interested readers. Thank you for the opportunity to be part of this supportive community!