A Curve Ball Lobbed at Me from Left Field by Jean Marie Keenan-Johnston

Today has not gone as planned. Heck, life hasn’t gone as planned for months and months at this point, so why should today be any different? (giggling to myself). I had an incredible idea for what I wanted to write about.  Writer’s block has been an unwelcome friend these past weeks with everything else I have on my plate to deal with, so I was really excited to finally have an idea just pop into my head without any true effort.  I felt like I would be able to just log on and really to run with it.  Effortless writing, thoughts flowing, creativity at my finest, writing the way I used to write before my overwhelming life reached levels I never knew were possible.  My girls are behind on their lessons (They attend a virtual charter school, and marks close Tuesday at midnight.  This situation with my mom being here has touched every single aspect of our lives, to include the girls’ schooling.)  But I still thought I could log on, oversee them working as I typed away, hit “publish” and happily go on with my day as Learning Coach and Mom.  That’s how sure I was about my topic.  And then “IT” happened…something every virtual school family dreads…the school website went down.  “Routine maintenance” must have turned into something more major because each hour that passed brought with it a later time for the expected return of the website.  Our lessons and assessments held hostage by a technical “hiccup”, my entire game plan for the day went haywire…to include my perfect plan for a perfect blog entry.

Luckily the site was up and running again after dinner, so we spent a few hours this evening working on portfolios (think “projects” for brick and mortar schools).  However doing work during the witching hour requires a lot more oversight and offers me no chance of doing anything other than giving the girls my full attention.  So here I am, quickly popping my head in to say hello and share a few minutes of my crazy day.  It’s definitely not the awesome post I had hoped to write. But as it turns out, maybe this is a better, more accurate snapshot of what my life has been like lately…a curve ball thrown from left field and me successfully holding my own, refusing to let these obstacles get the better of me.  Score one point for me…life’s obstacles, zero.