Saturday started off like a perfectly normal Saints preseason game day around here ~ except I was spending mine at AutoZone doing ZQOH.
And not a cute little handful of ZQOH either. 😂
We’re talking hundreds upon hundreds of item lookups, checking quantities, correcting what needs correcting, and trying to make sure that when somebody walks through that door looking for a part, our Yes! We Got It! actually means we got it.
So while my Who-Dat boys were playing, I was working my way through item numbers and listening to the game whenever I could.
The Saints lost 20–24.
Well, poop.
But apparently the Saints weren’t the only ones losing something Saturday.
Sometime between ZQOH item lookup 700 and 1549, I lost an earring.
And not just some random little earring I picked up somewhere and wouldn’t miss. It was one Bubba had given me.
Now here’s the part where I have to admit that little voice in my head had already told me that morning I probably ought to put one of those rubber thingies on the back of it.
Did I?
Of course not.
Because apparently I enjoy giving Future Lisa opportunities for personal growth. 😂
I have absolutely no idea where that earring came out. It could’ve been somewhere in the store. It could’ve happened while I was bending, reaching, walking, checking inventory, helping customers, or somewhere between one ZQOH lookup and the next.
All I knew was that by the time I realized it was gone, it was gone.
And I was upset.
Not throw-myself-on-the-floor upset. Not the whole world is ending.
Just that particular kind of upset you get when you’re already tired from a long day and the thing that went wrong happens to be something that mattered to you.
I came home and told Bubba.
And this man looked at the situation and offered exactly the kind of comfort only Bubba could offer:
“Well, at least you still have your ear.”
😂😂😂
I mean…
He wasn’t wrong.
The earring was gone, but the ear was still firmly attached.
And before I could spend the rest of the evening mourning my missing jewelry and the Saints’ preseason record, he decided we were going to South of the Border for supper.
Somebody else could cook.
Somebody else could bring the food.
Somebody else could wash the dishes.
And by the end of the night, as I put it at the time, this somebody was fat and happy. 😂
The funny thing is, my earring was still missing.
Nothing about supper changed that.
The Saints had not received a miraculous fourth-quarter do-over while I ate.
The ZQOH count didn’t suddenly shrink.
Nothing that had happened earlier in the day got fixed.
But somehow, it didn’t get the rest of my day either.
Maybe That’s the Part I’ve Been Missing
Last week I found myself noticing how often I’ve believed I have to carry everything.
Work. Home. Supper. Responsibilities. The details. The remembering. The fixing.
And maybe learning that I don’t have to carry it all made a little room for me to notice something else this week.
I don’t have to carry every bad moment into the next one.
That’s different.
Because sometimes we really do have a lousy moment.
Something gets lost.
Somebody says the wrong thing.
The car makes a noise.
The dog does something only a dog would think was reasonable.
You spill something five minutes after cleaning it.
Mama needs something.
Work follows you home inside your head.
You discover the ingredient you were positive was in the refrigerator is most definitely not in the refrigerator.
And then somebody asks…
“What’s for supper?”
Lord, have mercy. 😂
Sometimes the thing that went wrong isn’t even that big by itself.
It’s just the thing that landed on top of all the other things.
That’s what I think we forget about the woman standing in her kitchen at 5-something in the afternoon.
She’s not incompetent.
She’s tired.
She may have spent the whole day working, caregiving, driving, remembering appointments, solving somebody else’s problem, answering questions, paying bills, keeping up with the house, or doing a dozen little things nobody else even realized needed doing.
Then one more thing goes sideways.
And suddenly that one thing feels like it owns the whole evening.
I know that feeling.
But Saturday night reminded me that it doesn’t have to.
The Day Doesn’t Get to Decide How the Evening Ends
I don’t mean slapping a smile on something that genuinely hurts.
Sometimes things are hard.
Sometimes we’re disappointed.
And sometimes an earring really does matter because of who gave it to us.
We don’t have to pretend otherwise.
But maybe there’s a little space between this went wrong and everything is ruined now.
That’s where Saturday night changed.
Bubba couldn’t replace the earring at that moment.
He couldn’t undo my workday.
He couldn’t change the Saints score.
But he could make me laugh.
And supper could be handled somewhere besides my kitchen.
That was enough.
Not enough to fix everything.
Enough to change what happened next.
And goodness, isn’t that what so much of our kitchen life comes down to?
Not fixing the whole week.
Not suddenly becoming organized.
Not meal-prepping fourteen containers while wearing matching pajamas and smiling peacefully at the camera. 😂
Just figuring out the next useful thing.
That’s really what I’ve come to love about my Chaos to Cozy Kitchen System™. It was never supposed to create a life where nothing goes wrong. My life would disqualify me immediately.
It’s about building a kitchen and a rhythm that can bend when real life walks through the door.
Sometimes cozy looks like using what you already have.
Sometimes it’s leftovers.
Sometimes it’s pulling something from the freezer.
Sometimes it’s Bubba having supper cooked when you walk through the door.
And sometimes cozy is sitting at a restaurant table because tonight, the easiest useful thing is letting somebody else handle the food.
That’s still a kitchen win in my book.
Off the Apron
Last week, I found myself wondering if maybe I don’t have to carry it all. Funny how life didn’t wait very long before handing me the next part of that conversation. 😂
If you’ve ever felt like everything depends on you remembering it, handling it, cooking it, fixing it, or keeping all the plates spinning, come read Maybe I Don’t Have To Carry It All. It might be a good place to sit for a few minutes before you head back into your own week.
From the Porch
If 5 PM rolls around this week and one of those days has followed you all the way into the kitchen, don’t start by solving supper, tomorrow, the refrigerator, and your entire life.
Look at what’s actually in front of you and ask:
What’s the easiest useful thing I can do next?
And if the kitchen is the part you can’t quite figure out, you can always come sit with me on The Porch with Trinity. Tell her what’s making supper feel harder than it needs to be, and she’ll help you find the next room or little kitchen win that might help.
No catching up required.
Just come on in.
Coffee’s ready.
And for the record…
I’m still keeping an eye out for that earring. 😂
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