Life Lesson in OM Problem

This morning in my Odyssey of the Mind club, I gave them a problem: Present a two minute skit showing what prince-less Cinderella's job would be if she was kicked out of the castle.

Well, my kids got real excited, worked hard and presented a hilarious and creative skit about Cinderella on the dating game, trying to choose a new prince. It was well-planned, thought-out and presented in an entertaining way. But their fatal flaw? What was Cinderella's new job? D'oh, as Homer Simpson would say. They totally glossed over that part once they latched on to their dating game idea. They would have been sunk over such an oversight at competition. Yet they thought it was GREAT. They were surprised when I pointed out their oversight, and then, of course, they understood.

It cracked me up because they were going at it full throttle, really making a grand effort. Had it been on track, they would have scored BIG, but they were way off track.

I started thinking about how my days are like that sometimes. I'm really doing a bang-up job cleaning out a junk drawer or vaccuuming the car or sorting socks or something, but what does that have to do with my overall mission? Do any of those things really relate to my goal to be a good mom?

And like in my writing, I spent about two hours yesterday figuring out some things I had to move around. I painstakingly wrote down page #s, etc. Move fight scene on p. 115 to p. 136, etc. I had about six things to move, THEN I moved one thing and the rest of the page numbers didn't matter anymore.

So I know I'm rambling, but BIG PICTURE, people, or to be trite, don't sweat the small stuff. So think about what your goal is for today, does that work to support your overall life goals? Or are you just putting out fires? How can we change that? I don't have any major answers, but I know that in this busy time of year, I can't do everything, so my choices really do matter.

I have this stopwatch I use at OM. It times their responses, think time, etc. on spontaneous problems like the one I mentioned above. Anyway, I love having a stopwatch around my neck. I went to the grocery store, grabbed my cart, and set it for 15 minutes, then flew around the store to beat the clock like some kind of imbecile. But who wants to spend all morning in Food Lion? Now I'm going to use my clock to spend 15 minutes in each DANGER ZONE of my house (biggest messes), then what's done is done. I'm off to write.
Have a wonderful day. It's sunny and bright here (sorry, you North Dakotan readers). Did you like Food Friday? I made the bisquick thing on Sunday. The rolling didn't work so hot for me, so I rolled it out and cut them out like biscuits which worked great. I highly recommend. I'm making steak pinwheels on Thursday. MMM..