1 Hour

Yesterday was awful. 

I was overwhelmed by work, swimming in emails. I made the effort to go the extra mile to help out a customer and I ended up staying way too late, and in the end I'm not sure it was value added work. Making a sacrifice for something you think is worth it can feel good, but when you come to the realization it may not have been as important as you were led to believe that's just disappointing. 

I came home in a snit. I missed out on exercising, catching up on chores and being with my wife. When I finally got to bed, it was later than I wanted and I drifted into a fitful sleep. 

About 2 am I started to slowly wake up and realized I was rested. I normally drag myself out of bed at 4 am to go swimming and it takes an hour of coffee and breakfast to come to a consciousness approaching that of Cro-Magnon man after a bad weekend. 

I lay there enjoying that type of lounging sleep that I normally reserve for Saturday morning around 8 am until I was done. I actually got up from bed an hour early and I wasn't despairing of life.  

I considered waking my red-headed compadre next to me, but I wasn't interested in seeing a bonafide, USDA inspected, Grade A snit, and it would be justified for waking her up at 3 am with no good reason other than I was rested and ready to face the day and wanted company. 

Instead I dressed and headed for the coffee maker. I got out the cat toy on a string as the coffee maker made the happy burbling noises and proceeded to make the other attractive female in my life happy. That would be Lucy the calico cat. She has deep green eyes and two permanent dirty spots on her nose. She is incredibly charming and always makes me feel like the popular girl at school wants to be my friend. After playing catch-the-cat-toy-on-the-string for about 10 minutes, I picked her up and scratched her ears and she leaned her cheek against mine and purred. 

I was ready to begin the day-ahead of the game. Today would be different and things would be good.  It was a moment of an everyday type of magic, an unexpected moment of God's grace after a very bad day, and it needed to be savored and shared.