This last weekend, the children and I went to Searcy to spend some time with Jeff Henig.
We left on Thursday morning/afternoon and drove about 5 1/2 hours up. I had made a reservation through a discount site and got a good deal on a room only to be very disappointed upon arrival. Much to my amazement, the motel staff had no clue that we were going to be checking in that day. All the rooms were for smoking, and the pool that they had wasn't working.
The pool aspect was a disappointment in that I used that swimming experience in order to get the kids good and tired so that they would both go down for a nap in the afternoons and also just before night-night time (which works great by the way).
In all my "wisdom" I asked Jeff (since he was about to leave his house) if he had a few candles to burn in the room to knock the smell of smoking out (and please, don't get offended about this if you do smoke). The room we were given was in the back of the building (which didn't look like a very safe place to be) and as soon as I walked into the room, I almost gagged. The room reeked of cigarette smoke (imagine someone sitting around and puffing around 9 packs a day kinda smell). Not a very healthy place for a 2 yr old and a 7 yr old to be sleeping in (not to mention a very tired momma).
Thankfully, there was another motel chain right across the street (I hadn't bothered turning the car off and letting the kids out before hand and I'm glad I did) so, I checked to see if they had a room available (all while fighting back tears of tiredness and frustration). While I was in the process of finding out if there was a room available, Jeff came in with a calm (but kinda concerned) look on his face. Talk about a calm in the storm! He was that for me! Managed to get a room and then had to go back to the other place and try to cancel that reservation (which I had to call another office since this particular one didn't have a clue that I even existed) and then unload children and stuff in the nice, neat, clean room. Needless to say, I won't be looking to book at the America's Best Value Inn and Suites ever again! I also learned that the motel that we stayed out often gets customers from the said Inn quite often.... *huge note of sarcasm* I wonder why??
After all that, we managed to just hang out and relax a bit on Friday (and meet some new friends who also happened to have a 4 month old baby girl - R was delighted with this) and then have a cookout on Saturday.
Sunday morning was a TOTALLY different ball game. Jeff was to preach for a small congregation in a town not very far from Bald Knob (and no, I don't know the town... Only that it's among some very winding roads with an occasional gravel road). He said that we had to be on the road by 8am... Sharp! No problem there (wonders of wonders). We actually got there a full hour BEFORE Bible Class was supposed to start so me (in all my "wisdom" once again), suggested we may want to ride around a bit instead of either having two very hot and sweaty children (if they got out) or cranky (for having to sit in a car for an hour). This idea was all well, fine and good.... Until we started heading back to the church building. Long story short, we made a few wrong turns and ended up being about 20 or 30 minutes late for Bible class (which Jeff was teaching). Needless to say, we both learned a few things that morning... One, Jeff is not allowed to trust his own memory on winding *sometimes graveled* roads and two, not to get tooo flustered about being stuck behind "Sunday drivers" on said roads when you are running late. Thankfully, the members didn't seem to mind to much and had a chance to give Jeff a hard time later (all in good humor I might add).
So, even though the weekend started off a bit disappointing and hectic, it ended on a good note (with lots of laughs and lessons along the way). Coulda, woulda, shoulda can't change the present so why get your feathers all in a ruffle (which Jeff didn't by the way)? All any of us can do is make the best of things, apologize when we need too and learn to do better for the next time we have a "coulda" moment.
More to follow....
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