So last week, Flint and I drove to Atlanta for our last Parents' Weekend for our graduating son. I was catching up on all the articles that I try to keep up on, but are impossible during the work week (and listening to cool music from Flint's ipod and his satellite radio). All was lovely and well as we traveled east then south, until we got to Chattanooga and then it happened --- SNOW. Now, it was only those very light flurries that we used to not even notice in St. Louis (until some news editor decided they could get a lot more viewers by making the weather the news) and that should not have caused any travel delays. And, I give the good people of Tennessee credit -- we were able to drive pretty much the speed limit all along the interstates. Even when we entered Georgia things were fine, fine that is until we made it to the Atlanta City Limits right around 4:30. We were pretty shocked at how light traffic was heading in our direction (not so for the traffic heading out of the City, which was pretty typical for rush hour in a city). Then came the call -- all activities scheduled for Friday and Saturday of Parents' Weekend were cancelled due to weather. Weather? What weather? There was less than 2 inches of snow that accumulated and there was no ice! However, we were determined not to be disappointed and figured we would just grab our kid and go out for a nice dinner on Friday night. We were in for a rude awakening. Almost every restaurant had closed at 2:00 because of the snow storm! We ended up eating at a Zaxby's that was "only going to be open for another 30 minutes and we are out of a lot of our usual menu items." It was then that I realized how 2 can make all the difference. In St. Louis, we don't get to worried about 1, 2 or 3 inches of snow, but let us get to 4 inches (which is 2 times 2) and we declare a blizzard. We talk about things being twice as hard or twice as nice. We think of twins as twice the work (and twice the blessing). We ask for just another couple of minutes and then we are ready to do whatever someone is asking us to do next. We talk about doubling down, double trouble and double the fun (all in the two family).
Sometimes I get frustrated that a work project is taking twice as long as I thought it would. Not because I am not focused on it, but because I am sometimes waiting for others to provide input or give me a piece of what I need to complete the project. It is then that the twos really become a source of frustration -- even more than not finding an open restaurant because of two inches of snow. I try (but don't always succeed) to be patient, understanding that while my project is of utmost importance to me, others have other priorities that are of utmost importance to them. It probably really isn't practical to expect that all projects will be completed in the time you anticipated, but if they too often take twice as long, something is wrong -- either on the planning end or the execution end. I am working on doing a better job of determining how long it will take to complete a project when I am not in control of all of the project's parts (not being in control is another difficulty that I will write about some day). I think that will help quell some of the frustration I experience. I realize that I put this practice into play following the birth of baby #1. Because she was 2 weeks late (darn those twos) I got really tired of hearing "You haven't had that baby yet." So, when I was having the next baby and the one after that, I added two weeks to the due date the doctor gave me and viola, never had the frustration of the project not being done on time.
