Early for a Saturday. This is a good thing. I've been tending to sleep in until it seems like half the day is gone when I get up.

I didn't write yesterday. I didn't have time before work because we were all getting around early. I had to get in early so I could leave early and pick up Little Boy. Hubband had a "thing" after work. It was nice, getting to work and leaving it early. A change from my usual habit of going in around 9:15 and leaving after 6:00.

The day was relatively busy and then my computer finally fried in the afternoon (it's been going there for weeks, but it's never an emergency unless it's an emergency). I didn't get any time at all to peruse diaries, so I fired up the computer as soon as we got home. Unfortunately, I had taken break and also fired up the TV. We recently acquired TCM in our cable lineup and they were showing "Imitation Of Life". I'd never seen this movie uncut from beginning to end, so two hours later, that's where I was still sitting. By then Hubband was home and had glommed onto the computer.

Our weekend ended up pretty full. We are going to friends' tonight to watch the playoff games and tomorrow I have a baby shower to attend. The shower is for a distant (in lineage but not in our hearts) cousin of Hubband's who is having twins.

I love baby showers, although I'm a little disappointed that I didn't get to go shopping. Hubband's Sister decided we (including her daughter and daughter-in-law) should go in and buy something together. And she should buy it. And she should wrap it. (Control FREAK!) So I've been robbed of feeling tiny booties and blankets and sweaters and such. Of course, the last time I went on a baby clothing bender I spent way too much money, so she might just be saving me from myself.

All of this means the normal weekend activities have to be jammed into one afternoon. Grocery shopping and a trip to the library. Fish tank cleaning and laundry doing. Bath giving and vaccuuming (how DO you spell that word?). The usual.

Geez, this is boring ME!

One of the things I've discovered about myself is I'm good at the up front, tell it like it is kind of friendship moments but I suck at the sit back, be quiet and show your supportiveness moments.

I tend to want to fix people and I tend to think I'm right. I tend to get impatient with them when they haven't realized how right I am and continue to moan about their plight. It's my failing as a friend and because I'm aware of it, I try to fix that part of myself as well.

But sometimes, I just need to pull out the bag of tricks and put on my "pretend therapist" outfit and set my friends down to some good old fashioned realism. I feel like I learned something in the last couple of years and just because it took me all my life to learn it doesn't mean my friends shouldn't listen to me and save themselves the trouble of having to learn their own lessons...should it?

The lesson? It's as simple as this: We can only change ourselves. We can't change other people or our situation or the way the planets align. We can only change the way we respond to what is going on in any given moment. That's our responsibility.

To use one of my favorite movie lines: "The charge nurse can't turn back time. She can't make it be yesterday!"

We must decide what we want and then plan how we must get it.