Victory and Defeat

Here is a little story of a small victory and a small defeat.  Start with defeat so I can end on a high note ;-)

So last night as I sat and played that silly computer game for hours until my hand felt like it belonged to an 80 year old arthritic grandma.  I followed it up with take out food, and hours of television (well a movie and several episodes of a series on netflix).  This despite my stated desire the other day of cutting back on both game play and television screen time.  So a defeat, and one I did while consciously telling myself I had said I wasn't going to do this anymore.  Well, the justification monster came out and said, get this out of my system (although that was the excuse for it time too) so I can start fresh.  But this time I am headed out of town for some training (and a couple of days of holiday time as well).

So, it will be good to be away from all of this and able to concentrate on something more productive.  I am hoping to work more on my writing.  Sadly there is a second part to this defeat - I was up until a hideously late hour and subsequently didn't get to my Essentrics class today.  But I will be running tomorrow and I did a bunch of housework today so that at least had me moving a little bit.  My plan is to get tonnes of walking in while I am away.

Now on to victory, in this case victory of my self sufficiency and creativity over badly designed products.  As I just mentioned I was doing a bit of housework - mostly dishes and the related tasks.  Well I emptied out a few sealer jars and washed them and the lids.  The sink we have is rectangular with actual corners not rounded ones, so that is already a pet peeve.  But the drain seemed okay, until one of the sealer jar lids settled into it on top of the plug.  And it was stuck, with no give to be able to pop one side down a bit so I could grab the other end etc.Why did they design the drain so it sat down in that deep a drain, and why doesn't the plug have the little handle coming up enough so that something wouldn't sit flat across just like that.  Well I guess they designed it for looks, not for people to actually really use!

So my little anger ball started to build up, because I just wanted to drain the sink and finish up, but no, this lid was jammed in there with no hope of getting it out.  I was definitely considering just leaving it after I used a table knife to try and get it to pry loose with no luck.  Seemed like it would make sense to just leave it in there for my husband to deal with (since the sink was his choice - and in fairness it looked like it would be great because it is nice and big etc so I can't blame him for the choice, although I was trying to as I got frustrated with that stupid lid!).

But I decided that was just a bit of a ridiculous response and not one that will help me be a better person LOL.  So I bailed the water out of the sink and could clearly see what I already knew (that the pry attempt with the knife meant the lid was ruined).  I grabbed the hammer and a handy little punch and I got that baby out of there all on my own.  I know, you might be thinking "big whoop" but it just feels good to be doing those handy things on my own - I didn't leave it for someone else.  I guess we grow up a little more all the time if we want.