I have a great friend. Her name is Mary. We were college roommates, many years ago. In those innocent days, when we had no idea what the world held for us, we forged a friendship that has lasted 48 years. Mary lives in Oklahoma, and I live in California: 1504.1 miles apart. We have made it a point, over the years, to not only keep in touch via telephone, letters, and then email but also to visit each other as often as we can. This year Mary was coming here. We expected her to arrive at our local airport Wednesday evening.

I had worked hard to finish a new collection by Monday afternoon so that Tuesday and Wednesday could be completed devoted to getting ready for her visit. My husband (Rick) and I had our plans outlined for those days. I was going to paint a room on Tuesday, and finish a D.I.Y. project. He was going to work in the yard. Wednesday we were both going to clean the house. We were all set….. until I received a text from Mary Tuesday morning that read:  “As of right now, the flights are running on time.  See you soon!” 

Whaaattt?  I looked at her itinerary, looked at my calendar, looked at her itinerary again, and gasped.  I raced through the house to find Rick and said, “We are in BIG trouble. Mary is coming in tonight, not tomorrow!”  

We couldn’t believe that we BOTH had written her arrival date down incorrectly on our calendars.  How did that happen? We couldn’t figure it out, but it didn’t matter. We quickly made a priority list of what HAD to be done before her arrival, in just about 10 hours, and got busy.

Not everything we wanted to accomplish before Mary’s arrival was done.  I didn’t get to paint “that” room or finish the D.I.Y. project. But we did have groceries in the house, clean sheets on her bed, a clean house, and a “mostly” cleaned-up yard.  

But ultimately The Most Important thing happened:  we were actually there on the right day, at the right time, to pick her up!