The past two days have been fall break on campus. I had some meetings scheduled for Thursday, but I told myself I would keep Friday open and try to use it as a vacation day.

My wife obliged, volunteering to get up first to make lunches and breakfast for the kids. It sort of worked. By about 6:30, though, I couldn’t stary in bed any longer, so I got up to start a fire.

And then the next thing I knew, I was volunteering to drive my oldest into school, with the idea that I would just stop by the office for a moment to take care of a little paperwork.

And then the next thing I knew, it was 12:30. Time to evacuate the office.

Which I did.

But I had one more chore to tend to, which took much longer than I thought it would. And then the next thing I knew–it was 3:00 and time to pick up my son from school.

So much for a vacation day.

I felt so irritated that I had lost my chance to enjoy the day. Of course, no one did anything to make me “lose the day.” It was my own actions, from 6:30am onwards. And of course, I didn’t really lose the day, did I. What happened is that the day didn’t live up to my expectations.

What I really needed to do was evacuate my expectations and enjoy the day I had, in whatever form it took.

I may not have gone on that great hike I had planned in my mind, but the only time I really wasted today were those moments I spent frustrated and irritated that the day I made up in my head didn’t match up with the real one that I was living.