Annoyed/Grateful

I spent the day alternating between being annoyed and grateful. My younger cousins have wanted to come visit this summer, and were bummed to wait until the end of July. I got my work done so I was free all day and they planned to arrive "early" which was 10 or 11AM. This morning I spoke to the youngest at 10AM and she asked, "What are we going to do?"

"Play tennis."

"If we are just going to play tennis, why do we have to come early?"

First of all, they wanted to come. Second of all I knew it was pointless to plan anything else today, because who knew when they'd arrive?

On the other hand - these are all the things I got done while waiting for them. Two loads of laundry on the line, made homemade broccoli/cheese soup (which I hope they'll like), made a pasta dish, baked a tofu-fruit dessert (I've been meaning to do that for a while), did a little farmer's market prep, packed my lunch for the market tomorrow, took a 30 minute nap, made a grocery list and had some quiet time to myself which I thought would be lacking this weekend.

#2 - I started the morning with a 15 mile bike ride. I took a slightly different neighborhood street where it is boring because it is so familiar. I also left a little later than I planned, but I was almost positive that if I was back by 10AM that would still be ok for my cousins. Clearly it was.

#3 - Have gained perspective and can really see the alternate point of view. The sweet man and I had a serious conversation last night. "Do you think this should be so hard?" he asked me. Today I reflected that it is not often that I truly can understand someone else's point of view (that was different than mine and led to conflict), and now I can see how we both made incorrect assumptions and were less than helpful the past couple weeks.

#4 - I did at least get to play tennis with my 17 cousin which is what I most wanted to do this weekend. She said I'm good which is nice to hear since I haven't play for two years, last year my shoulder was bothering me. She beat me, but I kept up. She also instantly moved to another court when a woman came to hit against the side board. I appreciated the courtesy she demonstrated.

#5 - My brother got upset at me that my cousins were arriving there late since he has little kids and they are sleeping there. I really tried to stress to my cousins to come as early as possible today, I don't know what more I can do. Yes, I could have skipped the tennis match, but I'm working tomorrow and I wanted to spend some time with them. At least I tried to be empathetic on the phone, and he didn't escalate. Sometimes though I think life would be easier if I didn't try to plan things, or just included less people. I don't know.