Ever been caught by the unpredictable coming straight out of left field?

Well that's what's happened to me!

Even as I sit down to write to you all now, I'm still shaking my head and wondering where it came from!

What?  Oh Sorry dear reader!  I need to stop shaking my head and bring you up to speed!!!!

Well there I was getting near to Christmas and feeling tired but OK!  (That's better than 2004, when I got sick for 5 weeks.)

Thanks to SOXS (Save Our Xmas Sanity), I had the Christmas "Bah Humbugs" well under control, and come Boxing Day I was ready for peace and quiet!

And I got it - for a few days.  I stayed at home, napped a LOT, did the jumbo crosswords in the newspaper, read novels that took me well away from downtown Melbourne and Pink Apple.  I was starting to feel a little better. 

That meant, dear reader, that I had actually realized just how crappy I HAD been feeling!  You know how it is?  When you stop for a moment, you realize that there's nothing left in the tank and it seems hard to get going again!

Come New Year, that's where I was!  But that's OK, it was still holiday time!  I'd find my energy again!

Ah Yes, dear reader, you've already foreseen what I didn't!!!

For an intelligent woman, and a coach , you'd think I might have a bit more insight!!!  But as I said, it came from left field!

With the New Year came the campaign to get my mother's house ready for sale, now that she's safely tucked into an Aged Care Facility. 

The accomodation bond for such services in Australia can be substantial.  In her case, it is going to use all the profits of the sale of her house and a considerable amount of her other assets.  The house needed to be sold and ASAP!

But ...  Oh my God - the CLUTTER!

During the next couple of weeks, there was anything from 2-6 of us there working every day.  In the heat of summer, in a little house that hadn't been lived in for six months!

And that was just the beginning. 

In the meantime, we were:

• interviewing estate agents,
• consulting estate valuers,
• planning and running a garage sale,
• arranging painters and steam cleaners,
• making trips to the tip (dump),
• gathering the valuables (at my house!!),
• calling for expressions of interest on various items from the three of us (sisters and self), and our various grown-up families,
• washing and rehanging curtains,
• weeding and planting and generally creating 2 gardens out of the "jungle".

There's a zillion more things, but I reckon you get the picture!

Bodies hurt!  Bodies were filthy!  But it had to be done, so we just kept on!

And that dear reader, was the problem!  I just kept going!  Knowing the tank was dry, and despite the fact that the process was enormously emotionally draining, as well.

In the last week or two, in between tasks, I've been taking to my bed!  Partly to rest the injured knee (don't ask) and screaming joints, and partly to hide under the covers and try and put something back into the empty tank!

I've been running on pure gut instinct (and adrenaline)!   Funnily enough, my gut wasn't saying "go write a blog"!  My head was saying "you SHOULD write a blog", but for once I chose to ignore that!

So the fact that you're reading this, says that I've made a little improvement and have found energy and desire to share all this with you!

I've got lots to tell you over the next while, because I've made some interesting discoveries.  But more of that later.

What's that you asked?  The Moral of this sorry saga? 

Well that's easy! 

1. Listen to your body when it's telling you the tank is dry, and find ways to restore yourself and your energies, even when you "must" keep going!
2. Never underestimate the capacity of a "left-fielder" to knock you right off your course!  That's the "chaos factor" at work in your world.  And despite every attempt to control your world, the chaos factor still gets in!  Learn to accept it!

For now, dear reader, thanks for sharing my little sad story to this point, and I'll go find some more energy for other (more exciting) blogs in the near future!

It's been a few hours since I wrote this blog and it didn't feel finished.

I've been wondering why on earth I could describe this issue as coming from left field!!  After all, I did know that my interstate relatives were arriving in the New Year and that our intention was to put Mum's house on the market.

And then I realized that what caught me so unawares was the sheer physical and emotional magnitude of the project.  The challenges that arose in managing the project took me into deep and uncharted waters.

It was my own UNDER-ESTIMATION of the project that came from left field.

As I like to finish my blog posts with a question (it's the coach in me), here's today's question.

What have you underestimated recently?  What have been the consquences?