I have always been a procrastinator.
Sometimes it works in my favor.
But not usually.
After about a 10 year break, I started swim coaching again this year.
All of my certifications had expired.
I have been dragging my ass to take all of the courses to get recertified.
Last Tuesday I finally finished the last one so that I would be allowed to coach on deck at meets.
USA Swimming is a stickler about these certifications, so if you don’t have them all and receive your “deck pass”, you can’t be on deck.
This weekend Number 3 and 4 had a swim meet.
It was the 8 and under CT Championships.
There weren’t a lot of kids going, so I was the only coach scheduled to be at the meet — the first meet I was going to finally be able to coach.
In fact, in the afternoon session, Number 4 was the only girl entered.
I was really looking forward to hanging out, just me and her on deck.
So at about 3:00 on Friday afternoon I sent an email to the head of CT swimming to make sure I had done everything I needed to do so that I had that deck pass for this weekend’s meet.
That’s when I found out there was still a 2 hour online course that I hadn’t taken.
Shit.
I scrambled to get in touch with the head coach of the team.
I scrambled to purchase the online course so that I could take it.
I finally bought the course.
But I didn’t receive the email with the password to log in.
One of the coaches bought the course for me.
Still no email.
Still no way to access the course.
It was now 9:00 on Friday night.
All day long I had been planning to watch a movie with the kids that night.
Instead, I spent 2 hours frantically calling, emailing, texting, yelling, and swearing, in an attempt to take this course.
At 10:00, I finally gave up.
My eyes were on fire, and I was about to smash my computer with a sledgehammer.
I’d try again in the morning.
At 7 am on Saturday morning I tried again.
USA Swimming had now blocked my account thinking I was a psycho hacker.
I was sweating.
Swearing.
Slamming the keys on the computer.
Yelling at the kids to get the hell out of the office and leave me alone.
I called my mom.
I asked her if she would try buying the course from her email address.
Maybe that would make a difference.
Maybe then I could get into the system.
She bought the course.
But she had also just gotten a new computer and had just loaded Windows 8 onto it.
She couldn’t figure out how to work the email or forward anything to me.
An hour later she finally just copy and pasted the confirmation of the course and sent it to me.
I had now purchased the course 4 times.
And an excruciatingly long and exhausting hour after that, I somehow managed to log into the course.
I got right to work.
Every five minutes when one of the kids came into the office while I took the course, I screamed at them to GET OUT!, afraid that they would do something to cause the computer to freeze, or shut down, or burst into flames before I finished.
But 90 minutes later, I was finally done.
I took the test.
I got a 100%.
Halle-freaking-lujah.
I forwarded the results to both head coaches and just about every person on the chain of command in CT Swimming so that I could finally get the fucking deck pass.
It had now been almost 24 hours of fighting with my computer.
I was completely exhausted.
I went outside with the kids to play in the snow.
It was the least I could do since I had spent the last 20 hours yelling at them to get the hell away from me.
Out in the snow, I was checking my phone every 10 or 15 minutes.
Waiting for an email from someone telling me I had my deck pass.
Finally, about an hour later, an email appeared.
Thank God.
Susie, thank you for working so hard to get all your certifications in order.
I just got word,
and…
the meet has been cancelled.
ARE YOU SHITTING ME???
I had just worked off about 8500 calories in the last 20 hours in a panic-driven frenzy.
I had snapped at, yelled at, sworn at, and completely ignored my kids.
All because I had put this stupid thing off until the last minute.
So no more.
No more procrastinating.
It never saves time.
In fact, it does just the opposite.
And I really don’t have time to waste.
It also ultimately makes me a serious bitch.
So that’s my February New Year’s Resolution.
No more procrastinating.
Gotta go.
Because I’ve got some thank you notes that have been waiting to be written.
Since September.
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