Detours and All

It is 6:30 on a Monday morning and one of the dogs is sick.

I smell it before I see it. I walk over to the crate and think — okay, I don't even know where to start. There's just so much. I go downstairs where Chris is finishing up in the gym, and I do not say good morning. I say, "I need your help. I don't even know where to start."

He didn't ask questions. He picked up the dog and carried her to the shower. I took the crate to the yard. We're laughing at each other at 6:45 in the morning, which is exactly when we're usually pulling out of the driveway for school drop-offs. That was not happening on its normal schedule today.

Then my blood sugar tanked. So I sat down for a bit.

Then I came home from drop-off, put my headphones in, turned on my favorite Disney scent in the diffuser — the one that smells like the lobby of the Polynesian — set a timer for an hour, and reset the house. Got everything back to even keel. Because this was not the day I had planned, and I needed a minute.

Then I went to record Business Fire Drills. The tech gremlins had other plans. The recording died. I set it up again. It died again. By the third time, I was stopping after every two minutes and saving each segment as its own file. Ten or twelve clips of me talking into a camera. Not ideal. But we got it done. (If you want to see what Business Fire Drills looks like — and watch Tad and me running walkie-talkies like a production crew — it's on YouTube. Same world, different road.)

And then Tad walked out of his room, dropped an old iPad, and the screen shattered completely. Apple Care ended February of 2021 on that thing. We are well past warranty. And at that point I looked up and thought — okay, which planet is mad at which other planet right now, because something is clearly going on.

But here's the thing I kept coming back to all day: none of this is actually about the dog, or the recording, or the iPad.

We don't do life or business in a bubble. The scenic route has roadblocks. It has detours. It has road closed signs. And what we actually control is how we meet them.

Chris and I could have started the morning frustrated at each other, behind, stressed. Instead we were laughing, handling it, moving on. The kids watched us choose that. Tad watched me re-record something twice and not spiral. That stuff matters more than I give it credit for in the middle of it.

The dog is laying on the floor right now like nothing happened. Smelling great. Completely unbothered.

The Scenic Route is exactly what it sounds like — the road trip version of the real life I'm actually living, not the highlight reel. I record it when something happens that I can't stop thinking about until I share it. Today, I just needed a calm ride. Some fall breeze and sunshine on my face.

Come take the long way with me.

Listen to The Scenic Route →