Image by Eva the Weaver via FlickrI lost an hour of sleep this morning.  I lost it (and can't find it anywhere!) because my son had to be at High School at 7:10 AM today to be picked up and taken to Model UN.  Well...that's what he thought.  He was "pretty sure" someone was going to be there at 7:10 AM to pick him up.  He had talked with a guy.  But he couldn't remember the student's name.  And he didn't have the student's phone number.  But, he knew the student had "said" he'd be there with a parent at 7:10 AM to pick him up.

But...

What if he wasn't?

That was the problem.  My son could have ridden the bus in as normal and gotten to school at 7:10 AM in Anchorage and waited for a call from this student who was going to help.  And waited.  And waited.  And had no way to contact the student to remind him not to leave him stranded at the school.  And then what? 

So, I opted to go in a couple hours early to make sure I could take him to Model UN if the other student wasn't there.

We left the house at 6:20 AM.  We were at South High School at 7:00 AM.  We waited for a call.

At 7:10 AM the call came.  The student was there and my son headed off to Model UN.

He could have just ridden the bus in.

I could have gotten another hour of sleep.

But, then again, I got to spend an extra hour with my son.  I got to be the conscientious parent, looking out for him and there for him if plans fell through.  And I got to listen to some good music in the car.  And I got to sit here in an Anchorage Coffee Shop (Coffee Cats) catching up with e-mail and RSS feeds and construction-related issues (Oh, and writing this blog post!).

It's while doing all of this that I found this post from Ann Voskamp, author of one thousand gifts.  I love this illustration of what happens to our time...to my time:

When I turn down Creamery Road, pass the the creamery that’s now abandoned, the window eyes all punched out, I wonder how they must have all looked, those silvery pails of milk that once lined up by the door, their tins lid hats pulled on so not one white drop spilled.

But isn’t as much milk lost through a pinhole, one minute little drip after another, as in the knocking over of the whole pail?

This is what follows me all the way home:

A pail with a pinhole loses as much as the pail pushed right over. A whole life can be lost in minutes wasted, small moments missed.

You like those last couple of sentences there?

So, while tired, I'm savoring the small moments this morning.

The coffee's good.

It's going to be a good day.

Thank God.