What made it slightly more embarrassing that I wasn’t prepared for our Committee Meeting at my house was the fact that they showed up while I was still wearing teeny tiny pajamas.

I thought I had all morning to prepare for tomorrow’s meeting. Plenty of time to drain the coffee pot, type the agenda, send the reminder email, and make the muffins. Look at ALL OF THIS TIME! But first I’ll make the beds. It’s easier to be productive in a house with made beds.

Ding Dong. 

After a summer of carb-eschewing and spinning, my bits are higher and tighter. I’m sure our new interim director didn’t expect to see them, though. The remainder of the committee arrived after I found pants. And maybe they didn’t notice that hospital-corner bed-making after a breakfast of Tamoxifen and coffee meant I was legitimately feverish. Ding Dong, welcome to the Lee’s! Watch me glisten with hospitality.

I hate being busy. I’ll never be one of those moms tethered to her SUV and a slave to an impossible schedule of overlapping practice times at fields in different towns. It’s not that I refuse to let my boys drag me around because I prefer evenings on the couch. Like most moms, I’d give up all mid week drinking to shuttle them to sports. I’d spend my entire shoe budget on cleats and guards and pads and helmets. Lucky for me, we Lees aren’t traveling team material.

On any given school night, you’ll find us at home. Of course, there is some stuff on the calendar. Asian law requires piano lessons. And my boys are on a just-sign-up flag football team that plays for a handful of weekends in the fall. My days are plenty full with a part-timey job, oodles of volunteer meetings, and the usual mom stuff. And I take pride in my commitment to the mom stuff. Currently there is not a single item in any of the laundry bins. Can’t stop. Won’t stop. Sorting and separating.

But September’s calendar requires even the Lees to be busy. September heaps BACK TO SCHOOL and WELCOME BACK and FIRSTS OF THE YEAR functions onto doctor’s appointments, multiple trips to get vital sporting equipment for one season, and your 43^rd party at the trampoline paint ball rock climbing venue because (better/annoying) moms insist on birthday parties for their kids. I still use a paper calendar, and this Thursday’s box is too small for all of the things I need to do but will probably forget because they are written too tiny and I KNOW, BERNIE, I KNOW THAT I NEED TO USE THE GOOGLE CALENDAR.

How’s your September going? Are you greeting the Chair of the Board of your nonprofit and its interim director wearing skivvies? Maybe you haven’t missed a single meeting, or shown up to one without pants and sweaty half moons of yesterday’s mascara heralding your competence. Me, I’m ready for this Sept-embarrassment of a month to be over.

Middle school dinner is tonight and I’m totally going to be on time, definitely not in jammies. It’s in my phone marked “don’t forget to go” with three alarms. I plan to be entirely un-embarrassing. Until at least tomorrow. (Tomorrow’s not on the Google calendar yet.)

I still use these. I’ve missed three meetings this month, but I still use these.