Sometimes the unexpected is what you really needed after all

Last night as I got ready for bed, I packed up my bag with towels, sunscreen, and my swimsuit, anticipating another blindingly hot summer day in Cleveland, Ohio (we've been having a lot of those lately). As I snuggled down into my sheets and set my alarm, I also expected to sleep in nice and late before going off to babysit for the day. However, sometimes when you're expecting the lemons everyone tells you about, life throws a handful of grapes at you and you are left doing a confused double take...

As I was saying!

I woke up at roughly 5am this morning, tossing and turning from a really weird dream I was having, and proceeded to wake up on and off for the next three hours. Then. sometime around 8am, I hear this GIANT clap of thunder, and next thing I know, it's raining outside like it's about to cause the next great flood. So much for my sunny beach day :(
While I ate breakfast and hurried out the door, I tried to think of activities to occupy the kids I babysit. While they're generally sweet, they're the kind of kids who can't stay focused on anything. ANYTHING. A project that would normally subdue my brothers for a good hour lasts approximately ten minutes on these kids. I have to admit it can be exhausting. Nevertheless, I came up with a few ideas, vaguely including movies, popcorn, and a few indoor games. But when I got there, somehow the half-hearted plans turned themselves into something greater. Here's what we ended up doing over the course of seven hours instead:

• Swimming in the lake during the time that it wasn't storming (the kids are on swim team)
• Practicing math facts and reading to prepare a little for their next school year
• Coloring! We ended up drawing ninjas and flags and butterflies, and the kids ogled over my "awesome art"
• Practicing Spanish. Er, well, I wrote and read aloud phrases and paragraphs in Spanish and translated them for the kids. Anything Spanish-related is considered fun to me, and I'm glad to know that this greatly amused the kids...maybe I'm influencing them after all!
•  Decided to rent a movie and persuaded the kids to pick out Tangled...fantastic movie by the way, if you haven't yet seen it :D
• Baked delicious cinnamon streusel muffins together, getting flour and batter everywhere imaginable
• Set up a party in their living room. Complete with streamers, popcorn and trail mix, our muffins, Capri Suns, and a "raffle" for the kids' toys, I must say it beat out some of the parties I've been to by a longshot! :P
• Invited the neighbors over and watched Tangled with 4 adorable children snuggled around me...priceless.

So I didn't exactly get a beachy tan or get to practice my strokes in the lake. My sunscreen and swimsuit never saw their way out of my bag, and while that should have been disappointing to me, the alternative ended up being exactly what I needed today.

Lessons learned:
Point is, sometimes life tricks you a bit and shows you opportunities where you never would have expected them. I think this is especially important to remember as I head off to college...already, I've been given chances of a lifetime. And I'm not even in Columbus yet! I'm beyond excited for all of the things that I already expect, of course. But sometimes there are times when the outcome is totally different than what you thought it would be, but satisfying and gratifying just the same. I guess that's life, huh? Just when you thought you had it all figured out :) And while I obviously can't expect the unexpected, I can remember to be thankful for the times when the unexpected is, in fact, perfect after all.