Mama Monday 5.1

Theme: Choice

Yes, this week marks the New Hampshire Primary. No, I'm not going to use this week's theme to discuss my political beliefs or urge you all into action when your state's time comes around. I've already done that here and, tomorrow (Tuesday), I'll post about it over here. If you're interested, please do check those out. Otherwise, let's move on...

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Something's been running through my mind this weekend. It's the memory of Hubby and I wandering through our local kitchen and bath store years ago, trying to register our gift wishes for our impending marriage. As I recall, it all went down relatively smoothly... until we got to the silverware.

Looking at all the various styles of knives, forks and spoons - ranging from plain and lightweight to artsy/craftsy and medium weight, to hoity/toity and heavy, and every style and weight in between, Hubby and I were absolutely dumbstruck about which set to choose.

Seriously, we were debating the merits of each and every set for about 30 minutes or more.

We were discussing a couple different fork choices in particular when it finally dawned on me.

You know - it's just a fork.

Yes - just a fork. Not the end to world hunger. Not a cure for all the ails of the world. Not a marriage-defining deal breaker. It was - Just A Fork.

And? After laughingly agreeing on this, we easily chose a silverware pattern within the next two minutes. Done!

This weekend, Hubby and I spent hours trying to find/understand/and easily use various computer programs for a certain organizational effort we're trying to get underway in this new year.

We needed a program that does this, but also is able to do that. Oh, and what if this sort of situation comes along? The program has to know how to handle that as well. And then, of course, there's all the random variables like this, these, and those that may or not come up and, therefore, may or may not have to work into the system too. Not to mention the different "free trial" times alloted for each of the programs and noting how much whichever one we ultimately chose will cost us when we decide it's a good tool.

Ugh!

Sorry to be so vague about what we were exactly trying to set up and organize. But, really, that's not so important in this post. What is important to note is the building frustration Hubby experienced while doing his "window shopping" of each program. As well as my building exasperation with Hubby in the face of never finding "The Program" that worked well and worked easily for everything we (he?) wanted it to do.

Finally (and after being vocally fortified by a lovely glass of pinot grigio), I was like -

Look! What exactly do we need to accomplish? Isn't there another way - a non-computer-related-way - to achieve that? Even if you don't want to do anything manual to organize things, I don't mind. Can't I just do that? And keep you regularly informed along the way?

Can't we just all get along?!

Basically - I felt like I was declaring once again....

It's Just A Fork.

And? After that, all was well. No more searching. No more frustrations. No more exasperating sighs of anger and dispair. We were done.

Choices/schmoices! So often the pain and agony of making a decision becomes such a bigger deal than the actual decision being worked out.

After all - we must remember that there's often more than one way to skin a cat.

And, really, sometimes a fork really is just a fork.