Friday Five: Audibles

When you say “audible” to a football coach’s wife, it’s hard to think of something other than game day. 🙂 As I reflected on this word though, I realized our lifestyle has multiple audibles on a weekly basis. It’s possible some of them sound crazy, but that would be true of our crazy awesome life as well!

Audible: a change in the offensive play called by the quarterback at the line of scrimmage

Coach’s Audible: to change a play based on the best available information immediately available

1 Vacation: There have been many spontaneous trips over the years. Whether it’s packing up the kiddos and heading to Grandma’s or Ordell saying “I need a break” I’ve always got a few ideas up my sleeve as to what can happen tomorrow if needed. Sometimes that means hopping on Groupon and simply planning a day hike. For us, vacation doesn’t always look like a week at the beach, sometimes it’s only a technology-free day away.

2 Travel: Ordell and I both have jobs that require travel. There was one week last season where I traveled Monday-Thursday for work and hopped in the car Friday-Saturday for a football game. Overall I can usually avoid that, but the other aspect of travel is sometimes my kiddos need me more than my husband. Every trip is finalized on the day of. It’s the only way I’ve found for my mama’s heart to handle it. Recruiting trips can be the same way. Ordell can plan to be gone a week and instead, it will be 3 days. I’ve learned to have a bunch of freezer meals on hand in the fall and take it day by day.

3 Dinner Guest: Now that we live so close to campus this is going to become a more consistent thing. I’ve learned over the years to always make extra because you never know when a student will show up needing to talk and home-cooked meal.

4 Overnight guests: Multiple times a season people will text me with short notice letting me know of their impending Friday or Saturday arrival. I always keep the guest room ready with clean sheets and towels. This is certainly a time when freezer meals come in handy!

5 Tomorrow: When it comes down to it, I’ve learned that busy jobs and ministry both lead to a fairly unpredictable schedule. Whether a last-minute meeting is planned or a student needs our time I’ve come to expect interruptions. When I look at my planner and see a day with wide open gaps, I can almost predict something coming up. Last minute lunch plans, a student in tears who just needs to get off campus, someone needs to go to the ER, it’s bound to happen and when it does I’m always thankful a gap in my schedule allowed my presence!