I said No!

I said no today. A woman, a perfectly nice woman I have only met once, called today and asked me to fill in for her at chess club at the elementary school. Normally, usually I would have said sure, yes, or no problem. No matter that I have to pick up my own four kids from school at three different times, plus 4 after school daycare kids. No matter I am watching a friends toddlers who just had surgery. No matter that I have like a zillion loads of laundry to do, prescription to pick up for my mother in law and dinner to cook. No matter that it will conflict with the DI team I am running or the Scout troop I am helping chair. All of those things can wait, I normally tell myself when someone calls.

On a typical day I would have said yes. Then I would have scrambled to make it work, all the while cursing my inability to say no. But today for no explicable reason when she called, I said no. I feel like saying it again and again. At first I did think the guilt might kill me, I almost called her back. I even picked up the phone but then I looked around at the laundry I was trying to fold and the chicken marinating on the counter and thought I am a strong woman. I can say no once in while. Not every time, this one time I said No.