This is not an ordinary blog post, but here goes anyways!

I need to “Toot My Rhino Horn” tonight big time. I was going to write about it as a comment on our Facebook Community tonight when I called for others to “Toot His/Her Rhino Horn” but then I quickly realized it wouldn’t be a comment, but more like a long story so hey, why not just blog.

So here I am. Blogging and Tooting at the same time. This is a complete, top of my mind, no editing, no thinking post. So please prepare yourself for totally nonsensical (is that a word?) thoughts and writing!

As you all know, last week I posted about leading another “30 Days to Yelling Less Project” starting tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow. I was so proud of myself for figuring out an easy way to get people to sign up. The last two rounds I manually entered about 800 names into my gmail contacts. I kid you not. I am not what you say technologically gifted! I really wanted to run another 30 day Challenge but with the current set-up in my life, manually entering names just wasn’t an option. I hemmed and hawed about not running another Challenge but finally decided I would just take a leap of faith and use the email service many of my blogging friends used.

So I figured out how to set up a form to get subscribers. Score.

And then I figured out how to embed said form into a blog post. Double Score.

And then I shared it with all of you and got 6,000 people. Holy Smokes! Triple Score and then some.

Last night I decided to log in and do a practice for today. Um, negative one thousand score.

In all my research, I didn’t confirm what would happen if I had more than 2,000 people sign up. I mean, I had NO idea this idea would get such a response! I am floored and excited and scared and nervous all at the same time! Any who, so it turns out that because I am over 2,000 people, my account needs super duper verification in order to be used.

I learned this last night.

At 8:00 p.m.

I wanted to send out an email tonight. At 8:00 p.m.

But I can’t. Because my account is on hold.

The customer service reps are “barely” on during the weekends. So I am stuck patiently waiting until Monday at 9:00am to resolve this issue. I am stuck with the thought that I will let 6,000 people down by not being able to send an email tomorrow morning.

Now let me tell you a little something about myself. I don’t like letting 1 person down, let alone 100, let alone 600 or 6,000! Pre-Orange Rhino Challenge days, if this exact last 24 hours went down I would have been all worked up, in a hissy and probably snapped and yelled at my kids unnecessarily. Yes, I would have taken my frustration out on them.

But guess what? The thought never crossed my mind today! Why? I have learned in the last year plus that some things you can’t control and when that is the case, I need to let go or let out a yell. Letting go is a harder choice, but is always better. So today, I let go of the frustration. I let go of the disappointment in myself that I didn’t plan better. I let go of the high expectations of myself and I said, “It will be what it will be, do not let it ruin your day and especially don’t let it eat you alive.”

Because honestly, before this Challenge, it truly, madly, deeply would have. I would have dwelled and dwelled and been cranky all day. I wouldn’t have enjoyed a great workout. I wouldn’t have enjoyed building a pool out of Legos with my son. I wouldn’t have enjoyed actually going to a pool with my sons. I wouldn’t have laughed as much as I did at my life tonight when the house felt like a circus and my husband and I were the spectators, not the ringmasters!

Oh my gosh, not dwelling was SO FREEING and I truly believe I have made a lot of progress on “this skill” because of learning to not yell; because of forcing myself to realize what triggers me and to fix it. It feels so good to let go of frustration and not unleash it on my kiddos! Is a little bit of me still annoyed and disappointed and worried y’all will be mad? Of course. Because I care, immensely. Please don’t take my excitement that I let go the wrong way J and please know that I am sending an email every few hours to get things working. Oh, and please know that I will figure this all out and we will get rocking on our journey to yell less and love more.

But until then, I toot my Rhino horn for letting go! TOOT!