One Weird, Wild, Wacky Day

Sometimes things don't go as you planned. This isn't something I enjoy. I am the kind of girl who sits and thinks about what I am going to do the next day and then try to map it out so I can hopefully get it all done. I feel like I only have so long until the girls meltdown and need a nap or the boys need to be picked up from school, so I try to plan accordingly.

They also say truth is stranger than fiction and today I believe it. If you had told me yesterday what today would entail, I would have climbed back in bed and decided not to come out. But somehow by the end of the day I managed to scratch a few things off my never ending list and feel like I did get something accomplished.

Where to start... Of course I'll start at the beginning which oddly would be last night. When you are busy preparing dinner and your husband says he doesn't feel well enough to eat dinner when he hasn't really eaten anything all day (he was post call down in Danville), you know he's caught some nasty bug surely from one of us. You worry even more when he closes the bathroom door in the middle of the night and sits by the toilet. I can not remember the last time this has happened. I do know the last time Rich was really sick was December 1998. Really. When he told me he was going to call in sick for the first time EVER I knew he was not well. The situation got even worse when the boys all complained of stomach aches last night and I really didn't know if anyone would be moving in the morning.

And no one did until the girls woke me up at 7:45 AM. Not good when school starts at that moment and Josh and Matt had a field trip (Alice in Wonderland play) that was leaving at 9:15 AM. I let the boys rest until 8:30 AM, threw together 3 lunches and rushed them to the school just in time for them to check in and hop on a bus.

When we got home I realized that my plan of getting up, riding the bike, running my errands (Wal-mart and the Mall) and be back home by 11:30 AM to put the girls down so I could write up my Tuesday Tell All just wasn't going to happen. It was already 9:30 AM. When things go off course, so do I.

Suddenly I found myself perched on a bar stool in our front yard wrapping our dead tree (I still haven't given up hope it'll come back next spring!) with Christmas lights in an attempt to make it look like Temple Square. We have never done outside lights and my family doesn't do lights, so this was a new adventure. The girls wandered and explored by me as I built Christmas trees, plugged, wrapped, climbed and even sprayed painted (yes, I made the white electrical cord green) the yard. I soon realized that I needed more lights and many more extension cords.

I went in to check on Rich and he asked me if I could get a prescription called in (courtesy of my dad). No problem. I put the girls down for their nap and figured I had a good hour and half to get something done. Wal-mart: first off, told the pharmacy I was here and waiting for the RX, then waited in line at customer service to return a game I re-bought thinking it was cheaper (not so). Fifteen minutes later I am buzzing around the store tossing in lights and cords and plugs. I was so ready to get this project done! Of course it was a no go on the RX (after 1 hour) so I ran to the mall and literally ran up and down the place trying to get the last things checked off (Build-A-Bear, Dillard's, Webkinz). I was really surprised a security guard didn't stop me thinking I had shop lifting something from a store. I hurried back to Wal-mart only to find my insurance would not cover the Z-pack ($72). No thanks. Looks like trip #3 would in my future after we got something else called in.

Went home to find that my Toys-R-Us order didn't go through (after I talked to 2 customer service people and 1 Paypal representative- what I'll do for free shipping and 20% cash back!). Not happy about that. Also found that only 1/2 of the net web lights I bought yesterday were working. That meant another long wait in the return line at Wal-mart. Not good at all.

Grabbed the boys, dropped them off, found Rich awake and talking (good sign) and headed back to Wal-mart with Brynn and Kaitlyn in tow to get new lights and RX. Finally! Got home and realized some lights have white cords. Oh no! I just want to get this stupid project done.

Here it is 5 PM and I haven't written my TTA, haven't worked out, haven't sat down and nothing has seemed to work out. Augh! As they say in Meet the Robinson, "Keep Moving Forward"! So I did.

I got Rich his medicine just as he headed out the door to be back on call all night once again. I went back to Wal-mart for the 4th time and pleaded with the outdoor workers to just let me swap the lights instead of hitting the return line AGAIN (as all my kids are sitting waiting in the car). They said yes. Got dinner at KFC, flew through the kids homework, put the last touches on the front yard, tucked the kids in bed and finally got a chance to sit down. Hurray!

Yes, I still have to reorder my Toys-R-Us stuff, decorate the tree, paint frames, I'm dying to write my TTA about all the wonderful people who serve me, need to fold the laundry and maybe get some sleep. Yes, not quite the day I planned, but one I'll remember (thanks to this very, very long post)! I guess the moral of the story is, you just take it as it comes and try to smile all the way through. I think I mostly smiled... except to the Toys-R-Us guy. Better luck tomorrow!

And I can't resist posting the one thing that finally got done today! Good night to all!