And I Had a Bad Day

Ugh.  Today was bad.  Crappy.  The worst. 

In an attempt to have a better day tomorrow, I'm going to really make a big deal of today's terribleness here on my blog. Then, tomorrow, when things are peachy again, maybe today won't seem so bad.  

Today really started last night when I couldn't sleep.  Chris worked late and I wasn't in the best mood.  Okay, I was mean.  Grouchy.  And tired.  I woke up early this morning when I wanted to sleep in a little.  Chris needed Jordan to be in a video at work today, so I made breakfast for everyone before they left.  I had tons of leftovers because Chris and Jordan left without breakfast.  

Five minutes after they left, Shaun and I had a fight.  A teenager vs mom fight over disrespectfulness.  I never, ever thought I would have these kinds of arguments.  I'm supposed to be the cool mom, don't you  know.  Way cooler than my parents ever were.  So cool that my offspring would never even have the desire to backtalk to me.  Well, I'm here to say that any parent who thinks they can be "friends" with their teenager is just crazy.  

The fight just set the tone for the whole day.  It was a tense day over here!  

Plus, I had a headache.  A really bad sinus headache.  All day long.  So much pressure around my eyes, forehead, and even on my neck.  My ears were clogged.  I was dizzy and tired from this headache and it just would not let up.  I had plans to get so much accomplished around the house today, and I just didn't get around to it.  Violet was fussy and clingy.  I was lucky to get the dishes washed.  What a waste of a day.  

We had an appointment at the chiropractor's office late this afternoon.  I made it late in the day so that Chris could come, too.  But he had to work late.  There was a miscommunication and Jordan ended up  not making it to the appointment either.  Shaun, Violet, and I went by ourselves.  

It was packed.  We had to wait an hour.  Shaun was fine, of course.  He had his Kindle.  Violet was okay for the first 30 minutes.  Thank goodness, the office is extremely kid friendly with lots for them to do, but after awhile, even the toys grow uninteresting.  All of the chairs were full, and Violet really wanted to sit in a chair.  So she fussed.  Lay down in the floor and whined.  I attempted to ignore her and actually quoted down.  A few minutes later I realized why...she'd found two sanitary napkins in  my purse and thought they were toys.  Now, I realize that I'm not in middle school anymore, but what girl wants a whole waiting room of strangers to know that it's her time of the month?

Not me.  And apparently not Shaun either, because he was mortified.  "Mo-o-o-mm," he hissed.  

Finally, finally, it was our turn.  Shaun was adjusted first.  Then Violet, who screamed and screeched and ran off to the Lego table the minute her turn was over.  The doctor asked me how my day was going and I replied, "Oh, good.  Good.  It's fine."

I think he saw right through me.  Ha!

I told him about my headache and hopped on the table.  The minute I got situated, Vi came back and started screaming, "Mom.  Mommy.  MOMMY!!"

The doctor just laughs and starts checking my neck.  "Oh.  Wow," he says.  

"Mom.  Mommmyyyyyyy.  Wah wah!" screams Violet.  

"What.  What?!?!"  said I.  

I wasn't sure who I was talking to, the doctor or the baby.  They both answered.  

The doctor starts trying to explain that I've got lots of pressure on some nerve that's causing sinus pressure.  Violet, miraculously, gets quiet.  When my adjustment is over, I get up and see that she's sitting on the floor, playing with the pads again.  Of course, they're in purple packaging.  Very noticeable.  Again, I know I'm 33 years old and things like this shouldn't really get to me.  But come on, I could've went all day without having Dr. A know that I was all weepy and emotional because I'm on my period.  

He just laughed.  I said, "Seriously, Vi?" and began trying to gather our things to finally, thank God, get out of there.  

While I was getting our bags together, Violet found a stuffed animal and began trying to give it an adjustment.  And she wouldn't let it go. The doctor had her in his arms twisting stuffed camels neck all around.  I was all sweaty from being so flustered, Violet was crying, Shaun looked like he wanted to crawl in a hole.  "Let's go get Daddy.  Mommy's struggling today."

And the doctor gave me a look as if maybe he understood.  Not personally, of course, but maybe his wife had days like mine.  He patted me on the back, and we left.  

When I read this back, my day didn't sound quite so bad.  It's the last week in May.  The Hubs is busy with Summer Xtreme stuff.  I get attacked at this time every single year. Spiritual stuff.  I've come to expect it.  Plus, as everyone in the office now knows, I'm a little hormonal.  

Today was just one of those days where I felt like I was swimming against the current.  Against everyone.  Not making any headway.  

Now, the house is quiet.  The kids are sleeping.  I can breathe a little easier.  My head even feels a bit better.  I can look back over all of the craziness that was today and even laugh a little.  

I'm looking forward to tomorrow!

It doesn't take much...

...to make me happy.

Contrary to my husband's belief.  Ha!

As you all know, I love to read.  LOVE it.  Always have, and I hope I always will.  I have problems, though, finding good reading material.  I'm kind of picky.  I generally don't read a lot of Christian fiction, even though I am in fact one.  A Christian, that is.  With a few exceptions (namely Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers and most Ted Dekker novels), I just can't find a good Christian series that I really love.  I will say, though, that Christian writing has come a long, long way.  It used to  be that you couldn't find anything in the genre that didn't involve Amish people.  Thankfully, more and more authors are spreading their wings and writing about things that interest me more.  Not that the Amish people aren't interesting, but you know what I mean.  

Anyway.

I've been so busy with my little busy family that I haven't had time to read much lately, even if I wanted to.  I did read a really good book a few months ago.  It was one of those books that'll stick with me forever.  The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver.  If you've never read it- go read it.  I borrowed it from the library but I think I want to purchase it.  I found out about it by accident and thought it sounded interesting, and it sure was!

I'm rambling.  Back to how busy we've been.  I was getting to the point that I was mourning a good book.  Our Bible study ended at church and now summer is here and I needed something to read.  Is there anything better than staying up late to read in the summer time?  I used to get so excited about doing this when I was a teen, and  not much has changed.  

So, the search began.  I decided to reread some of my Jodi Picoult favorites.  I thought I had read everything she's ever written, and loved all but 2.  In case you're interested, the two that didn't interest me were Lone Wolf and Sing You Home.  In all fairness, I don't think I gave Lone Wolf a fair chance.  I'll give it another go this summer. 

So, I went to the library to check out some Picoult.  I chose two.  Change of Heart and Vanishing Acts.  I got the surprise of my life when I opened up Vanishing Acts.  I'd never read it.  I don't see how... I'd looked at the cover countless times.  Somehow, I'd skipped over it.  I felt kind of stupid at first, but then I was so happy!  This was almost as good as reading a new release!  

I told you, it doesn't take much.  What a perfect way to start the summer.  Now pleas excuse me, I have some reading to do. 

Mother's Day 2014

As I'm sure you're aware, Mother's Day was last Sunday.  My family gave me my present a few days early... a day to myself!

Chris woke up the Thursday before Mother's Day and told me that he was taking the kids to a Gwinnett Braves game that morning.  All by himself.  I can't even imagine.  I just would NOT want to do that, so I was so grateful to him.  I told him to take lots of pictures because it was Violet's first "big" baseball game.  He only took a few.  When I asked why he didn't take more, he just gave me a "look".  Apparently Vi was a handful.  Ha!

The pictures he did take, however, are so precious.

I started off  my day at Divine, the ladies' Bible study at church.  It was our last meeting for the spring session.  I could write a whole other post about how great this particular Bible study was, and I probably will.  

Here are some of the women in my group. 

I love these girls!  They each have their own stories, and we all learned something from each other.  Three of them have been in my group for the past two sessions.  On the last day, we realized that they are the in-laws of one of my good friends.  We never knew it until then.  Such a small world.

After Bible study I went shoe shopping and then met a few friends for lunch.  So relaxing.  Lots of laughs.  Much needed conversations.  I want to go again!

After lunch I went to get my hair cut, which took a lot longer than I thought it would.  By the time I got home it was pretty late and Chris needed to go into work, so the kids and I hung out outside, went to Weezie's for burgers for a late supper, and then watched a few episodes of "The Haunting Hour".  They're into R.L. Stine lately.  I'm not sure how I feel about this yet.  

It was a really good day.  The best Mother's Day gift they could have given me and I really appreciated it. I was so relaxed and easy to get along with afterward.  :)

And I even got to go to the movies on the actual Mother's Day. 

"That was the low point."

Have you ever seen "Father of the Bride"?  The Steve Martin version?  It's one of my favorites, especially the scene in the grocery store.  You know, when George Banks has had all of the wedding stress he can take, so his wife sends him to the grocery store.  He's wearing a navy blue tuxedo that's supposed to be black, it has a rip in the back, and he's at the store buying hotdogs.  Good ole' George is frantic about the amount of money his daughter's wedding is costing him and decides right there on the hot dog bun aisle that he's not paying for one more thing he doesn't need.  He freaks out because he can't find a hot dog bun package with the same amount of buns as the amount of hot dogs in the hot dog packages.  So he "removes the superfluous buns".  Ha ha ha!  He gets caught ripping open hot dog bun packages, the manager gets called, and he gets arrested. The next scene shows George Banks sitting in jail and he narrates, "That was the low point.  Freaking out over hot dog buns".  

Ha ha ha!  It really is very funny!

I had a George Banks moment a few days ago.  It was time to leave for the chiropractor's office and as soon as I instructed the kids to head to the car, they started moving in slow motion.  We were running late.  I had our afternoon planned out to the minute and we could not afford to be late to this appointment.  We (finally) managed to get into the car and as soon as I started the engine I heard a "BEEP".  I was almost out of gas.  Chris had driven us home the night before and he ran me out of gas!  Maybe not such a big deal to most people, but the gas stations close to our house are so much more expensive than every other one of the 10 gas stations we had passed the night before on the way home.  I was a little frustrated.  

At that exact moment, Chris called.  I guess his ears were burning, because I was talking about him!  He apologized, and I forgave.  And I drove down the street to the expensive Texaco.  As I was filling up, I noticed that one of my tires was low on air.  Gah!  I was still on the phone and Chris insisted that I needed to pump it up before driving all the way to Dawsonville and then back to Gainesville.  

This presented two problems.  One, I hardly ever have quarters.  I can thank my kids for this!  Two, the past two times I had tried to use the air pump at this particular Texaco station, the machine had taken my money.  I told Chris this, and he said it would probably be fine this time.  Jordan coughed up some quarters and I deposited them into the machine.  And the blasted air pump machine did not turn on.  I had no more cash, no more change.  I looked at the tire again and decided it wasn't that low and that I could make it to the RaceTrack air pump that has a credit card machine on it.  I knew it was pointless to go into the Texaco station and ask for my money back from past experience.  

I was really, really irritated and irrational.  I stood outside my car and almost had a panic attack.  Then, I just got mad.  Mad at that stupid machine.  So I called the service phone number listed on the machine.  I was put straight through to voicemail, and I left a message something like this, "Well, hi.  I'm calling about your air pump machine at the Texaco on Mount Vernon Road.  It just took my money.  Again. In fact, it's taken my money every time I've ever tried to use it.  You really should fix it, put up an Out of Order sign, or just take it down.  I'm very irritate right now.  My name is Erin and my phone number is *** *** ****.  Please call me back, I'd love to hear what you have to say."

The whole time I was talking, in the back of my mind I kept hearing, "That was the low point.  Freaking out over an air pump machine".  I'm pretty sure that I was battling the worst case of PMS of my entire life.  

I'm still mad, though.  I want a refund of the three dollars that machine has taken from me.  It's not about the money, it's the principle.  Why should the owner of that pump get away with this?  I saved the phone number in my phone as "Stupid Air Pump" and I'm going to keep calling until I get an answer.  

Over the top?  Maybe a little.  

Moms' Night Out

This year for Mother's Day, my sister and I wanted to do something a little different for our mom and our Granny.  Instead of "gifts", we treated them to the movies.  Of course, we saw "Moms' Night Out".  

Ladies, if you haven't already, go see this movie!  It's a winner on all counts-  humor, honesty, an inspirational message.  I haven't laughed so hard in a long, long time.

Since Chris had to work for  most of the day, my family got together for dinner cookout.  As soon as we were finished eating, us moms ran out to the car so we wouldn't be late.  Almost as nice as getting out to the movies was the fact that we didn't have to clean up a single dish from dinner.  The men did it all.  It was Mother's Day, after all.  

We met up with another mother-daughter pair at the theater and we all enjoyed the movie together.  

As is our custom, we took a group shot afterwards. Some of the greatest moms I know, from left to right:  my sister Lori, my Granny, my mom Susie, my friend Suzanne and her mother, Nancy.

Sarah Drew, who I already adored from watching Grey's Anatomy, did not disappoint me at all with her performance as Ally.  Neither did Patricia Heaton...what's not to love about a sassy preacher's wife who comes off as calm and cool but who's really a frazzled ball of nerves and stress on the inside, right?  Ha! I could totally relate to her character!

I must admit that I didn't really know much about this movie, apart from what my sister had told me.  So, I about jumped out of my skin when I saw Anjelah Johnson on the screen.  She's one of my absolute favorites and I always get really excited when I see her in a supporting role.  

My Mother's Day was a pretty good one.  Church, lunch with my kids, a nice nap, dinner with my family, and a night out.  Doesn't get much better!