Living Large from the Janitor's Closet

Today, I'm doing my best to praise Him even though I sort of feel like I'm not even in the hallway. I'm kind of feeling like I might be in the janitor's closet or in the elevator shaft. It was one of those, "You had me at hello," days which, once again, reaffirms my belief in His incredible sense of humor.

For the last week, I've been trying to rent the illusive zoo DVD from the library. If you're not familiar with this program, I hesitate to even tell you about it for fear I'll have more competition. Each library in the county has a couple of DVDs about the Atlanta zoo. All you have to do is "borrow" the DVD, say you watched it, and then you get a family pass to the zoo. That's what I'd planned to do this week for the big Ta Da! Well, it turned out more to be like the big Ta HA! I think you have to be on a very personal basis with the librarian to get your hands on those DVDs - if you know what I mean! I was even willing to drive to the library at the northern most point in the county. I wasn't being picky. I was simply being cheap! Do you know what it costs to go to the zoo these days? For me and the three amigos, it would be at least $80! Anyway, I obviously didn't get the darn golden ticket into the zoo and, since the weather is supposed to be questionable for the rest of the week, I gave up. We headed to the Chattahoochee Nature Center as plan B. (I use that term loosely).

Dasha, as usual, was grateful to get out of the house and go anywhere. The other chicken nuggets were terrified of the "killer" bumble bees that were everywhere and were the recipients of "the eyes" from me on more than one occasion. You would have thought that the wildest beast at the nature center (a beaver or an opossum) was after their blood.

I admit that there were one (or two or three) points where I sort of kind of maybe thought about letting them keep walking into the great unknown ALONE! Oh well. I figured they'd just end up falling off the boardwalk and then I'd get some crazy ticket for feeding the wildlife with my own children.

I think Annie was more amused with her boogers than the wildlife and gorgeous day. I'll admit that she didn't feel the best today after yesterday's tangle with the doctor but, in my book, she could have at least left the booger picking until she was strapped into her car seat with absolutely nothing better to do.

Even this poor little guy stuck around to see what would happen next. Or maybe he was protein deficient and waiting for Annie to flick a booger his way. Gross. Do you see what I've been reduced to today?

This was probably the most telling picture of the entire day. I think that it was about this point that I started doing mental calculations to figure out if FedEx makes a standard sized box that I could ship this monkey to TX in. Anyone else recognize that LOOK? Yeah. She is a mini version of Eric - sass and all.

By the time I finally cried, "Uncle," and headed the wildlife back toward the van, everyone was screaming about being hungry. Geez. These animals seem to think they need to eat more than once a day! I had an old gift certificate to a frozen yogurt joint so I decided that we'd call lunch the dairy portion of the day. The inmates didn't argue and Annie finished off her bowl and mine. She started eying Grant's but in a stand-off that would have been award winning footage for National Geographic, Grant managed to keep his own yogurt.

By the time we got home, Annie was fading fast. She was sort of like a cross between a constipated and grumpy old man and Eeyore. I sent the yogurt covered monkey to bed and within seconds, she was out for the count. (No. Benadry was not involved, thank you very much)!

When I woke her up after three hours, she was over the constipated grumpy old man attitude but had risen to a sassy status that I knew would have to be squelched quickly to avoid a major mutiny.

At some point, the troops started grumbling about hunger again and I threw together a lasagna and tossed it in the oven. I neglected to remember that there had been a major spill the last time I cooked, though, and when the oven heated up, the smoke detector (yep, the one I broke my wrist installing) started squealing. Grant started to make some smart comment about the glory of having the smoke detector dead if I was going to be cooking but he quickly slammed his yap shut when he saw the look on my face. Lucky for the troops, Grandma called and invited them for pizza. I turned the oven off and let the smoke detector keep alerting the neighbors that I was back in the cooking business and left. Mom wowed the kids with frozen pizzas and then produced the girls' Easter eggs from deep freeze and initiated a game of hide-the-two-week-old-eggs. I was hoping that she wouldn't let the kids seek them, but... She's a grandma and can't be stopped.

As the "kids" (this includes Grandma) played with the should be rotten eggs, she asked Annie if she'd played Barbies at home. Annie quickly told Grandma that my organization project had been a disastrous failure and that all of her Barbies were stuck under the plastic pockets. (See yesterday's entry if you're lost on this one). I quickly got defensive and told mom that it was NOT my fault and that 3M Command Strips were to be blamed. She gave me the "grow up" eyes and then ran into the house and resurfaced with a box of what looked like meat hooks to me.

She was so darn excited about the dumb hooks. Geez. She ranted that the ginormous mirror in the living room was hung with these things. Ha! Note to self - don't sit under that mirror! She insisted that I take a few and try them. Ok. Ok. Ok. Whatever. I humored her and put a couple in my pocket. Once again, my IQ has dropped drastically today. Do not put things with very sharp and pointy ends into your pocket. No good will come of it! Ouch!

When we finally got home, Annie insisted I use the Hiccup Ease clips to fix her Barbies. The name of the crazy daggers are Hercules hooks. I can't even say that without thinking of that scene from The Nutty Professor dinner scene. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, you must have more culture than I do)! Bottom line, with only a little trouble, I put the dumb hooks in. The first three went in without a problem. The fourth one, however, I needed to stick in exactly where a stud was. Of course. Ugh.

We shall see if the Barbies stay in place through the night. If they fall again, I'll probably just throw them all back into the Rubbermaid bucket and call it quits. It's kind of freaky to have all of those naked girls hanging from her wall, anyway.

While all of these distractions were going on today, I had my own little hurricanes swirling around in my head. It just seems like when I hit the threshold of thinking I'm going to lose my mind and knowing that I've lost my mind, the bottom falls out. Eric is coming into town at the end of the week and will be hosting the kids overnight. I've never been alone overnight in 13 years that I can remember. That should not stress me out. (And, I have some big plans that we'll talk about later. If I post them here and then chicken out... you all might take my Super Woman cape away from me). Then, the van had to have a new battery. Do you know that a car battery is a whole heck of a lot more expensive than a pack of AA batteries from WalMart? The same darn van also has to have new tires. Holy smokes! When I priced the tires, I was shocked enough but I didn't realize they charge you even more to put the stupid things ON the car. I guess it makes sense but I just hadn't budgeted for that. (This is one of those situations where my naivety of finances comes to bite me in the butt at a time when there's no wiggle room). The air also went out in the van but Dad did something to temporarily fix it. (When Dad "fixes" something miraculously, you don't ask any questions other than, "What do I say to the authorities when they question me?)" Add to that my own stupidity of using the online bill pay system and entering the payment for the water bill into the column for Children's Healthcare (that I didn't owe a thing to) and basically having to double pay the water bill until Children's coughs my money back up. So, you can see where my thoughts were during the day's activities. (Oh, and I also deleted my contacts in my phone, too)! But, despite all of this crap, I know that He is bigger and He's watching carefully to see if I'll continue to trust Him and walk this journey with integrity and faith. I probably made Him sad quite a few times today, but I pulled my act together - sort of. I also probably gave Him quite a few belly laughs!

If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones. But if you are dishonest in little things, you won’t be honest with greater responsibilities.  Luke 16:10

 So, tonight, I'll do my best to wait patiently and walk out this crazy journey in a manner that would honor Him and set an example for my kids so that they would be able to look back when they're older and see His fingerprints on our family (and not just remember the fingerprints on the walls, windows, and basically every other touchable surface).

Good night, all.