A woman in her late thirties is walking down a public street wearing a dirty shirt and jean shorts with a huge tear on the front of them. What is covering the tear? To make matters worse, she is pushing a shopping cart filled with clothes and Christmas items in August. As she rounds the corner, an article of clothing threatens to jump out of the cart, so the woman lunges forward to save it, thus tipping the entire cart over and spilling all of the contents.
It’s me. I’m the woman. It happened today. I immediately thought, where did my life go wrong? But let me explain...
I got up at 4am and happily went off to work. I’m used to my job now so it’s not as fun, but I still don’t dread going to work. Anyway, an hour in, I caught my shorts on a piece of metal that ripped them right across the front of my right leg. I could see that the dangling cloth would cause even more problems so I used the only tool I had available: packing tape. Not pretty, but effective.
After work, I headed downtown because I knew there was a bag sale at my favorite thrift shop. Yes, I’m still making money online. I parked several blocks away because it was a beautiful morning and I wanted to go for a walk. I didn’t consider how much stuff I would buy or how I would get it back to my car. So this is how I ended up in Paragraph One of today’s blog. There are so many things that can go wrong on any given day. A spilled shopping cart is certainly not going to ruin my morning. I picked myself up, along with my ninety-one shirts and my six Christmas stockings and my stuffed 1963 Snoopy doll and my hurt pride. I held my head high and readjusted my packing tape. I laughed a little because even in that very moment, I was happier than I was three months or three years ago. Life is so weird.
And now, we are nearly to September. I will happily bid farewell to August, aka The Expensivest Month. School supplies. School clothes. School pictures. School fees. Lunch money. Softball gear. Our wedding anniversary. Mae’s birthday. Kenny’s Jeep broke down. Kyler’s Mitsubishi broke down. Kyler’s Mitsubishi broke down again. The Financial Gods really tested us this month and we barely passed. D-, I’d say.
Work on the tornado shelter is slow. We’ve almost got the foundation all dug up, but the rain keeps delaying progress. We thought we’d be done by now. Instead, we’ve barely begun! Kenny says if we happen to have a tornado, we can all just jump into the foundation hole. We’ve survived our first nine years here by just sleeping through any storm warnings, so we’ll probably just continue to do that.
School is back in session and the kids are busy. Kyler’s vehicle is sitting in the driveway and the parts to fix it are sitting on our kitchen counter. This means that I have to drive both kids everywhere. And everywhere is a lot of places! It also interrupts the concerts I perform daily in my ‘eBay room’ while taking pictures and listing stuff. Also, naps. I take naps now. And read books! I did find it quite funny when a nap was interrupted a couple weeks ago because the UPS guy was knocking at my door. I didn’t answer. I don’t normally care what people think of me, but this is my co-worker now and I was wearing my Beavis and Butthead ‘Nachos Rule’ pajama pants, so...
Seems like this is a good place to end this. I’ve got ninety-one shirts to wash and a concert to perform. Busy day. I hope life finds you well. All two of you that read this (hi, Mom!).
