oh no no no not the vista.

The beginning of this day was ridiculously difficult. Our house is so upside down. We've been lax, I admit it. The start of the school year was all kinds of extra busy around here.

There was a borderline menial amount of dishes in the sink this morning left over from yesterday. I started doing them pretty early on, but distraction after distraction hindered my progress....We have these gnats in our house. I don't know how they got here. They're not fruit flies, they're not regular flies. They're awful. They're pretty dormant during the day and then come out at night and hang around every possible light source. I don't know how to get rid of them yet. I don't even know what they are yet. Or how they got in our home and started multiplying. Well, I mean, I get the multiplying part.

Anyway, so I see a bunch of their carcasses all over the floor. So I have to sweep them up. The girls eat breakfast, Magnolia needs a bath. More dishes. Magnolia gets tired. I take her in for her nap. She doesn't go to sleep. THREE HOURS LATER, and there are still dishes! AHHHH! I was cussing in my head. [That's how I know I'm having a bad day....or just feeling completely overwhelmed even if the day isn't so bad.] All of life's ills could have been solved if I had a dishwasher! And a housekeeper! And if I didn't have a migraine, and I didn't think I was getting sick, but mostly a dishwasher. When I'm in this kind of funk, everything is multiplied times one million, and it all ends up coming down to me feeling that I am completely incapable. And I get all defensive and finger-pointy. My rational brain knows that I am [capable], my emotions, irrationality, lack of confidence, etc never fail to remind me that I'm not [capable].

I took a moment to check in on the blogs I read and came across this post by Regan at The Oklahomian. The main theme was "[t]his is the first day of the rest of my life. I'm starting over. I'm redoing myself." She also said "Life is about knowing who you are deep down inside and embracing that woman with a strength and grace that allows you to move mountains (even if that mountain is sometimes just tackling the dishes in the kitchen sink)."

Um, HELLO! I was determined to conquer that [cuss in my head] mountain of dishes in my kitchen sink. After a few interruptions and relapses, I did.

Today I needed to redo myself by the minute - every few minutes if I was lucky. And that's how it goes. It can be done. Every second of our lives is a new chance. I will allow myself to be that flip-floppy. For now. Because, dang, I have got to cut myself a break some times. We all do.

You know what? After I killed that pile of dishes, my day got better. I decided that I couldn't put another dirty dish in that sink, so we went to Taco Bell and ate bean burritos and rice. Cora loved it, she loves eating inside Taco Bell. I love her for it. After that, we went to Walgreen's to print some of the 800+ pictures off of Cora's camera. We ended up with 17. Half of them were from Chicago. I owed it to her. The memory has been full for a while now. She now has a clean slate. Ah, so refreshing. After Walgreen's we went to the library to pick up a whole slew of Fancy Nancy books we had on reserve. Fancy Nancy can perk anyone right up. Cora loves her. I'm glad Tracey introduced them.

For as completely horrendous as this day felt in the beginning, it ended up being pretty fabulous. Neck up check up: I get it. I went to my class this evening, learned some pretty helpful ideas, and got to ride home on the Vespa at night for the first time. It was beautiful. Everyone should have a convertible or a scooter [and a dishwasher] and take long drives/rides at night. [exhale.]


PS: I can't believe I forgot this...I've been singing the chorus to this song for the last week or so, and lo and behold, the song was playing at Taco Bell. What are the odds? I don't know, but they were in my favor. ;) [I love the scratching around 2:20.]

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