Where emotions mingle

The past two days have been such a laughable mix of stupid and ecstatic.

Geez, now I have these little voices in my head saying, "Mom, we aren't supposed to say stupid!"

And I am vacillating between changing it to "undesirable" (or some such term that just doesn't quite say it like it is) because, yes, that is MY rule,

..or letting the rebellion kick in, and saying "Stupid, stupid, stupid".

*ahem*

We'll just leave it all as is and move on.

So, after our great snow day + Christmas tree cutting, family bonding, I apparently had a rough time getting back into the groove of what is my regular life routine.

I misjudged my time during our "rush hour" in the midst of getting ready for school, getting back packs ready, making sure everyone was clothed, and getting breakfast around. Thus.... this mixture of wonderful and... "undesirable".

The past 24 hours involved forgetting a backpack, running late, having a van covered in ice, then snow, then more ice, then more snow, and only scraping windows for about 4 minutes to buy time (thus giving myself just little eye holes out the windshield), turning around in what looked like (you know, through those lovely eye holes...) the driveway to a field, but was in fact an ice/mud/snow trap for mom vans.

Running later, 

needing to pick up babysitters for our mom's group,

calling Dave, 

being towed out, 

not steering/braking right while being towed, 

just about getting stuck in the ditch parallel to the "Field driveway",

Possibly shedding tears (okay, definitely crying a big ugly, embarrassed cry that smudged mascara and everything...) over a huge blow to my pride...,

Dave dropping the boys off at school, 


getting to Mom's group 20 minutes late,


assembling 75 cookie plates, 

bringing big grins to the faces of residents at a local retirement community,

singing Christmas carols,


a sweet cookie exchange amongst friends,


trying not to replay stupid bad choices from the morning, throughout the rest of my day,


giving in to tiredness and a short nap instead of folding laundry,


grocery shopping,

lots of Christmas music,

Mom's group Christmas party at Olive Garden,


laughing till tears were literally running down our faces (the good kind this time),

giving and receiving gifts with this great group of gals (possibly including some very personal items and plastic dog poop), (um...not supposed to say that either)


trying to eat burnt chicken - and eventually receiving a full refund for said meal due to friends who won't let me do the crazy 'pretend everything is fine' thing,

coming home to a quiet house and sweet sleep, 


the whole crazy morning routine again,

checking my bank account and realizing that a transaction from 2 weeks ago, that I hadn't meant to actually submit, had gone through this morning due to stupid unwise navigating of a tricky website,

being on the phone for a stupid undesirable amount of time with some....undesirable customer service, and eventually getting it all figured out, but not without some frustrating inconvenience on our part,


and finally, have begun preparation for a 24 hour retreat with the Center for Women staff, starting this evening.

1. I really hate doing ... things that proclaim my own incompetence. 

Wow. The pride is quite sore today. 

That's a good thing... I know. I've been battling pride in a big way, so it's an answer to prayer, but ouch anyway.

2. I can't help but just laugh at the high highs and low lows that have come so close together in the last couple of days...

3. And lastly, on an unrelated, but equally undeniable note, baby bro is getting cuter every day and I can hardly stand it.

That is all.