Today was Bullsh*t

Things were going well until around 11am when the kids' painting project went awry and I was left with a lot to clean up.  Around that same time I heard my cell phone ringing inside a closed cardboard box in the corner (I guess I had put it in there after cleaning all the soil and ruined seedlings out, after J. pulled the whole setup down by accident all over the open box of campaign tshirts).  And I thought- "how fortuitous that I was down here cleaning paint off the floor at just this right time and I happened to hear it! I would have never found it otherwise!" Because that is how I usually handle life. But after that moment everything turned to sh*t and I have no silver lining. Just cranky pants.

I got a call that the fundraiser I was trying to set up for the High School PTA (remember- don't ask why I'm on that PTA. It's not even in his district!) is a bust and I had to let them all down with that news. 

I also got an email that one of my receipts is missing at work and that caused a lot of inconveniences to other people but I totally remember clipping it to the paperwork so now I have nothing else that I can do. 

Then I got another bummer phone call. And I didn't yet hear about 2 of my 3 grants that are out so that's another bummer. (yes, I got one of the three grants already so whoo hooo for that but today my glass is half empty and yes, 2/3 unknowns count as half empty.)

Then I ran an errand for J.'s preschool by bringing juice pouches to a local business for 5 cents each. It only earned us $5.75 this trip, but it recycles these pouches into handmade bags made by a local stay-at-home mom. So that's awesome all around. But I got to talking to the business owner and he turned sort of aggressive and a bit of a jerk when he found out that I was Jeremiah's wife. You see, he has the three incumbent candidates as clients and although he's met Jeremiah at the local Business Association functions, he's "old friends" with the incumbents.  He started saying things like "that guy" even though it was just he and I talking about my husband.  Just that phrasing should tell you the attitude behind his words.  He didn't like that Jeremiah had asked him for a campaign contribution, yet wasn't a client.  I told him that Jeremiah always chooses local and chooses union so I didn't know what to tell him.  When I left I was full of things that I should have said.  That steamed me up.

Then C. refused her nap and instead cried and threw a fit for over an hour. I tried everything in the book. She was so very very tired. It's all because we took away her pacifier this past Saturday night when we couldn't find it and then we threw it away the next day when we finally did.  The day had to come. But now she won't nap and also won't go to bed at night easily!  I know we'll get through this eventually.  But today I really could have used some down time and instead I dealt with her for an hour and then gave in.  By then I barely had time to do the gardening that I wanted to do during nap time bc I had to let her "help me" and then do a lot of clean up afterwards.

And next up, was when I totally shot myself in the foot, or cut my own legs out from under myself, or whatever painful metaphor that you want.  I killed the tv.  Last week Jeremiah and I were looking at our household budget and finding where we could cut back and we decided that we didn't need cable tv anymore.  It's a bit of a money saver but I also liked it bc we don't watch too much good tv and we watch too much bad tv.  Factor in all the kids' dvds and how we can stream netflix through our wii.  We don't need much live tv. Really, we only need to watch LOST.  Our friends Jenny and Chris only have like 4 channels and we figured that that's all that we need. So I had them disconnect it today.  Then I did channel setup and long story short, our tv is too old to get the new bandwidths or whatever and we don't get ANY tv channels anymore. So tonight, no LOST.  I mean, COME ON!

In the afternoon the kids were tired and hot and cranky so guess how that made me feel.  Then Jeremiah joined us and we went to Whole Foods to buy dinner and some bulk chicken. (by the way, guess who fell asleep in the car and woke up angry? you could really guess any of us but it was C.)  I spent $65 on bulk air-chilled (why?), barn range, no hormone (of course), no anti-biotics, vegetarian diet (my own chickens eat too many bugs for this label), and local chicken breasts.  I paid $5.99 per pound (and that was at a 50cent discount bc it was in bulk) for 25 pounds.  But at home I sliced it and put it into 25 individual meal bags. This will be all of our chicken for at least April and May.  So I guess that's good. But I hate paying all that money on chicken. Keeps me cranky.

Then we went to a board meeting at the Children's Museum and the kids had a great time playing before and during it.  I left the meeting with more stuff on my calendar and to-do list.  I am not in the mood.

And a worst part/bad part of the day is when J. was giving me a hard time about getting strapped into her car seat after preschool so I forced her in and started an extensive lecture/question/answer session about seat belts, car seat weight limits, the meaning of a car accident, how it might sound fun but it's actually bad to "fly right out of your seat", and what is an air bag, to name a few.  We were at the first light away from her preschool and right in front of us we witnessed a high speed car accident where no one got hurt, but the cars got smashed in a loud noise and the air bags went off and the police arrived (he was 2 cars behind us at the light).  So that really drove that point home.