one of those days....

Today was "one of those days"...although, thankfully, I don't have days like this very often. This was a pretty bad version of "one of those days". I am usually not one to talk about my bad days -- unless they are really bad. When I started this blog, I was planning on writing literally only about "breathtaking moments" that I don't want to forget. Well...funny how life rarely, if ever, turns out the way you think it will. Today is a day I think I want to forget.

But...sometimes, not always, but sometimes, life's bad days are so bad, that they become funny.

Today was one of those days...although I'm still not completely convinced it will be funny....

Here is my day chronologically:
8:45am: leave to drive Soren to his pre-school, 10 minutes away
> On the way to school, my car did a donut, hard, into a snow drift and I was stuck. Very stuck.
> I did not have my phone with me. I always have my phone with me...but not today!
> A snow plow happened to be driving by...actually, on a day like today, there were probably more snow plows than cars on the road.
> Thankfully, he happened to have a chain to pull me out. He thought he didn't, but looked and looked, and found one. This was the very best moment of my day, and, believe me, I was very grateful for the luck at the time....but even moreso as the day went on....
> Oh dear, another small donut. This time, I got out myself.
> Oh dear, I couldn't make it up the hill leading up to the pre-school. I was stuck. Again. Another snow plow came by and helped me out -- this time by plowing around me. Thankfully, it worked and I got out, and up the hill.

9:30am: drop Soren off at school a half hour late and 45 minutes after leaving my house, about 4 miles away.
I decide to proceed with my morning plans to renew my car registration at the Town Hall after getting a $100(!!!!) fine yesterday for not having it renewed -- and it expired ONE WEEK AGO!!!!! That seems just a wee bit harsh to me...that's a LOT of money for being one week late, and not getting anything in the mail warning that it needed to be renewed. Nothing. I honestly can't believe it happened -- I mean seriously, what's wrong with a warning, a heads up, 30 days to renew, whatever.... I wasn't speeding, going through a stop light... nothin'. I just happened to pass a keen-eyed cop who noticed I hadn't renewed my registration. He should be a fighter pilot with those eyes.

And, get this, after handing me the fine, he said, "the good news is that I'm not having you towed." WHAT???? TOWED????? For being ONE WEEK LATE????? With no warning? Nothing?? What the heck is that about???? I was in shock. Jim was livid -- but he wasn't in the car. I told him when I got home. He was not a happy man since he is anal retentive about staying on top of things like that. He is reeeally good at paying for everything on time cuz we both hate paying fines, and he was as shocked as I was that we got no warning, no heads up in the mail, nothing.

Anyway...so back to my trip to the Town Hall...well, I tried to get there. But I didn't make it. Yet another hard-core donut into a snow drift. Another very nice New Hampshire trucker-guy helped push me out. This time, I couldn't find anywhere to turn around to get back in the direction I was going, cuz, of course, there was so much snow everywhere, so I kept on going in the direction of home.

Upon arriving home, I went to the bathroom. Oh boy. Note to self: look in car mirror if you have been outside pushing your car out of the snow before you let anyone see you.... Now I know why one of the snow plow drivers said in his phone, "there's a bunch of people stuck on a hill here and one of them is a real mess." I thought he meant the woman behind me cuz she seemed to be having a tough time getting around me and wasn't letting anyone help her and wasn't letting anyone get around her -- there were about 5 cars waiting for her to get out of the way. After looking in the mirror, I'm pretty sure he meant me.

11:45am: leave to pick Soren up from pre-school. The roads are better, so after picking Soren up I decide to proceed with my original plans to renew my registration. I was determined. I also didn't want another $100 fine. Who knows how many other cops have fighter pilot eyes....

12:15pm: arrive at Town Hall. Open door to Town Hall and see it being locked up as I am entering. The woman leaving says, "we close every day from noon to 1pm, don't you know that?" Ah yes..... government workers. Somehow they are all born from the same seed. How does that happen?

12:15 to 1pm: kill time at the library across the street and take kids to get something to eat. I'm not known for my determination for nothing. It's my middle name...or at least it should be.

1:15pm: arrive back at Town Hall and, long story short, discover that I don't have the correct papers, so I need to go to the DMV in Epping, NH -- a half hour away.

1:45pm: arrive at DMV and, long story short, discover that JIM has to come, not me, to retrieve the correct papers. Even though I'm married to the guy -- and have a friggin' license with the same last name, I can't get the dang registration.
> So I call Jim and fill him in on all the lovely details. (I remembered my phone. Yippee!)
> Jim, aka Mr. Incredible, says he will leave work right away and take care of it.

2:30pm: arrive home and realize that it is too late to put the kids down for their nap and I still have two loads of laundry to do. Yippee.

4:30pm: Jim arrives home and immediately leaves in my car because, as he said, after checking the tires, he decided we need new ones because they are practically bald, so we might as well do it right away because, with registration comes inspection, and they will no way pass inspection. (Do you have any idea how much tires cost?? Four brand new tires. That'sa whole lotta dough.)
> He also mentioned that he couldn't renew the registration because he had to pay in cash. Who the heck has $250 in cash in their wallet?? And, not to mention the, once again, comments from the Town Hall idiots like, "That's how much it cost you last year, how could you not know that?!" Do they seriously think all we think about is our car registration???? And, of course, they closed at 4pm and Jim arrived just before closing, so he couldn't run to an ATM and back because, again, government workers are all from the same seed. You know very well what happened. But....they opened again at 7pm, so he could come back. That's convenient, right?

Anyway....back to getting new tires....oh yes, it may be 6pm, but there is so much more to this horrid day....

6pm: Jim arrives home from getting new tires and proceeds to get the snow blower out to clear the driveway.

6:15pm: Jim walks inside very angry.
See, last Thursday a freak accident occurred in our garage and a full bag of bird seed fell on top of a 5 gallon container of gasoline. That container spilled all over our garage. I had cleared everything out of the garage that had been soaked in gasoline because it smelled so freaking yucky. I put it all out in the driveway to get the smell away from inside our home and also to wash out the gas and then dry everything out. One of those things was a thick, part metal, part hard-brush door mat to get all the mud off our shoes before we walked inside our home.

That mat had been lying in the driveway. Hidden under the snow. It was now entangled in our brand spankin' new snow blower. A really, really nice snow blower that Jim was so very proud of since he found it on Craig's List for a pretty good deal. Lotsa horsepower 'n stuff.

6:30pm: we finally eat dinner after the pork I was cooking took 60 minutes, not 20, like the recipe said it would. Remember, my kids skipped their nap. Remember, my 2-year old can whine like nobody's business...ESPECIALLY when she is tired. And hungry. Actually, I'm not sure "whining" is the right word for what she was doing. "Screaming" would be a better word. For oh, 45 minutes straight perhaps? Yes. Yes she was. Remember, it was that kind of day.

7pm: Jim leaves for the Town Hall to pay the dang $250.

8pm: both kids are in bed. While that was nice, that was the least of our worries.... Jim had yet to tackle the mat stuck in the snow blower...the brand new snow blower....

This picture doesn't do it justice but I didn't want to be taking pictures of Jim lifting it up and showing the gory details because, well, he wasn't really in the mood for pictures.

9:30pm: Jim comes in swearing like a sailor cuz the snow blower can't be fixed...by him anyway. He has to take it in somewhere, who knows where for who knows how much, to get it fixed. Our brand new snow blower. Lots more money to spend. Does someone think we have lots of money to spend? If so, where the heck is this money????? We could sure use it right about now.

Meanwhile....but wait, oh yes, there is more.... Jim had arrived at work this very morning to find that his computer had a virus. So he couldn't get any work done. It had just been fixed when I called about the registration issue.

When Jim tried to check his email at home, as he was especially anxious about a particular email that he has been waiting for about yet another horrible thing that happened -- and there is no way I will get into the details of that (seriously, I am truly not making ANY of this up, or even exaggerating anything). And, guess what... his home computer had a virus. Ok, what are the chances of BOTH his home and work computer getting a virus the very same day when they don't share ANY files or anything?? Taking away access to his computer is pretty much like chopping off his right arm and watching it bleed. Or, for a less gory description, bulldozing his garden right when everything is ripe for the picking. His computer or his garden..... it's a toss-up which is more important to his sanity.

It is now 11pm and I'm pretty sure he is going insane trying to fix it. Poor guy. I know we all have bad days, but this one...well...I don't have days THIS bad very often, that's for sure. I am very very grateful for that.

ps: he never got his computer to work. He called the tech guys and -- after being on hold for an hour -- while they were telling him what to do, he was cut off. That was the last and final sign that it was truly time for bed. Today was a day that it would have been a really good idea to have never left our bed. I wish we had known that when we woke up.