Some days are just like that...

This has been a humdinger of a day. Those happen every once in a while, but this one is noteworthy in the fact that there is absolutely no reason at all why things should be so off-center. Well, okay, I'll be honest and admit that Christmas, New Years, a month full of visitors, and an imminent international move might be on my mind, therefore causing all sorts of calamities that otherwise I'd be sharp enough to avoid. But *sigh* I still don't understand why things are so weird and crazy around here today.

For example:

• I woke up later than I meant to (but still far earlier than I wanted to), therefore messing up my whole morning. I was determined to at least get my walk in - Okay, I have to interrupt here, lest you think I've got some sort of good habit happening here. I started this week after a... hmmm....6-month break from my not-so-regular morning walk routine. So, after discovering I'd lost my keys (see bullet number 2) I headed out to walk. I got to the soccer field where I usually do laps and it started to sprinkle. I did one lap. It started to really rain. I thought to myself, "this is Shell, if it ever starts to rain in Shell, it doesn't stop." So I started in the direction of home. For the first few blocks of my return home, that was looking like one of my better decisions (i.e. it was pouring) when, suddenly, the rain stopped. By then, I was almost home anyway and I knew that if I dared to turn around and head back toward the field, the rain would sense the movement and begin to pour on my lovely morning hair again.
  
• As I mentioned above, I discovered on my way out the door to walk that my keys were not in their usual place. I'm not saying that I ever put my keys in a usual place, but if ever there was a usual place, that hook were my keys did not hang this morning would be it. So, I began to look in my other "usual" places. The counter, the desk, the table, the dresser, the bathroom counter (sometimes that is the first room I head for when I walk in the door...know what I mean?) Not there. Okay, so then I began to look in the less usual places - my purse, the laundry basket, the stroller, the washer and dryer, the safe box. Not there. And then I panicked and laid down on the bed for a spell. Sean helped me in the search and we searched high and low. All to no avail. Then as I swept back the curtains, looking under them (don't ask why) I saw the red glint of my key ring. My keys were sitting outside on the ledge between the window and the bars that protect it. The instant I saw them, I remembered setting my keys there and thinking "I'll never remember putting my keys here." It is a fact of life that whatever you are looking for is ALWAYS in the last place you look. Well, at least I found the keys.
• This afternoon, I discovered that I'd accomplished about one-half of a percent of the things on my list. It occurred to me that it might be an okay time to take the girls to the mission hospital for vaccinations. I had been putting that off for a while and, now that we are moving to another country and all, I really needed to get that done. So I loaded the girls up and took them to what turned out to be a horrendous event that will be forever burned into their minds as the day their mother let a lady stab them each not once, not twice, but THREE times. Poor things. What was worse was that the nurse did Madison first. Of course, Madison screamed and that, in turn, made Brooklyn start screaming. "Mommy, NO! I don't want a pokie-pokie. Noooooo, Mommy!" Brooklyn is brave and tough and we've never, ever had an issue with shots before. Even at Maddie's age, Brooklyn would just barely flinch when she got a shot. But this time, she was well aware that this was going to hurt - or at least it should according to her baby sister's reaction. Luckily, there was a missionary lady there that helped hold screaming Madison so that I could hold screaming Brooklyn down for her shots. Ugh. It is done. Sort of. Maddie still needs two more shots from the Ecuadorian Health Center. How long do you suppose I can hold that off?
  
• I sort of forgot that I had put some dough to mix in the bread maker before leaving to get the shots and, well, this is what I came home to.... Yes, those are little black flies swarming on the overflowing blob of dough. No, I'm not going to bake it - not because the flies bothered me (cooking it would have killed any bad stuff, right?) but because I was absolutely not in the mood to deal with that mess. It is still sitting on the kitchen counter looking just like that. I suppose that should bother me that I haven't cleaned it up but at this point of a day like this one... And now, since the girls are both asleep dreaming of pokie-pokies and their heartless mother, I'm going to go take a nap and hope that this evening will prove to be much better than the first part of the day! Oh, and believe it or not, I am still smiling. My eye may be twitching and I may have a nervous tick and a distant look in my glassy eyes, but I am STILL SMILING :-)