I'll start over tomorrow

If I didn't already have a "bad day" tag for my blog posts, I would have created it for today's post. The day started out well. I woke up early and was able to shower and get dressed before Jack or Kyle got up. I made breakfast and was checking my e-mail when Kyle let me know that we needed to bring the pack and play to camp for Jack to play in today. This was when things started to get messy.

As I was getting ready to take Jack to work and lugging the pack and play, the diaper bag, a bag of toys, my bag, and my camera out to the car, it struck me that both the door from the house to the garage and the garage door were wide open. I panicked.

Before I go any farther, I need to give you a little background information. Murphy loves to run. That dog is so dang fast. And once she escapes, she does not come home willingly. She cannot be bribed with anything. Well, she can be bribed, but she's choosy about when and for what she will be persuaded. For instance, she'll sit when we offer her a treat. However, if we try to offer her a treat to go into her crate, she is completely uninterested. She'll roll over for a treat. But if we tell her to stay, she gives us the dog equivalent of "heck, no." Some say she's a clever dog. I say there's a fine line between clever and just plain dumb.

Back to my story. I panicked because I heard the pitter patter of little paws down the steps into the garage. In split second, Murphy took off out the open doors. I know it was a split second, but in my mind I saw everything happen in slow motion as I dropped the bags I was holding and start chasing after her. This proved even more challenging because of the invisible layer of ice covering the pavement. I almost wiped out twice. I offered her a treat (which I didn't actually have with me) and she looked at me as if to say, "You're kidding, right? A treat or my freedom . . . which would you choose?"

So, I started chasing her in and out of yards. I tried to corner her, but inevitably she would fake me out and get away. By this time, Kyle realized I was gone, put Jack in his car seat and chased after me in the car hoping that she might fall for the "Do you want to go for a ride?" trick. We chased her down Hillary, Dublin, up and down Bradley and finally we cornered her when we got to the lake. Stupid dog.

After we got back inside and I shared a few choice words with my dog, I realized that she has no idea how frustrated I was. She just sat there licking her paws and staring out the window looking relaxed after the nice walk she got today.

By the time we caught Murphy and I finished loading the car, I was way behind schedule and was rushing to get to camp. Jack was buckled in and I did a quick double check to make sure I had everything. I hit the gas to back out of the garage. I hit the gas a little too hard. I backed the Explorer right into the Saturn and took the side view mirror clean off. I also broke the taillight on the Explorer. By this time, I'm in tears. I know how much it costs to fix the side view mirror because, unfortunately, I have done this before (also when trying to leave in a hurry).

Kyle came rushing out wanting to know what happened and I asked him if I should just take all of this as a sign that I shouldn't leave the house today. Ugh. It was just one of those days, I guess.

An adult would have let it go and moved on. A mature person would have laughed about the events of the morning and kept a positive attitude. Today, I failed miserably at being both adult and mature. Poor Jennie had to sit in the office with me and listen to me be cynical and sarcastic for the rest of the day . . . well, more than usual I guess. I even caught myself yelling at the girl on the radio for talking about things that were uninteresting and irrelevant. I couldn't snap out of it.

Halfway through the morning I realized that I did not give Jack breakfast this morning. I mean, I nursed him, but no cereal. What kind of mother forgets to give her son breakfast?! Probably an un-adult, immature one.

I'm home now. I know that nobody likes a whiner. I know that I have a lot to be thankful for, and other people have days far worse than I do, and if this is the worst day I ever have I should feel lucky, and blah, blah, blah . . . I keep trying to 'look on the brightside' and 'cheer up' but I'm wonder if at this point my goal should just be to make it through this day and start over tomorrow.