Looking forward to wearing my pajamas all day and eating pureed peas

In case you've forgotten, I was sick the week of Christmas. I ran a fever virtually non-stop for three days.

I think it did something to my brain.

I went to work on Monday, New Year's Eve, and while I got tired fairly easily I did fine. I was still kinda dizzy at times, but managed to drive to work without killing the kids and myself, which is always a good thing. Heck, I even went to Wal*Mart after work with all three kids, a feat of strength and endurance if there ever was one.

New Year's Eve we went to Mom's and played games and ate a lot and found out that we are NOT smarter than fifth graders.

New Year's Day was Paul's and my anniversary. We left the kids with Mom and ate dinner and saw I Am Legend. I began the new year with a hefty helping of Will Smith's hotness and that was a good thing.

So on Wednesday it was back to business as usual. I picked the sitter up at 7, brought her back here to the house, finished getting ready and was out the door by 7:30. I was going to be to work before 8! I had a 44oz. styrofoam cup of sweet tea in my cupholder, the soundtrack to Hairspray booming through the speakers and I was rockin' along.....

.....until I turned a corner and the 44oz. cup of sweet tea fell over. In the turn of a corner, my day was instantly shot all to heck. The falling of the cup caused a gigantic hole to form in the side, thus causing sweet tea to gush forth into the cupholders and down the console and into the box I keep between the front seats that holds a first aid kit, note pad, CD's and every now and then, a partially eaten chicken nugget courtesy of my youngest child. The stretch of road I was on didn't have any side streets so I had to just cry "Nononononoononoooooooo" until I found a street to pull onto. I flung open the door, dumped out what little tea was left and the ice, tossed the cup into the passenger's floorboard (aka: the trashcan) and grabbed at the Bounty To Go packet which held one - ONE - mini-sized paper towel. That was kind of like peeing on the California wildfires. I dug through my purse and found a packet of kleenex and crammed the whole packet into one cupholder, grabbed Kady's scarf from the middle seat and crammed it into the other one. If could've found a maxi pad or tampon I'd have used those, too, but there were none to be found in my panic. In the glove box I found four McDonald's napkins and threw them into the puddle in the floorboard, pressed them into the mess and decided I could do no more until after work.

I pulled back out onto the road and decided that since I was out of a drink and my throat was dry and scratchy the only logical next step would be to stop at the Otter Stop on that end of town to get a drink.

Now, here is where my brain went to mush....

I hate going to the Otter Stop because for one thing, parking is awful there, and for another, they have some of the cheapest smokes in town and everybody and their dogs goes there for a pack before work, thus making the parking situation a gazillion times worse. But, it was on this end of town and as I drove up, there was a parking space that looked easy enough to get in and out of even if every smoker in Ottawa County decided to visit in the 2 minutes I'd be inside. I grabbed a $10 out of my purse, slid out of the seat, hit the lock and went in the store. I lock my doors any time I get out of my van. It's a habit. Whether I'd have left my purse or not, I'd have locked the doors. However, the brain fart occured when I failed to turn the van off.

I got my Mountain Dew, paid and as I approached the door to leave, started patting my pockets to get my keys......only there were no keys. I walked out the doors of the store and saw that the lights on the van were on. Aha, I'd left my van running. Silly goose. I berated myself because I'd left my purse in there and that was sure stupid and wow, thank you God for not letting my van get stolen........only no one could've stolen that running van OR my purse because the doors were indeed locked.

I went back in the store and asked if I could use the phone because my cell phone was locked safely inside the running van. I called Mom's house because she keeps an extra key to both Tater's and my houses and vehicles. She's a former Girl Scout leader and way prepared that way. Wait.....I'm a former Girl Scout leader, too...... Anyway, Mom didn't answer the phone even though I was saying, "Mom? Please answer the phone. Please? PLEASE?" So then I called Tater who said she'd go to Mom's, get a key and be there in a bit. The convenience store is on the south edge of town. Mom and Tater live in the very NW corner. I knew it would be awhile and felt horrible that I had to even ask her; she was getting ready for work, too. I stood inside the store and waited and berated myself repeatedly and by the time she brought me a key, I unlocked the van and got to work, it was 8:20. So much for that being 10 minutes early thing.

When I got home from work I took the babysitter home and then plopped my hiney on the couch to watch TV with my kids. When Paul got home from work he walked in and said, "What the [expletive] happened to your van???" I went outside to see what he was talking about and it appears that someone scraped a lovely white scrape down the entire side of my van. It was either at the Otter Stop or at work and I doubt it was at work. While I was murmuring about what a crappy day it'd been, Paul added, "Oh yeah, you've also got a flat." Sure enough, I looked down and that tire was as flat as a flitter. This is my third flat in two weeks. One more to go and I've got a new set on the ol' Astro, but how inconvenient right here at Christmas and when tags are due on three vehicles.

That night I baked chicken for dinner, made mashed potatoes, green beans and crescent rolls. I thought the table looked bare when we sat down, but didn't give it too awful much thought. I just opened a can of applesauce and put it in a bowl and the table looked better.

The next morning when I opened the microwave to put the water in to boil for tea, I found the gigantic bowl of mashed potatoes I'd put in there to keep warm while the rolls finished baking.

My birthday's in a couple of weeks - I'd like some warm slippers, some knick-knacks to put around my room, some hard candy for the dish on my nightstand and a gift certificate to get my hair washed and set in the beauty shop down the hall. The Thorazine is nice, I hear. And Bingo is on Thursdays! Yep, this 35th birthday in the home will be fun.