One of THOSE days?!

Just so you know, this picture has absolutely nothing to do with this post....  but isn't that a good looking daddy with his baby? :)

So, have you ever just had one of THOSE days?  Not the kind where things are truly bad and you get lots of much needed sympathy and prayer support from your loved ones because you have truly hit a rough patch and really need it.  No, that's not what I"m talking about.  I'm talking about one of those obnoxiously annoying days where absolutely every little thing that possibly could go wrong seems to go wrong, but then when you try to articulate to someone how absolutely annoying all those little things have been you just end up sounding (and feeling) whiny and wondering why all these stupid things have gotten your panties in such a wad?

Well.

That defined my day (not today actually, a few days ago).  In all fairness, I should probably say it was more like a morning- not a whole day but it was a bear of a morning let me tell you and I feel the need to vent and maybe get a little more sympathy than I got on the home front so here goes...

First of all, I fed Anabelle breakfast.  Very normal activity, right?  Sort of.  I'll actually have to circle back to this one for you to understand why it falls under the everything going wrong category.  I realized that I was completely out of what I thought was a lifetime supply of Gerber Rice Cereal from the states.  Then I remembered that I had a ziploc bag of rice cereal in the cabinet from one of our trips so I fixed her that.  Moving on...

Time to go to the grocery.  Normally something I don't mind so much but I'm currently not feeling very organized in my kitchen and I was going without a list and meal plans in hand which I really don't like to do.  So I was grumpy.  But we had literally nothing to eat so not going to the grocery would make me even more grumpy so I went.  Jason had a meeting so he dropped Anabelle and I off at the mall where the grocery store is and we would taxi home.

This grocery store in and of itself actually makes me grumpy.  I find it highly annoying but because it has the best prices that I've found in this city, I tolerate it, especially when i have a big trip to make.  It is sprawling and spread out and things are in weird places and it just takes a really long time to navigate.  They are always stocking the aisles or cleaning with those massive floor polisher things at the most inconvenient times (in my opinion) and it's just really not a place I like to go.  To get from the top floor (with all the household items) to the bottom floor (with all the grocery items) you have to ride one of those people mover thingies (like that they have in airports) with your grocery cart.  But the grooves on the floor of the mover and the cart don't really match up so you can't walk down it even if there is no one in front of you.  You just have to stand there while it moves you at a snails pace to the bottom floor.  Annoying.

Oh, and maybe I didn't mention that i have yet to come across a grocery cart in this part of the world that pushes straight.  Never.  Never ever never.  Even new shiny carts at new shiny stores.  Never. push. straight.  Again, annoying.

So, there we are, me and Anabelle.  She's strapped into her infant carrier, placed up on top of the grocery cart (you know how they kind of wedge on the part of a cart where the baby could sit?  So anyway, there we are,  Anabelle and me and our household goods moseying down the people mover.  And then, holy cow, holy moly (and probably all sorts of other words that I shouldn't say), there we aren't- at least not Anabelle.  All in the blink of an eye, we reach the bottom of the people mover, I turn to the side, I hear a bump, I turn around and the infant carrier is no longer on top of the cart, but UPSIDE DOWN on the floor.  HOLY SCHNIKIES!!!   I grab her up and just as quickly realize that the handle is still up so that's what hit the floor and not one little part of her precious self is hurt praise the Lord thank you Jesus!  But my heart is beating out of my chest, scared me to death!  I quickly unstrap her and hug on her and love on her.  (she is screaming bloody murder by the way- may not have hurt her but scared her pretty bad, I mean how would you like to be happily sitting on top of the grocery cart and then in the blink of an eye looking at the tile floor...).   Calm her down, regroup and hurry to finish my shopping.  Realize in that process that the guy who is stocking the shelves and the guy cleaning the floor on that big obnoxious floor polisher thing are LAUGHING at me.  RUDE!  She could have really been hurt and apparently I looked like freak show mom but I did not find it the least bit funny.  So.  Moving on.

Finished the rest of my shopping as quickly as I could and headed home. My heartbeat finally returned to a normal pace by the time we were checking out and heading out to find a taxi.   Thank the Lord I actually got a taxi quite easily who was even agreeable about helping me load my groceries.

Arrive home.  Unload groceries from back of taxi to sidewalk.  Move groceries from sidewalk up front stairs to entry hall at bottom of building.  Again move groceries from entry hall into the elevator using my body as a human shield to keep elevator door (which apparently has a very short timer) from closing with Anabelle and half of the groceries inside while I move the rest of the groceries.  Move groceries out of elevator on our floor into our entry area outside our front door.  Move groceries from entry area outside front door into our apt.  Yes, you counted correctly, that was 5 movements of the groceries.  You see, this whole process involves a lot of skill.  The stacking of the groceries in the very small elevator strategically so that you don't break the glass bottles that they package things in or squoosh your eggs or bread or whatever.  It's very strategic and you're trying to do it all very quickly- there's quite an art to it really.  Keep in mind also that this was a darn lot of groceries- enough for a family of 6 for a week including bulky things like diapers, paper towels and toilet paper.  So. I am fairly used to this process after almost 10 years of overseas apartment living and using taxis for grocery shopping and it usually doesn't phase me but on this particular day I found it very annoying.  (possibly not as annoying as the day I came home with groceries in one of our first overseas apartments and left a little too much lag time between setting the groceries on the curb and getting them up into the apartment and a cat got into the chicken i bought for dinner that night.  Pretty sure that whole event resulting in my hurling a raw chicken at my husband in anger but that's a story for another day...).  So, groceries successfully in apt, baby once more checked for bruises and put down for a nap almost an hour late and begin the process of unpacking groceries.

First bag unloaded, second bag.  Third bag, pull out coke zero cans to find them covered with sticky red goo- tomato paste.  See, something went wrong with my unloading system and a glass jar of tomato paste busted.  Could have been a lot worse.  Thankful I didn't cut my hand opened!   Continue unloading.  (keep in mind that by this time I am quite grumpy and mentally whining about the horrible day I'm having).  Begin taking eggs out of container and putting them in egg tray in frig.  (moving pretty quickly).  Pick up egg and realize after pretty much slinging it into the frig that the bottom has fallen out and there is egg goop going everywhere.  Somehow in one swoop, I managed to get it all over all shelves in the door of the frig, two shelves in the actual frig and a huge puddle of the floor.  ANNOYING!!!   ARGGGHHH!    Clean up mess..

So Jason gets home about the time I've finished unloading and says something to the effect of "have you had an uneventful morning?" which led to an overflow of "NO! I've had a terrible, horrible no good, very bad morning!"  but then when I proceeded to explain why the only part that sounded even partially bad was Anabelle falling out of the cart- and yes, that did have the potential to be bad (again, thank you Jesus) but when I started listing all the other things that had somehow made me incredibly grumpy (broken jars of tomato paste, and one, yes only one, broken egg) they seemed very small and insignificant and made me feel very whiny.  Probably didn't help that Jason was giving me this funny look that said, "I'm trying to be sympathetic here but really not tracking with you all that much..."

And then God did a funny thing that God does sometimes that makes me smile.  He reminded me of the verse I read just that morning in my quiet time.

John 1:16 "From the fullness of His grace, we have all received one blessing after another."

And then I had to chuckle.  I have received one blessing after another, not just one mind you, but blessing piled upon blessing and here I am whining about broken glass and cracked eggs.  Thank you Lord for the needed perspective.  And thank you for the blessings- not just the one.

Oh, and back to the beginning story.  I just discovered tonight that the bag of leftover rice cereal was in Anabelle's diaper bag.  Pretty sure that whatever I fixed her for breakfast on this morning was either coffee mate or powdered milk!   oops...  And I mentioned at the beginning that I was looking for sympathy that I didn't get.  Don't really think I need it anymore- writing this out was therapy enough...