A Typical Day

I've found that it's harder to avoid a pity party when you don't have any way to distract yourself.  I'm doing my best to stay cheerful today.

At 8:30 this morning I went out to mow the lawn.  The riding mower has been having all sorts of problems this spring.  Today, after maybe fifteen whole minutes of mowing, the belt snapped.  In two.  We need a new belt.

My husband's graduation ceremony is in a couple of days.  We might have company.  So I got out the push mower.  The old one that we can't afford to get fixed, that doesn't self-propel any more.  It also doesn't like to start, which means that once you do get it started (having made sure the tiny gas tank is full first) you don't stop for anything except smoke coming from the roof, or profuse bleeding. ("Just put direct pressure on that, honey, until the gas tank goes empty.")

Did I ever mention that I have a very big island?

It's 1:00 p.m. now.  Whenever the mower breaks down or runs out of gas, I take a break.  I've just run out of gas, so it's break time again.  I've still got maybe a third of the lawn to go.  Sigh.  I am exhausted.  I do know it could be worse, but sometimes I get so tired of having broken-down **** to deal with all the time because I can't afford to get it fixed or buy a new one.  And if you were on the starship Enterprise and could beam me away, for a moment there'd be an outline of bits of grass and weeds left where I used to be.

At least, instead of having one long pity party (just a few short ones), I've started working on my latest nocturne.  I'd been sorta stuck, but I think I'm unstuck now.  Composing is a lot of work.  It's good to know that I can mow and compose at the same time. :)

And while I was mowing, the girls got into a shoving match and broke one of the small windows on our inside front door.  And then the next time I mowed, one girl locked everybody out of the house.  I needed somebody to do dishes anyway.  I told them I'm almost hoping somebody else is bratty because I'm getting behind in my chores now.  I'd even done a lot this morning before I started this mowing ordeal, but it's amazingly tough to do housework when you're not actually in the house.

I've still got hedge clippers and the weed whacker to go, and some more nettles to pull (I saw them while I was mowing).

And FexEx has our printer ink but they can't find our house.  It's not their fault.  You see, our house is numbered wrong.  Try telling that to the people who could fix it.  The government not only doesn't believe I'm sick, they also apparently don't think I can count.  They've told me I am mistaken. 

The good news is that if I ever get into serious trouble, I'll have some extra time to get way from the bounty hunters, because they'll have a great deal of difficulty finding me.

And now I'm off to mow some more.  Sigh.