One of Those Days...

You know, the kind where you have absolutely nothing planned so you think that you are going to get all kinds of things done during the day? But then one thing after another happens, and your day looks like this...

• My husband was out of town for the weekend, so I already should have known that with no back-up around, I probably wasn't going to accomplish everything I wanted to.


• Factor in a 3 year old who can't walk, and that adds a new dimension to life. However, his immobility did have its advantages. He actually sat and played in one area for longer than he has since he was in the "sitting up but can't crawl" stage.


• My parents took mercy on me and had the boys nap at their house for the afternoon so I could try to recoup some lost sleep from the two previous nights of continual crying because of the foot injury.


• I woke up from my nap, ran through the shower, and then looked out my window. I saw dark clouds. Lots and lots of dark clouds.


• My phone rang and, of course, it was my mom. "Are you heading this way? We have weather moving in."


• Yes, we do. I jumped in the van to head into town. Thirty seconds later I could tell something was wrong with my van. I heard a noise I knew I shouldn't be hearing, and it felt like it was working twice as hard as normal. However, with the rain, roaring wind, and thunder, it was really hard to tell what was going on. I begin having visions of my van dying 2 miles from town and a tornado heading right toward me.


• I prayed my van into town, and as I hit the city limits, the hail began.


• As I pulled into my parents driveway, the tornado sirens started blaring.


• As I pulled into my parents garage (yes, they made room for my van in their garage), I noticed my van was smoking.


• I did what any girl in her right mind does - I ran inside and yelled, "Dad, my van is smoking!"


• We ran back outside - rain and hail pouring down, tornado sirens blaring - to make sure my van wasn't going to start the entire garage on fire.


• We returned to the house to my oblivious 3 yo and freaked out 6 yo who were in the basement with grandma.


• A couple of hours later I took the boys home. Since my husband was gone, I did the responsible thing and headed downstairs to make sure the sump pump was working (we've been bitten by that one before) and all was well.


• At the bottom of the stairs I was greeted by an obnoxious odor. The kind you get when something has died in your house. We've lived in the middle of a wheat field for 4 years, and amazingly enough, this is the first time I've smelled this odor in this house. It was about enough to kill me, but I had trouble mustering up the courage to go searching for it.


• I teetered back and forth between being brave and taking care of it on my own, and calling my father to help me.


• My dad came to rescue me.
• And I officially am an idiot. After a significant search through the house, we found the problem. Last week I cleaned and organized the freezer in the basement. I took inventory of everything we had and made a pile of stuff to throw out. Only it seems I didn't actually throw it out.
• Oh well, at least I don't have mice.