"It was just the season"--Norah Jones

Today? Not the greatest day...well, at least it hasn't started out that way. I guess there's still the chance the people with the big check could show up on my doorstep...but with my luck today, they'd say, "Oops, we're at the wrong house, sorry we ran over your dog." I got up early to take Zack to work since we only have one car and I needed desperately to go grocery shopping. No such luck. Some...ahem...person parked in front of our garage at our apartment, blocking us in. That...ahem...person was apparently not home. I know because Zack was banging on their door at 7:15am loud enough that I heard it in the next apartment building over. So, an hour later, we were waiting in the pouring rain for the tow truck to move their car. Meanwhile, Zack has to call for a substitute to watch his class b/c he's going to be late, very late, the first week of school. We were not happy people. So, all-in-all, that took about 3 trips up and down the stairs to our 3rd floor apartment...not terrible.

I realize after dropping him off that I forgot one of the items I wanted to bring to the post office to mail for our business. No problem, I just run home, up the stairs, back down, and to the post office to drop it off along with payments for some bills, since Zack's getting his first paycheck today.

So, I'm at Wal-Mart with a truck-load of groceries in my cart, since we just moved and have almost nothing in our frige, when Zack calls to let me know he isn't getting paid today like he thought--one more week to the next paycheck! Not to worry, we just got the final check in the mail from the fireworks tent we worked this summer...oh, wait, strangely it is made out to the wrong name? Interesting. The guy at TNT says they put a stop-payment on the check? Intriguing. They'll cut me another one and send it to me sometime this week? Convenient, since I decided an hour ealier to drop off at the Post Office the last huge payment to the ER for Zack's face-plant on the basketball court last year!

Only 7 more trips up and down the stairs to get all the groceries in the house IN THE POURING RAIN, and I am dripping rain and sweat and tears. Off to empty almost all the money from our business account (these have been the 2 slowest months ever!) to write ourselves a check so the others don't bounce and head for the stairs for a trip to the bank.

One more trip up the dreaded stairs (that makes 12, if you weren't counting), and I did what any good Christian who can't, in good conscience, get sloppy drunk and hurt someone, would do. I drowned my sorrows in the bathtub and got out some old Norah. Man, does she know me. "Summer days are gone too soon, you shoot the moon and miss completely. Now you're left to face the gloom of an empty room that once smelled sweetly. Of all the flowers you plucked, if only you knew the reason why we had to each be lonely. It was just the season." So, with the music that reminds me of simpler times, and bubble bath that smells like my honeymoon, and my thighs feeling pretty much like jello, I've fallen into a sentimental, sad little stuper. There's so much wrong with this period in our lives...so much I didn't plan on in my little dreams of what my life would be like. But it is a chapter I'll never get back. I know you think I meant that as "I'll never get it back, so I'd better appreciate it and not take this time for granted." You'd be wrong.