It is not my day

Please pardon my word vomit of complaining, but the last 24 hour have been rough. Everyone is safe and healthy, but it is one of those days that nothing is easy and takes longer than it should. I know I always do my best to be positive, but that positivity is shadowed today. I have discovered that at times if I can tell someone or write down my frustrations it helps my attitude. I definitely am in need of an attitude check.

My frustration actually began several days ago when we returned from my daughter’s graduation weekend at The Ohio State University to the remnants of a hail storm at our house that occurred while we were gone. Before we left, I spent the week preparing the yard and house for summertime enjoyment. Last summer, we were gone so often, I didn’t feel I had any down time to enjoy the outside. I was always busy catching up on the yard work and doing laundry and packing for our next trip. I know, first world problems. We had a lot of required repairs made the summer of 2022 so the yard was always a work in progress for that summer and the summer after. I think these are the reasons I have for being so focused on getting our outdoor space planned and ready for relaxing use. I digress. That is information for another post. The short of it is that I had rushed to power wash the patios and reinforce our patio furniture covering before we left for the weekend. I literally finished 20 minutes before we left. We knew there had been hail after we had left on Friday. I had seen the hail coating our front steps and sprinkled through out the grass on our Ring doorbell. We were unaware of it's severity.  Honestly we hadn't given it a second thought,. We were in celebration mode and was not expecting what we saw when we pulled into our driveway. The driveway was fully coated with small branches, blossoms and leaves. Our patio furniture covers were shredded. All of the garden markers I had made and placed for my herb seeds were broken in half and only one remained in it’s location. The patio that I painstakingly swept and power washed were covered with new growths of pine branches though the nearest pine tree was in the front of the house over 200 feet away. Needless to say, I spent the majority of my Tuesday cleaning up the mess left by the storm. We were blessed in the fact that the house and the new siding were still intact with only a few dents in the front door framing. Our neighbors sustained much more damage with broken siding and roof damage. For me it just added to the to do list. Now I have another fun project to add to the list. The hail took off the paint on the handrails and the shed that I painted last summer, so I will be painting them again this summer.

I managed to keep a semi-positive attitude through the clean up on Tuesday, but I was exhausted by the end of the day. I was sharply brought down on Thursday when I was working on placing some material around the base of my trees and a few bushes around the house and was promptly stabbed not once, but twice by a rose bush. One thorn had entered my finger under the nail and another was protruding from the fingers side. l I believe the rose wanted to make sure that my pointer finger was down and out. As I pulled the embedded thorns from my finger, blood came forward to let me know, as if I didn’t already, those thorns did damage. I wrapped my finger with my apron. Yes I am that person who has an apron for crafts, gardening and yard work now. Is it an age thing? The blood spreading through the material, but I wasn’t giving up. It took a full 3 minutes for the bleeding to stop and I resumes my project of cutting material and anchoring it in place with large gutter nails. I used what I had. I was on the last tree in the front yard and ran out of stakes. I returned to the garage to retrieve additional stakes and it began to rain. Well that project was called off on the count of rain.

Friday morning I had a busy day of timely errands. First, I had to pack my car with items I was dropping off at the trailer. The last camping weekend was a wet one and we had to dry a few things in the garage before storing them in the camper. After a caping weekend, I bring all the dirty clothes from our travels to the house. I wash, dry and place them back in the trailer for the next trip so we only have to load up the food before we head out for a weekend.  I wanted to drop those cleaned items off at the trailer too. As I was gathering the camp chairs, one got caught on the trailer sway bars in the garage and dropped the heavy bar on my foot. It was sore and likely bruised, but it was fine. I didn't even have a limp so I kept moving. It was a sign of things to come. Car packed I drove out to the storage place where my daughter is renting a storage unit for the summer to hold her apartment items until she gets her career job. It was when I was there, I realized that I didn’t have my drivers license. Ugh. I drove back home and went through every coat and pants pocket. I looked through drawers and notebooks. It wasn’t anywhere so I grabbed my passport and headed back out. They said they could hold the reservation until 4p.m. I had plenty of time, but had to adjust my day a bit.

Continuing on with my day, I stopped at the trailer to load it up with my full car of items - blankets, chairs, towels, clothes and a few tools. We store the trailer about 3 miles away from the house so it was an easy drive. When I arrived the the parking lot was full of trucks, it was a tight squeeze to get to the back parking lot where the trailer is stored. I was thankful we weren't taking it out of the parking lot today for a trip.  It would have been an extremely skilled maneuver to get it hooked up and driven out of the parking lot.  I unloaded the car of chairs, blankets and clothes. I also had 2  one gallons jugs of water we like to take for drinking water. I promptly dropped the one jugs inside the trailer and the cap burst off flooding the floor with water. Oh brother. What a day! I cleaned up the mess and locked up before heading to my next stop, the dentist. We have been without dental insurance for a few year and guess what? I think I have a cavity. Great. So I stopped in to discover that they do not take my insurance. What a banner day! On the positive side, they do offer insurance for $400 a year and covers two cleaning, x-ray and exams and a 15% discount on services. SOLD! A cleaning itself is $375. Is my day getting better?

Now I had to choices. I could pull off the road and cry in frustration or take a moment to myself.  I opted for the latter.  The last thing I needed was a police officer sensing my distress and frustration pull me over,  without a license. I stopped at a new to me bakery in town and decided to purge all my thoughts of this frustrating day. So here I sit in the sunshine with a brisk breeze drinking a chai latte and enjoying a chocolate croissant. Really? Is my day really that bad or is it just an inconvenience. 

After the cool air settled my spirit, I was on the road again to complete my errands.  I did get the storage unit reserved.  I had a nice conversation with my appreciative and thankful daughter.  I have opted to wait 24 hours before getting a new driver's license incase I can locate it in my calmer state of mind.  I decided not to drop off a Good Will donation and make a "run" to the store to price out some patio umbrellas.  Instead I came home, finished this blog and am preparing to build trellis for my new garden boxes.  If things don't go well, I will accept the sign and take the remainder of the day to relax.  No more errands, no cleaning and no making dinner. It is only 1:30 p.m. and I feel like getting my pjs on and vegging out to a new documentary.  But I will try to move forward to complete my tasks for the day.  I will either end up with new trellises or in my jammies.  I would take either as a win at this point. 

Sorry for the word vomit, but better out than in!