When it rains...

Abi sent this picture to me this morning. I believe this cat and I are kindred spirits. Lately, this is how I feel so much of the time. I'm trapped, I'm being bombarded with things I don't like but there isn't anything to do but stay where I am and find something worth smiling about through it all.

So Tom and Katie are wanting 'Kathi' posts...I'm not sure I remember how to post about 'me' anymore, all that I have going on is subbing and my kids.

Last week we had a bit of a mess on our hands, well, that would mostly be my hands. Last Monday Casey and I drove to Fort Worth to visit TCU. As much fun as we had there, we had more fun on the ride, I think. Casey is the best company, he's funny and considerate, I simply enjoy him. I drove. Now, there are those that would argue that I'm not the best driver but I beg to differ, offering my record as my defense. I've never had a ticket of any kind...not even a parking ticket...ever. Yes, I totaled 4 or 5 cars in my youth, but in the last 27 years I've not even had a fender bender, nothing. That sort of record isn't by accident, I'm a decent driver. With that said, I get lost easily...and I tend to always be in the wrong lane to get off. However, I don't try to make an exit when I'm in the wrong lane, I simply get off at the next exit and make my way back. Okay, sometimes it takes a few attempts, but I've learned to leave early. Casey took this in stride, and even laughed at it. That's a great person. That's my kind of person. On the way there, and take note that it was rush hour going through Dallas and Fort Worth, I missed about 5 or 6 exits and on the way back, I don't even know how many because we got lost completely after finding ourselves nearly back in Fort Worth about 45 minutes after we'd left Fort Worth, so we just aimed in the general direction and a couple of hours later we're home.

The next morning I'd gotten up early as I wanted to get in to work early. That wasn't going to happen, because our oldest dog, Daisy (she's about 13 years old) had had diarrhea during the night and after using every drop of cleaner in the home on my carpet, I was about 15 minutes late to work. I was subbing in the library, which I normally love. This day, though, was the end of the book fair and I put up the entire book fair alone. I boxed about 30 boxes of 20 ~ 40 lb boxes of books not sold and shelved them on shelves taller than I am. After about 4 hours, my back was in a lot of pain. After I was done with this, I shelved books for about 4 hours. I was so ready to go home, pick up a couple of movies and trade them in at Blockbuster, go back home, order pizza and watch some movies in bed eating pizza while on a heating pad. That was what I was ready for. What happened was that when I got home, the house was covered from one end to the other in diarrhea and vomit. I walked in, got my movies and walked back out. I daydreamed about all the places I could run away to, but ended up in Krogers to rent a carpet cleaner. After pricing the machines, I decided to buy one. I walked over to Blockbuster and got a couple of movies and then got back into my car to go buy my own carpet cleaner. My car wouldn't start. No sound, no nothing. Never happened to me before. I thought about crying, then I thought about how glad I was that this didn't happen the day before when Casey and I were in Fort Worth. I called my friend, Mac, and she came to pick me up. We tried to jump it (which was a funny sight because neither of us had ever had to jump a car before and I had to call Mark to explain to me how to use the jumper cables) but it didn't show any sign of cooperating. I took Mac home, borrowing her car to go find myself a carpet cleaner. Mark worked on my car, taking the battery out and replacing it with a new one for me. I really appreciated that because Goodyear quoted me $183 to have it towed and the battery replaced.
I did buy a carpet cleaner, and I'm in love. I can't believe the difference it made in Charlies room. I got up early the next morning, the day after the dog fiasco, and tried the cleaner on Charlies carpet, which I was considering pulling up because I had never been able to get his stains out. His carpet looks practically new now. This is my new favorite toy!

I was going to share my yesterday in this post too, but it's gotten too long. I'm honestly like a Lucy looking for her Ethel. I can find myself in the middle of a mess without knowing how I got there before it's much too late. Fortunately, I've got a decent sense of humor and I don't subscribe to the victim mentality.