Clearly God woke up this morning, and decided to test my patience. Except, you know, God doesn't actually wake up, but in my version of things this is how I think it works. Maybe it was because I didn't pray for anything for *me* on my recent trip to Israel. It's not like I didn't pray, and I'm not throwing this in the face of everyone who needs something and prays for themselves, because believe me there been times in my prayers for pretty much just a nonstop recitation of the word "please"- please please please please please please please but this time there was a whole "thank you thank you thank you thank you", with some pleases for other people and a huge feeling of gratitude. I just felt so full and thankful that I didn't think to ask for anything for myself and so today God woke up and decided to test my patience.
It all started with me yelling at the kids (I should take my own advice about how not to yell) which is always a bad thing trying to pack for trip that we're leaving for tomorrow, but since we just got back I'm packing things directly out of the dryer since I just managed to wash them from getting back from Israel. Then we left the house a little bit late, I got to go to work out, great, except this time the workout hurt even more than usual. Probably from the two week in Israel of no workouts. Then I got a parking ticket parking, which caused me to be late for a hike with a girlfriend, which meant I was almost late for preschool pick up, but there were 15 harrowing minutes of what is usually a 30 minute drive to preschool where I thought for sure I wouldn't make it and I would see the crestfallen face of my little four-year-old sweet prince.
At least we got to go to lunch which was followed by a haircut. My son used to hate haircuts, you could know because we had to cut his hair at home, bribing him with Dora and lollipops on the iPad (I clearly meant Dora on the ipad and lollipops for his mouth). Cover him with a blanket and still he cried and squirmed, so now we've moved up and he can go to a real children's haircut place and this time I only had to bribe with Ricola cough drop which was the only thing I had in my purse at the time.
I had an extra small purse and just my drivers license, one credit card, and about three dollars in cash.
Then comes my next problem- the haircut place only takes Visa and MasterCard and I threw an American Express card into the little purse. My son's balloon blows away and we have to ask the lady for another one (while still unable to pay). Then we go to Trader Joe's where I get nasty looks from the woman at the haircut place (apparently she walked there to get herself a snack). I feel like shouting, "Lady, Trader Joe's takes AMEX, it's okay"! but I didn't because I'm polite like that and I knew God was testing my patience.
All I want is to get out of the parking lot except my car has been egged, except not with eggs with some weird sort of corn muffin or corn nuts throw up. The most disgusting mess all over the side of my car. I really hope it wasn't from the haircut place.
I go home put the groceries in the elevator, but turning on elevator wakes a cranky baby who was woken up at 4:30 in the morning. I see that this recitation is turning into Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day but I just know that God is testing my patience.
Now I go back to the haircut place with a Visa card to pay it, and I feel awful so I over-tip to make them feel better, although really losing two hours of not charging the Visa card is not the worst thing in the world, and now I'm finally finally going to get to spend a little bit of time with my mom and my sister and hope and pray that this day will be over because other than this morning, I've really kept my cool taking deep breaths and knowing that today is just the day that God woke up and decided to test my patience.
Jessica
Bless you! Thankfully you now have the hindsight to realize you made it through unscathed (for the most part). Glad you had the nerve to publish this post!
ReplyDeleteGirl, you did good! I probably would not have handled that too well.
ReplyDeleteOh, those days...they are the worst and yours sounds like a doozy of a day! Thank goodness you are not alone and have friends & family who can hopefully laugh with you about it several weeks after the fact, right? ;) Here is to better days ahead!
ReplyDeleteI LOVE Alexander and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day!
ReplyDeleteMaybe you should move to Australia.