Universe to Me: Happy F@#!ing Valentine's Day!

Yes, it was one of those days. A day when I understand why all the moms in the 50's ate Valium like jellybeans. A day when I considered becoming a "drinks during the day" mom. A day when I actually said to my best friend on the phone, "I kind of wish I would fall on the ice, so that I could go to the hospital and have a little vacation." Yes folks, it was that good. It all started with Mags just freaking out all morning. I don't know if she didn't get enough sleep, or is getting a cold, or it's a full moon but she had a tantrum at every turn. "Please wear this shirt." Response "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Hurls self on floor crying. "Please eat your breakfast" Please see previous response. "Please put your mittens on so we can leave." Again, see first response. You get the drift.

So after about an hour of negotiating with Mags, we finally leave only to discover that our plow guy who we pay $75 PER STORM - you do the math for this joyous winter- has not come and sanded our driveway which is now an Olympic sized luge. For those of you who have not had the joy of experiencing my driveway, I will post some pics. soon so you can feel the love. Basically I slid to the bottom, then called Mike and said "Call the guy". Anyhow, journey continues on to Strong's where I planned on taking pics. to put on ebay for my parents but again Maggie was being cranky and bored. And my mom, who I have specifically told not to buy Maggie sweets anymore as it is becoming a problem in our house, decided that Easter Peeps and Chocolate Chip muffins do not fall into this category because it's Valentine's Day. Uh, ok. I move on up the road to Rite Aid, where on Monday I had taken 2 rolls of actual film, which I found while doing a - thing I've been meaning to do - task, clean out junk drawer. After dropping them off and finding out much to my horror that it was going to cost me like $20 to have them developed, I go up to the counter today and tell the guy my name and he says "Nope not here, when did you drop them off?" and I said "Monday" To which he responded "OH! Well there is no way they would be here why would you think they would be here today?" and I said "Uhhh, because of this sticker right here on the counter, which reads Drop off Mon., Pick up Weds." It should also be noted that today is Thursday. "I see. Well we didn't have deliveries because of the storm." Hmmm. I see. Whatever. On to Hannaford.

The trip to Hannaford actually wasn't that bad until the end. Actually it was kind of funny, I was buying some wine (um of course) and I happened to buy this brand called Rex Goliath 47lb Rooster, which has a picture of a Rooster on the front. Of course they had just reorganized the wine section so I said to Mags "help me find the rooster picture!" when we found it shes said "Awww Mama, there's your rooster! Did you miss him?" Ahhh yes, yes I did indeed. Of course at the check out she freaked out because she couldn't have a Milky Way bar, the preferred chaser for Easter peeps. I'm sure I totally horrifed the older lady behind the checkout who, in the midst of a full on tantrum said "Ohh, I think cupid hit her with his arrow!" What?! Are you serious lady? Anyway I replied" Yeah, I think cupid hit her with a cranky stick." She looked slightly appalled. Ok, groceries bought, homeward bound. Convo. with Mike confirms, still no sand on the driveway. Which, although it was a luge, a literal sheet of ice, I was confident I could make it up, and I did - almost.

My driveway goes kind of like this - huge steep hill, flat, smaller hill, sharp corner, steep hill, You made it! so I made it past sharp corner to final steep hill, and literally just slid backwards. So of course I try again, at which point I actually get stuck. There have been many many times when I can't drive up my driveway, but never have I actually gotten stuck. Put my car off the side into the ditch. Two year old, and $100 of groceries in the car, I get out, and it's so icy I just slide down and have to hold onto the car in order to stay upright. Mike comes down, we put Maggie in her badass 4x4 stroller, put salt just in front of us and walk up. Like 10 minutes later plow guy comes with his sorry excuse for sanding - aka bucket - and Mike goes down and talks to him, do they get the car out? No. Of course I, of noble Irish birth (read - stubborn) and good Yankee stock (read - even stubborner) trudge down with the plan of getting my car out. Look, I am really good at getting my car up the driveway, Mike will even tell you it's true. I even have to get HIS car up the driveway sometimes. I spent many hours as passengers in vehicles that were stuck in mud in the woods, and learned the technique of rock, spin, rock, spin, floor it, dig dig dig, lean, smoke, study, repeat. This was not happening, I was far off the driveway in the ditch running down the side, which now was water and mud. So I did what any Mainer girl would do. I called my dad. He came over,with his huge truck, hitched up my car and pulled it out in about 3 minutes, AND he was super happy about it. I mean, when does he get to use his fancy tow rope, hopefully hardly ever. So, if you're reading this, thank you thank you Dad. Seriously. You made my sucktastic day suck just a bit less.

However, during all this suck, I managed to get a few things done. My afternoon downtime - meaning Maggie's nap time when I get all my cleaning and other stuff done - was spent shoveling, so that is definately my exercise for the day. Second, I identified another bird, goldfinch. Third, I was listening to this podcast about knitting - What you didn't think I could be any dorkier and now you learn I'm listening to knitting podcasts? Oh you just wait my dorkiness has only just begun to be revealed. - and learned that knitting book writers, and yarn companies have test knitters. Test knitters get free yarn and free patterns in exchange for working through a pattern and identifying mistakes, like a knitting editor. Woot! I immediately emailed a couple places and got on their lists for test knitting. How cool is that? AND I had an idea for a really cool book, which I'm not going to talk about because I don't want it to lose it's mojo. Mags had a good nap, and we whipped up a batch of tasty oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, and she was in a great mood the rest of the night. And now she's in bed so the rooster and I are reunited, and I can go watch Lost and relax.