I shouldn’t have bothered getting out of bed this morning.  It’s barely past noon and I have already been firmly smacked by the Universe in its never – ending quest to be sure I know my place around here.     If I didn’t have sole responsibility for several children right now I’d be drinking.  Probably.  More likely scenario is that if I had any cash I’d be shopping.  That’s my stress escape hatch when I can’t get to my knitting (in other words, when Oona makes it her mission to grab at my needles and pull at my yarn and sit on my work in progress so that trying to knit becomes more of a stress than it was intended to help with).

Alas, not today. No new yarn, fabric, books  or other fun stuff.   The only items I’ll be acquiring are a second waterer and a bag of Aspen wood shavings for the chickens.

The first thing was the headache I woke up with.  These are the worst, because with my headaches I have to catch them early or be stuck with it all day.  If I wake up with one already in progress, well then it’s too late for the ibuprofen to really work.  I’ll have a low grade nagging pain in my head all day now.

Then came the chickens.  Well, not entirely.  The heat is really the culprit.  I went to take care of getting the chickens situated and fed and whatnot and it took a little longer than usual (they’re still fighting with the new chickens – more stress for me, yay!).  In itself that wouldn’t bug me too much, since I enjoy interacting with my birds.  But the heat and humidity about killed me, and it made for a stinky, muddy mess around the coop.  I’m sure by the time I got back into the house my blood pressure must have been sky – high.  I was drenched with sweat; had to strip and lie down for a bit.

I managed to get dressed and write out my list for the day.  I make a list every day of all the things I hope to get done.  It’s to keep from forgetting; it’s also an exercise in futility.  I have lists from 2 months ago that haven’t yet been completed.  Chief on the list today is to change the cat litter before it starts attacking.

Then I got a call that the garbage (which was taken out to the curb last night to await pick – up) was torn into and all over the front lawn.  Hooray.  Guess what I had to do in the in the blinding heat of noon!  I made the mistake of opening the door in the kitchen to go out into the garage for some gloves and was greeted by the thickest, foulest smell of nasty old gasoline (one of Paul’s projects.  It’s been that way for a few weeks now) which did wonders for my headache, I assure you (note to self – next house we buy will have a separate garage).  And now the whole of the downstairs reeks of gasoline.

Anyway, the garbage has been cleaned up.  It didn’t help my mood, nor my feelings of frustration to do it.  And the weeds that are taking over the whole place?  Down right infuriating.  In fact, here is a picture I took last night from the front garden:

See all the grass and weeds sprouting up in the pea gravel around the raised boxes?  It’s even worse in the herb garden on the other side.  I just can’t keep up with it.  The hanging baskets are all crunchy and dead as well, despite a good watering every day.

And to top it all off Oona just ripped 7 keys off the new keyboard Paul installed on one of the laptop computers.

I think I need to buy a big farm with a big barn for the animals, plenty of roaming space, a detached garage (no more icky headache – inducing smells coming in to the kitchen!!) and no neighbors with dogs that rip open your garbage every damn week.

Or maybe I just need a vacation.

PS: Did I mention our A/C broke this weekend in the house and the handle came off the door to the washing machine?  I’m just sayin’s all.