After being unwell for the past week or so with some sort of low – grade sinus thing I managed to make some house – organizing headway over the weekend while Paul and the kids were in New Jersey for a birthday party (I also did an awful lot of Nyquil – induced heavy sleeping).

There’s still a lot of mess around me and major work still to do, but the big stuff has been started and in some rooms, completed (closet clean – outs anyone??)

Today I was looking forward to getting back into the homeschooling rhythm before continuing the purge and clean.

I knew homeschooling would be a challenge, and I was right, but frankly it’s not even remotely the things I thought I would have trouble with.   Math has been super easy.  Staying on track has been easy.  The tough parts for me have been the little things.

Things like the fact that public school never apparently taught Emily how to properly hold a pen or pencil when she writes and as a result she curls her whole arm and hand around her writing like a lefty, though she is a righty.  Her thumb doesn’t even touch her pen at all.  Her penmanship is rather bad and very slanted.  Teaching her how to properly write has been more difficult that teaching her prime factorization of square roots and fractions.

The amount of time Neve’s lessons take vs. Emily’s is also a surprise.  Emily can work mainly on her own, but Neve needs me to be involved with every.stinking.thing.  Many days I find myself struggling to be sure Emily is getting enough help.

At any rate, aside from a few small issues, it is going very well.

But today.

Oh, today.

I think Oona may be getting sick.  She is all out of sorts and cranky despite a full night’s sleep, and has been WAY over the top today.  That made teaching anyone anything a lesson in extreme rock-solid patience.  By the time noon rolled around I was more than ready for lunch and decided I deserved a treat.  In the form of take out from the new Japanese restaurant that just opened near our house.

I walked out to the car with my hands full (as always).  My habit is to put my “stuff” in the driver’s seat while I get everyone settled and whatnot.

This time, however, there was a booster seat unexpectedly sitting there.  Looking around helplessly for somewhere to put my “stuff and free my hands, I placed my phone, my brand – new ipod Touch (early Xmas present!) and the Netflix movie that needed to be mailed back on the roof of my car.  Can I tell you I never, ever put anything on the roof of my car?  I have two reasons for this.  First, Paul spent a major amount of time and energy putting that paint on my car and I dont’ want to ruin it.   Second, and most importantly, I will forget it’s there.

Anyway I got everything situated properly and we were ready to go!  Visions of California Roll danced in my head.

Then my car decided it didn’t feel like cooperating today.  If I put it in reverse it would lurch hard as though the throttle were stuck wide open.  Same with Drive.  I had to toggle back and forth through the gears a bit before it settled down.  At which point I could tell it wasn’t running properly.  As in really, really rough.

So as I pulled out of the driveway I decided I better tell Paul that it’s time to take the car off the road for an overhaul.

The restaurant was surprisingly nice (it’s hard to have much confidence in food establishments here) and I placed an order for a mixed grill hibatchi lunch, some miso soup and a California Roll.  I paid my tab and reached into my purse to grab my ipod to play with while I waited.

It wasn’t there.

Where was it?

Ah, I left it on the front seat of the car.

Wait.

Did I leave it…….on the roof????????

I started to panic.

I told the hostess that I would be right back and sped the you-know-what out of there.  My car was void of ipod.  Void of phone.  Void of Netflix dvd.

I then pushed my ailing car to its limit and got promptly stuck behind some jerk doing 20 miles under the speed limit on the main road.

All I could think about was my brand new ipod, not even a week old, laying in the road.  Possibly crushed by some car.  Or nabbed by an opportunist stumbling upon it.

And my phone, which I had only recently gotten back to working order.

I was literally hyperventilating by the time I got back to my street.  I was sure I was going to pass out as the world around me began to dim.

And there, in the road…I spotted the lime green case for my ipod.  Ten feet away, the ipod itself.

It looked a little dinged up, but it wasn’t cracked and it still worked perfectly.

About 100 feet away further down the road was the bright red Netflix dvd envelope.  Thankfully it, too was fine.

My phone was not so lucky.  I found it further down still, lying in a ditch with its protective case blown off, battery and cover missing.  It took quite awhile but I eventually located both across the road.

Amazingly, the phone still works fine.

I was still pretty well wound up when I picked up my food and as I made my way back to my parking space to head home I could feel the panic starting to loosen up.  Of course, this meant I needed to get out of public, because once the panic abated it was going to be replaced by sobbing.  Ugly sobbing.

I pulled out of my spot and my back tire collided with a concrete parking spot header jutting out from the next space over (don’t get me started on those pointless car-eaters).

I burst into tears.

The end.