virginiaisforlykoshes: February 28: Bad Piled on Bad

Friday morning I cleaned the playroom from top to bottom (with construction, even the ceiling fan blades were filthy, let alone the floor and carpet). Then I began to populate the shelves. The first sad thing of the day: if we had raised the bottom shelf only another 1/4", I could have fit tall books there, and shorter books on top. Thus, rather than an easy way to store school workbooks and such, the shelves necessitate books on their sides; not quite as attractive nor functional. C'est la vie.

We were eagerly expecting two college girls to come visit. I headed up to the house trailer to await their arrival. I waited. I went to the barn to clean up and waited some more. Half an hour late was a bummer. An hour late was concerning.

Two hours late I grew concerned for their physical safety.

Three hours late and I was not quite frantic, but very, very concerned.

Thanks be to God, they were not dead. They had gotten "wicked lost" on their way down and drove around for four hours (we're about 45 minutes from town). They were below empty when a random gas station appeared, and a kind man drove ahead of them back to town. They were so lost, they couldn't find their way back.

This was such a horrifying beginning to hospitality that I had to take Aconite to calm down. It brought to mind our horrible three hours of being lost in DC two years back, one of the most stressful experiences of my life.

I have, apparently, issues and anxiety around both travel and being lost. These precious girls being lost brought both of those to mind, along with feelings of being alone and unfind-able.

Compounded on that, I wanted to reframe a picture of one of my sons, the one that had the frame disintegrate from condensation. I knew when the frame dissolved that my issue would be protecting the artwork. Sadly, although I looked in all the spots possible and several impossible, I could not find that picture.

My friends were lost. My picture was lost.

And the day went on like that.

Phil milked the cow. The cow put her foot in the bucket and spilled half the milk, wasting half his effort.

I looked at Joe at one point. His eye was red and swollen. He had gotten a piece of sawdust in it a few hours before, while I was up at the barn. Bad mommy didn't take care of her child! Phil helped him flush his eye, and after a time of resting it, he could open it again.

Isaiah fell off the built-ins and badly bruised his tailbone.

I had ordered Turkish Delight when we read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe last week. Phil and I had tried it once before and found it so disgusting that we wondered if C.S. Lewis was making a joke, when Edmund says that what he would like most to eat in the world was Turkish Delight. Ha, ha, who would really want such a thing?

But when it arrived, it had artificial flavoring, and so the boys and I were disappointed. No chance we would eat that. Bummer.

I recently bought an inexpensive CD player so I could start listening to my classical CDs again. And as I put in CD after CD, they were all irreparably scratched. My Brahms's German Requiem; my Beethoven 7th Symphony (second movement, no less! my absolute favorite piece of music of all time). It does not bode well for the rest of my collection.

Some days are like that.

There were good things, too. Phil managed to milk Charity all the way out without my help. The girls hadn't died.