This has not been the most stellar day.
It has been constantly drizzling down rain--this is something my already-flooded yard does not need. My yard is so wet that my good neighbor has been unable to mow for awhile now. Oh well, can't afford to pay her anyway so maybe this is a good thing.
And I've been all day doing laundry. Only six loads but it's more labor-intensive than you might expect. There's a kink in the plumbing under the house, and that means that drainage is slow. Very slow. Much worse when the yard is flooded (see previous paragraph). So I can't just set the washer and ignore it while it does the work it was made to do. No, I have to be ultra-alert and listening for the end of the wash and rinse cycles because I have to stop the washer at least five or six times during the draining process or the water floods my living room and hallway. (Yeah, the laundry area is inexplicably in my living room.)
Actually, I had to stop typing this to go dashing off to rescue the washer. Let it drain until it almost overflows. Stop the machine. Wait a minute. Start the machine. Let it drain. Stop the machine. Wait.....Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. And so forth. If I'm doing a medium size load, I'll have to stop the washer at least five times for draining, so that's about ten stops per load. Six loads X ten stops = Me being chained to the washer for miserable bloody hours.
I'm not even gonna mention the frustrating rusty water that my well spews out or how it ruins everything I wash. Yeah, not gonna think about it. Could I go to the laundromat? Sure, if I was rich! Can't afford it. In fact, I haven't even got laundry soap right now. (Can't afford that either.) How am I washing? I'm grating a bar of bath soap with the cheese grater. Works fine. Trust me. My mother taught me to do that back when we made all of our own soap. Yeah, we did stuff like that, too.
I guess it's good to have something to complain about than the thing that's really kinda bothering me.
But I have a plan. After I get the laundry taken care of (just one more rinse cycle to endure), I'm gonna make a batch of peanut butter cookies. I've got just barely enough flour. And I'm gonna play with the Joyful Box that sits on the back of my desk just waiting for days when I need something fun. Right now, the Joyful box has little notebooks and a tiny ruler and butterfly stickers in it. (Sometimes there's other stuff like barrettes or hard candy; whatever I find that seems good to save for later. Everyone ought to have a Joyful Box.)
The box has a rooster on it. Roosters have a special meaning for me because I was born in the Year of the Fire Rooster, and this is only the second Fire Rooster Year I will ever see in my lifetime. The box says Peace on it, and that's important, too, because I want to remember what Jesus said:
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you:
not as the world giveth, give I unto you.
Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
John 14:27
Maybe you've guessed but probably you haven't: it's my birthday. My birthdays have often been disastrously bad, ever since I was a little kid. This one isn't so very bad in most ways but more than bad enough in one very big way.
The problem isn't that I haven't seen a single soul (other than my dear elderly cat Daisy) all day. And it isn't the fact that I've been pretty much forgotten. No cards in the mail. Not a single text message. Nothing. Nothing until my friend called up late in the afternoon and said, "Good grief, it's your birthday and I didn't know until I looked at the calendar." I told her not to worry; after all, I've had worse birthdays.....worse meaning that I've spent two birthdays at the funeral parlor--one to choose Nana's coffin a few days before she died and one to plan my mother's service the day after she died. That's right, I had to have the plug pulled on my mother's life support on the night before my birthday ten years ago. That's the big bad.
To have to face that ten year anniversary alone and to be forgotten on top of it.....well, that seems unnecessarily hard. I've actually been really grateful for the endless frustration of dealing with the washer today.
Now that the washer has finally run the last rinse cycle of the day, I'm gonna go bake myself a batch of peanut butter cookies, and I'm gonna enjoy the little treasures from the Joyful Box.
With God's grace, I've gotten through the past two days.
I can start fresh tomorrow.
Life is good.
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