These Things Happen

The day started off with a horrid sight . This "thing" was literally clinging to the side of the tarp covering our kiddie pool. Man did I freak out! I was think what the hell is this scary looking prehistoric insect?! I wanted to run screaming the other way. I have to admit I was screaming, "What the f*ck is that!!" inside my head. I couldn't freak out and scare the kids though. I've never seen an insect so hideous and there are many out there, but not on this level of scary. It was off the freaking charts! I calmly asked Little Bee to go get Grandpa. He told me it was a cicada, like I should know what the heck that is.

Ironically, my daughter had no fear. She's a bug loving freak! My dad knocked it off the tarp because there was no way I was doing it. He announced it was dead. Thank the Lord! I just wanted it gone from sight. Little Bee took a stick and wacked the crap out of it. It was indeed deceased. I fear she enjoyed it a little too much. She was like, "It's dead mommy. I smooshed it." Eeewwwww!!!!! Good thing you're my little girl or I may have had to reconsidered a few things. Ironic that it freaked my son out too. As much as we drive each other nuts, we are too peas in a pod.

The rest of the morning and afternoon went fine. The kids swam and had a great time playing together. We ended the day at the ice rink. Perfect at the end of a scorching, humid day. The night however was a kicker. We got home from the rink at 9:30 only to find the power out all over town. I found out later that whatever happened effected several towns and over 3,500 homes.

The house was already warm and humid because I had turned the air conditioners off when we left at 4:30. I used my cell phone's flashlight app (a life saver!) to walk through the house gathering up flashlights, candles and such. I placed a few candles around the living room, two in my bedroom and two more in the bathroom. Goalieboy wanted to sleep in Little Bee's bottom bunk, so that helped the sleeping situation. Daddy was out of town on business and I really didn't want them crowding me in our bed.

They each have hard hats equipped with a strong light and battery powered lanterns. I was so grateful for them! I set Little Bee's hard hat on her dresser with the light pointing upwards. It really lit up the room. I used one of the flashlights for getting around. I decided to save the others for later to use in the bathroom and my room if I had to blow out the candles. No sense in wasting batteries.




The beacon of light...not the perfect picture because all I had was my cell phone. 



Thankfully Little Bee fell asleep by 10:45 and Goalieboy was out by 11:15. I had just given up and blown out the candles when the lights came back on a little after midnight. I went through the house checking what was on and what was off. I reset clocks, including alarms. Made sure night lights and air conditioners were on. I finally crawled into bed at 12:40.

Too bad that wasn't the end of everything. I woke up with a stiff neck and tension headache from the restless night. Then to top it off I blew out the rear passenger tire on my van. Thank goodness it wasn't bad. Poor Little Bee never made it to gymnastics. What a morning.

The bright side of it all is....AAA came and put the spare tire on, no one was hurt and the rest of the day went great. I could have easily focused on the negatives but what good would that have done? By leading by example my kids got through it all with no whinning or complaining. I didn't let it get me down. I kept moving forward and made the most of it.

The important thing is to remember these things are going to happen. No one is immune. We all have these days. Always try to move past the bad or you'll be miserable. I did allow myself to wallow for just a bit but didn't cling to it. It made for a much better day. Tomorrow is going to be even better. I have faith that it will.