What God and coffee can carry you through....

Yesterday was a hard day!

I know, in the perspective of so many in the world, it was a piece of cake. I am highly aware that what I experience is anything but hard. (Well not highly aware, I know I truly do not have a clue of the hard life so many live. See pictures, read stories, imagine, but really do no know....but I am aware that I have it pretty good.) So it is hard for me to truly say a day is hard with that in mind....but in my relative terms...it felt HARD and the edges are still poking over into today.

So here is my little litany, good and bad, of a hard day:

• Woke up very tired, because, although I tried to go to sleep at a good time, I tossed and turned past midnight. So started tired.
• Even though blurry-eyed, I put on my perk for the kids and our first day back to work and school after two weeks plus a day on vacation. Scrambled and double checked to make sure we had everything we needed and were out the door on time. Foggy drive, but kids were groovin' on getting back to school, so it was good.
• Hugs, kisses, prayers for a good day, starting to pull out of the parking lot to see my 11 year old running helter-skelter flagging me down. Thinking hard, what did we forget. He was in tears...we missed school yesterday! It was suppose to start on Monday. Perplexed and confused...checked the school calendar when I got to my office, and it had a big blue "holiday" square smack on yesterday! ??? Come to find out, they made a new calendar, and oh, did I have a copy of it??!! Ugh. Email notes to all the teachers apologizing for my mix up.
• Found out, one of the teachers has a birthday the next day, and as the home room mom, I really should have organized something....but my schedule from a crazy world has be too booked in the evening...so emails pleas to other families, one bringing cupcakes, another flowers. On to the work day.
• Work, I find out I have two new jobs, on top of the other ones I already knew about. Not a big issue, just an unknown, and need to have a presentation on them by the end of the week. Ok..I can do that.
• After work. One has basketball practice which will run late enough he will be late for Rangers (Scouts)...the other two have Rangers/Daisies (Scouts) so I make an early dinner. I am starting a new Bible study, leading it, after stepping down for almost a year. I am looking forward to it, but I forgot how stressful it makes Tuesdays. (And boy I could use a nap!)
• I want to copy and print extra copies of the listening guide, in case we have more women than planned show up. So I copy the pages and cute and assemble 5 extra copies. That takes awhile, and I need to be there early, with my other two to set up...and be calm. I also want to copy a printout of some verses for the ladies...I start working on that, and my program is not working, ...finally I look at the clock and it is 10 minutes past when I needed to leave....so we dash out the door with momma mad at the printer, mad at the software, mad at myself, and remembering why I stepped down from doing this and feeling ugh!
• Prayed on the drive, Lord, here is where I am, totally stressed and ugh, but if there is any chance you can use me..here I am.
• One block from the church I realize I left all my extra copies at home. Oh well. There they will sit.
• Set up the room, get the kids to their room. Test the dvd, working well. Make hot water for tea... and decide to rewind the dvd to the beginning and the player is acting flaky, jumping and sticking. Hoping it will pass, so I finally get it back to the beginning.
• Ladies show up (did not need the extra stressful copies after all). We pray, chat, share a few verses and start the dvd. It won't play. Try again. and again... and again.
• If I was totally transparent, at this point, I would start crying. A dear friend, who I know could tell I was losing it inside...said. it's ok...we will start next week.
• I gave up...we sat and chatted. I felt a couple women might have left upset and that gnawed on me all night.
• Found out basketball practice was a bust, the gym was double-booked. Picked up all three kids, who were wild and hyper (Tuesday nights are so hard)...past their bedtime.
• Tried to corral them at home...finely at an hour and 1/2 past their bedtime, they are lights off and growing silent.
• My doggie needs a bath, desperately..and I had no time to do it today. So I spray lavender in my room to mask her smell and make her sleep on the floor(she normally is on the end of my bed)...and all night she lets me know she is not happy with the arrangement.
• I fall asleep exhausted, only to wake up at 2 am. I lay there and cannot stand the doggie smell any longer. At 2 am, I take her down stairs and give her a bath, and cut her hair. So is so happy, running around.
• Go back to bed, doggie now on bed...and toss and turn. Look at the clock. 3:05..look again 3:50. I get up and play the first part of the DVD in my dvd players, to make sure it is not the dvd that has an issue. It plays fine. Go back to bed, 4:20 on the clock. Look again. 4:50...still no sleep. :(
• I wake up at 5:50, ten minutes before the alarm goes off. I had the most intense dream. One part, I was with my daughter Mame, but she was 13 or 14 years old. The main part had to do with hurricanes and tidal waves, and huddling on the floor of a hall with my arms around my three kids, all of us singing a worship song, as we heard a window crash in from a wave and felt water swirl around us, holding them tight, singing, aching, the last words I said before I woke was: I will see you in heaven.
• Laid in bed and cried.

So...that is my hard day. Been talking to God. Why would the video not work? Why no sleep? Why that dream when I did sleep?

The answers to the whys really don't matter. It was just a really hard day...and like I said the edges (and lack of sleep) are poking over into today. Coffee, prayer....and I can't WAIT until bedtime!