What a Way to Start my Birthday!

I woke up at a little after 4 a.m. That's pretty unusual these days as I'm sleeping until 5:30-6:30. I'm pretty sure I could have gone back to sleep, but my first thought was "Hey, it's my birthday! I'm going to have so much fun today---scrapbooking, lunch with Sally at 5th and Pine, happy hour and dinner with the fam, Guestures, and then a little Downton Abbey with my stitching." Sounds just like my idea of a perfect day. No work, just fun. I decided to go ahead and get up to enjoy the early morning with my tea and blog reading. Then, it happened---an unforeseen disaster!

Remember how I said I keep getting side-tracked from the task at hand? Here's how it started today: put tea on to brew; light fire in living room---candles too, since it's my b-day. As I'm heading to get my computer, I notice one of the poinsettias that's seen better days and decide it's time for it to go. As I was carrying it to the kitchen, it somehow flipped out of my hand. I watched in horror as it did a 360 in slow motion before hitting the floor and exploding.

It only took 10 minutes to clean up the mess, but as I was on my knees, it reminded me of another birthday---my 36th---that I spent cleaning a mess. A horrible mess. Even worse than that. A disgusting, smelly mess.

Mindy had just turned 4. She had her little friend, Leigh over after pre-school. Somehow, they were fighting over Astro---our "outside" cat that I would let them hold just on the threshold inside the kitchen door. The next thing I knew, Astro let out a yelp and darted through the kitchen leaving behind the most god-awful mess in her wake. I guess they squeezed her too tight. The girls were startled. I looked at the mess and literally, started shrieking at the top of my longs---"AAAAAaaaaahhhhhhhhh!" They started crying. I started crying. As soon as I shushed the cat out of the house and settled the girls in front of the tv with Dumbo, I set to work. I cried, as, on my hands and knees, I cleaned up that "s****y" mess, all the while lamenting, "I can't believe I'm cleaning up "s**t" on my birthday!"

At least this wasn't that bad. I can always look on the bright side. It's still going to be a great day---starting NOW!!

My birthday wish for you: "May you have a great day and no "s**t* in any form crosses your path!