Contentment and Gratitude

So, have you ever had one of those days that everything just seems to be going wrong. I guess we all have. And we wish we could just crawl back in bed and start over. Yesterday was one of those days for me. It started with my washing machine breaking a leak when I needed to wash the kids school uniforms. I tried all day to get a hold of my neighbor who is a plumber to have him look at it. I stayed home in case he came by. I needed to shop for groceries for our out of town guests coming tonight but decided to do it after picking Chris up from the airport. Yep, these things always happen when the husband is out of town. My friend Joyce offered to let me use her washer. So the plan was to pick up moriah at 3 from school, run to the dry cleaners to get my duvet and then start a load at Joyces before Alexa got off the bus and we had to go get Chris. i was going to go get Chris and get back in time to take Alexa to Joyces to finish my laundry and watch her daughter for them while they took Alexa, and their other 2 girls to gymnastics. Joyce had a speaking engagement to get to so I would pick them up from gymnastics and take her 3 girls to one of their neighbors.

BUT then the snow started. SO, i got worried chris would be delayed. AND my van tire blew after going to the dry cleaners!
AGGHHHHHH...I said forget the laundry, went home and called joyce who offered to let us drop off alexa before going to get Chris in case he was delayed and she found a back up babysitter for their daughter. Meanwhile, Alexa gets home and has 15 minutes to do an hour worth of homework and she isn't ready at all for her 2 tests tomorrow.. and she tells me she got in trouble because she didn't have her math homework today since she left it at jahairas house yesterday. Well, I dropped her off, feeling pretty angry. It took me an hour to get to the airport an an hour to get home. chris was on time.
Meanwhile, joyce called to let me know gymastics was canceled and she was just waiting for me to pick Alexa up, so we ended up making her late to her speaking engagement!! ughhhhh!
we get home. our neighbor finally comes home and looks at our washer which now does not have a leak in it!!!!???? embarrassing.!!!!
Chris worked on homework with Alexa while I ran out to get stuff for dinner tonight and pick up her homework. Then after putting the kids to bed he went out to fix the tirein the snow and rain. Then he comes in to tell me one of the bolts is stripped and he can't change the tire. We called our road side service who came and couldn't get it either. Chris was standing in the rain/snow for over an hour and he is sick. I was supposed to have to work today so, the plan was for him to take the kids to school on public.
Well, if there is ever a good phone call to get at 5:00am, it is from Einstein Medical Center when you are scheduled to work. I jumped out of bed when I heard the phone ring and answered joyfully. Yep, I was canceled for today! WHEW! Couldn't be better timing for that. I took the girls to school this morning and Chris is still sleeping. He doesn't have much of a voice. We will have the van towed when he gets up. And I am going to cross my fingers, say a prayer and do some laundry.

So, in complete retrospect...I feel pretty bad about complaining and stressing so much yesterday. My washer isn't leaking now (though it might do it again), my tire blew in front of my house and not on the highway on the way to get Chris in the snow, and I got off work today. Alexa had extra time to study and feels better about her tests, and I am going to be able to make a nice dinner for tonight. When I crawled back into bed at 5:00 am I couldn't fall back to sleep for a while because I just kept thinking about all of the things we forget to thank God for. And after I yelled at my kids yesterday because of my stress being out of control...well, I had a lot to apologize for this morning..and a lesson learning in contentment and gratitude.