Today was a long day.  Mason hobbled around on his injured foot and was not a happy boy.  Vaughn declared to me after attempting to get him to nap for over an hour that he was "just too grumpy to take a nap," and then commenced in waking his little brother up, bugging him, poking him, and knocking him over for the rest of the day.  Then he dug the garden up with his shovel while I was on the phone.  My newly sprouted beautiful little garden-- ripped away and tossed around on the grass before I could say boo.

In the morning I had called Rick to tell him that he needed to call the car repair shop and fax them a form to allow them to work on the truck, since I didn't have access to a fax machine.  We had it towed there over the weekend, but no one was there because it was NASCAR weekend and apparently most automobile repair shops in Vegas aren't open during the event.

When I called Rick at the end of the afternoon to find out if he had heard back from the repair shop, he told me that he had been going nonstop all day.  He hadn't had time to take care of it, and probably wouldn't for the rest of the day.

It's been my fifth week without a car.  I've been good about it.  I've adjusted my schedule, mooched off my friends, and walked wherever we needed to.  I've looked on the bright side of it, and have even enjoyed some aspects of not having a car, but I must admit that in that long moment of silence after Rick told me he hadn't taken five minutes out of his day to call the repair shop, I wanted to march into his office and dump the kids on his lap, tell him to have fun, and then go home and take a nap.  I might have done just that, except for the fact that the only working car we currently have was in the parking garage at Rick's work at that moment.

So I did what I almost always do when I'm really mad or sad about something:  I called my Mom and vented.  At some point I said "I guess I should just stop complaining and be happy for what I have."  She said "you probably should, but when you're having a day like today and feeling sorry for yourself, you might as well just revel in it for a little while," which made me laugh, and was the perfect thing for her to say in that moment, which is just one of the many reasons I love that woman.

So now the kids are tucked away in sleep.  Rick is home now, and I've decided I'm not mad at him anymore. In reflection, I think I'm just tired, dear friend.  We've spent the past few days dealing with Rick's nocturnal epilepsy.  They are sleepless nights when he's having them.  Those moments from the seizure to breathing again seem like an eternity.  I stand by his side of the bed frozen in time and praying to please let him breath again.  After he has stabilized I busy myself cleaning blood stained linen and towels from his tongue being bitten, and making sure Rick is comfortable.  I lay awake listening to him breath and the sound of sheets whirling around in pink water.

I'm hoping that we can all find some rest tonight.  That Rick will feel better.  That I won't feel like killing my kids tomorrow.

I've had my moment of reveling and hope you don't mind that I've included you in this indulgence, but now it's time to put this day away-- to fold it up like a secret note on a slip of paper, open my window and let it fly away over my sad little broken garden and into the beautifully dark sky.