You're Invited

Come on in! Sit down and join my pity party. I'll grump and groan and it'll be fun!

It's Monday night and I am going on my third absolutely crummy day in a row. Nah, it's not physical. Just mental. Emotional. "Just!?," she says? Ha! There are times when I think that's the hardest to cure.

Even though both hubby and I have had something unpleasant working through our innards, it's not the flu or a mild case of food poisoning. It's emotions.

Our temp this morning was 33 degrees, gray with a stiff breeze and . . . what else? Snow flurries. Is there no sun? Is there no warmth?

We were both awakened this morning by Zoey the Wonder Dog gagging and choking and sounding like she couldn't get her breath. She's being such a good old girl in her infirmity but every day she seems to develop another distressing symptom of being a very old dog. She has these little bad spells, then seems to shake them off. At meal time you'll find her sitting in the place she always sits while her breakfast or dinner is served up. Yep, she still has a good appetite but we marvel at where the food is going because she gets skinnier every day. Dagnabbit, you expect a dog's life may come to an end at fourteen-plus years of age, but it affects you in a big way just the same.

Hubby makes a point of taking her outside with him for fresh air and exercise at least twice a day thinking it's good to keep her moving as long as she is comfortable doing it. When they were out this afternoon, the UPS man came and Zoey almost (almost I say) ran across the yard to greet him. (He always has a dog biscuit for her.)

On another topic, I decided over the weekend that I am going to try to have enough soups made up and frozen to last us through this whole coming summer season. Papa Pea is a true soup aficionado and would eat it for all three meals a day. (How lucky am I?) What could be easier in busy times than to pull a quart of soup out of the freezer? So I started a big, double batch of chili this morning. Well, actually I began by starting to cook the kidney beans for the chili first.

I had some errands to run (one of which took me 20 miles round trip on a wild goose chase) so turned off the pot before leaving the house (good move, Mama Pea) and when I got around to getting back to them in early afternoon, I decided they needed just a little more cooking so turned the pot back on.

Then I left the kitchen to deal with a little crisis. (These seem to continue to be popping up with frequency lately.) Some time later when I came back into the kitchen, I found the lid on the kidney beans bubbling away and a puddle of kidney bean water oozing out on the kitchen floor from UNDER THE STOVE.

My beans had been left on too high a flame (ya think?), had boiled over, the liquid ran down through the burner and between the stove and cabinet next to it . . . and down on to the floor under the stove.

The good thing was the beans didn't burn. The bad thing was that I had to take the stove top completely apart and mop up the mess as best I could. No, I didn't move the stove to clean the floor completely underneath. I'm just trying to put what that must look like out of my mind. Will it dry out by itself? Will it mold? Will I lose my Betty Crocker official membership pin because I'm such a kitchen slob?

Well, I finally got my pot of chili made. But where was all my good kidney bean juice that gives the chili such a good flavor? On the floor. Under the stove. I added some more tomato sauce and water and said, "Good enough."

This has certainly been a rambling, nonsensical post, and I'm not sure my whining is something I need to share so I may not even hit the Publish button.

* * * * * * * *

Now I'm back Tuesday morning, dear readers. I didn't put the above post up last night because I didn't feel I had the gray cell capacity to decide if it was a good idea or not.

But guess what? This morning there is sunshine spilling down on our little haven on earth. And that alone makes things seem so much better and has encouraged me to laugh at my whining yesterday. I hope you will, too.

Although the lights didn't go out in our bedroom until 11:30 last night which is very late for us, we didn't have an alarm this morning either mechanical or animal. I got a good nine hours of sleep and feel as though I have the strength to get up and do what needs to be done today. So I'm off! (As a good friend would add, "But no more than usual.")

Happy rhubarb basking in the sunshine.