Fear and Self Loathing in Chicago

Let me tell you about my day. It’s not pretty, I warn you.
When I got home from work, I grabbed the mail. Noticed the bill for the car payment, set it aside. Then I was startled by a scary though, and I even said it aloud, “Did I forget to pay that?” Tore it open to find that yes, I did indeed forget to pay the car last month. Commence heart palpitations. Check online bank activity and find that after a bunch of “extras”, I didn’t even HAVE the money left to pay it. Move to second stage heart attack. Send husband a message telling him I’m a loser and obviously shouldn’t be responsible for anything concerning money, then call the finance company. Work out a plan, disaster averted. I beat myself up (figuratively, not literally) for the next few hours. I’ve made some money mistakes lately, and I’m quite ashamed. I’m a MOM for Pete’s sake (and who is Pete, anyway?) and it’s my job to do these things, and to do them well. DH was a gem about it all. He said it’s too much responsibility for one person, and that handling the family finances is like having a second job. Didn’t make me feel any better though.
On to the disaster that is dinner. I decide to make spaghetti because I have no strength left to make anything complicated. Fill a large pot with water, set it on the stove, and two minutes later the kitchen is filled with an acrid smell. A HA! Same thing happened last week and I went crazy looking for the source, thinking my house was about to burn down. The Ikea pot is the culprit. So I toss that and decide to pull out a frozen veggie lasagna instead. Should take an hour, so says the package. An hour and a half later it’s still frozen in the middle, hubby and kids are starving. Feed them some quick convenience food while I patiently wait for the stupid lasagna. Why didn’t I just take a slab and toss it in the microwave, you ask? Because I was stressed and irrational, that’s why. Finally it’s done! I take it out with my new bright yellow pot holders. Cut it, serve myself, take a bite…. And promptly spit it in the trash. My husband (who was a little frightened of me at this point) asked me what’s wrong. It’s in-fucking-edible! I scream say. He hugs me and offers to make a run out to pick up food for me. I say no. Grab a French bread pizza from the freezer. Had I not learned my lesson with frozen food yet? Now, hubs had just cleaned the inside of the microwave and it was sparkly clean. So I threw the pizza bread in and tossed a paper towel over the little cooking tray thingie. 2 minutes later I find that the paper towel baked right into the damn thing. So I throw it away, grab another and try again, sans paper towel. Clean microwave be damned! 2 more minutes later I have the world’s worst tasting pizza bread. After three bites (hey, I was starving) I threw that away. Hubs tucks in the little kiddies, probably reassuring them that Mommy is not insane, just a little frazzled. I follow him upstairs to watch the second part of The Andromeda Strain on TV. I sit on the couch, totally defeated, and still hungry. It’s almost 10pm. Again, that nice man I married offered to go out and get me something to eat, or to get me a bowl of cereal, or anything that would make me stop cursing and throwing food away. Again, I said no. Told him not to worry, I was going to have a simple bowl of soup, for which I’d already started the water (in a safer pot this time) About ten minutes later, I went downstairs to throw in the veggies and pasta…. Only to find I’d forgotten to turn on the stove. WTF! I made a cup of tea and went back upstairs. Obviously I wasn’t meant to eat.
PMS now at lethal levels. Watch out, world.

I won’t bother to tell you the good things, because they’re just not that funny. But I assure you, there’s plenty of good. I live with 3 great guys, we'll start with that. They're funny and they like me. One of my aunts will be in town this weekend, which is cool, since I rarely see her. Got a call from an old friend today and made lunch plans for Sunday. I get to see my darling little godson on Saturday for a few hours, and I’m pretty happy about that. The sun rose this morning, as planned. Hey, it’s all good. Until dinner…