An Alexander Day

If you have kids, or were a kid, you may have read this book:  Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible No Good, Very Bad Day.

That was my day yesterday.  It started Wednesday night, with the neighbor calling to say that my sheep were in their yard.  It was dark, and since very few of you are shepherds most likely, I will tell you that herding sheep in the dark in a new place is much, much more difficult than normal sheep herding, because they are the ultimate prey animal and night is a dangerous time for prey animals.   They get very skittish even to people and herding dogs they know.   

I had long minutes of heart stopping and stomach sinking as I looked for them.
 
Luckily for me, it turned out to be only Decker that escaped, and he's the tamest of all the sheep, so Sprite didn't have any trouble getting him back in the pasture for me.  I still didn't know how he'd escaped, but I thought it could wait until morning.  

WRONG.

During my first cup of coffee the neighbor very nicely (I really appreciate this because I don't want my animals getting hurt in the road or causing a wreck) called again about a sheep in their yard.  

Dang Decker!  I threw on some clothes and boots and went out and got him again with Sprite; this time it was even easier than the first time.  I also moved all the sheep from that pasture to a smaller pen where they were unable to get back to the escaping spot.  I found where some fence posts had rotted and the fence had sagged enough to let Mr. Jumpypants Decker get across.  Buying new fence posts and replacing those went to the top of my day's to do list.  

I also needed to drop by the doctor's office with a school form, go to the bank, do three loads of laundry including all the sheets, work on painting the kitchen, go shopping for more school supplies, clean the house, scoop the dog poop in the yard, train Pepper on sheep herding, make dinner and so on and so forth.  You know, the usual things.   It was only 8 am and I already felt overwhelmed. 
 I started the laundry.

I was out doing the first three errands when I had the panicky feeling that a herding student might be coming that morning too.  I rushed home, checked my messages:  no student, no messages.  Why?  I don't know. I couldn't even remember which student, but it was on the calendar for 10 am.   No one came.  I fixed the fence.

I painted.  It looked horrible, but I already knew it was going to take several coats to really cover since I'm painting with red.   I still felt like utter crap just looking at it.  I lay on the front porch with my puppy snuggling me for a good long time until I felt better.  Puppies are good for that.

 I did some more laundry and cleaning, but with the kitchen all taken apart it still just looks horrible and the state of house under repairs is starting to really stress me out.  Especially since people are coming to visit and there is no chance of it looking any better by then.    

I was trying to get dinner ready and feeling really crabby and not like serving or being a slave at all.  Then I got the bright idea to try to do a second coat on the paint, as the first was dry to touch.  This pissed me off even further, because the second coat also looked really bad, and I was in despair when Master got home.  I'm afraid I took out all my frustrations by yelling at him about how I hated painting and it looked horrible and we should have just kept the stupid wallpaper.  

This did not go over well.

I compounded matters by giving Master the wrong tea.  He drinks decaf at night, but somehow a regular tea bag was the one I grabbed without noticing.  He didn't drink it.  I had taken my grumpy self off to read in bed so I didn't even know until later.  I offered to make a new one, but he didn't want it.  

He wanted to beat and fuck me.  This was the best part of my day.  I felt awful and cried, but then I felt good and everything was all right in my world again.

Until the next morning when I was thinking "Get the tea right, get the tea right."  And then I didn't!   So bad.  I made a decaf when it should have been caffeinated, a terrible error.  He dumped half of it out on the floor.  I made a new one.  

I think today I will do nothing at all and maybe that will go all right.  :(  Not that that is really an option.