Crazy Day,,,,,

Did you ever have one of those days that starts out all innocent and ends up kicking your butt? That was today for me.

I had a fairly busy day lined up, actually. My husband was working. Elementary school kids needed to be at their school at 4pm for registration and to meet their teachers. Then my high schooler had to be at his school at 5pm. I had a friend lined up to watch my younger kids while the I went to the high school thing.

And then my oldest son also had to get to book group at 3:30.

And then my two oldest kids wanted to have their friends over today.

And I had to run three errands.

So, errands were accomplished, friends were picked up, we got home, and I had great ideas of making homemade bread to go with a spaghetti lunch that I would make for all eight kids. But I got sidetracked, so there was no bread, so I made healthy ice cream for a treat (they loved it, as usual) and we had lunch.

And then my husband called, needing me to bring him something to work that he had forgotten.

No problem! If I would hurry I could get there and back before book group, with time to spare. In fact, I could even squeeze in a trip to Great Harvest Bread, which I've been wanting to do.

So, off we go, meet up with the hubby to give him the thing he needed, and then on we go for our fun! fun! trip to get yummy! yummy! bread!

And as I started to back out of my parking space, I noticed that the radio seemed to not be working right.

And then I started putting up the windows, and one of them seemed very, very, very slow to respond. And as I was exiting the parking lot there at the post office I thought to myself, "Hmmmm.....the radio has just gone dead and the window didn't want to go up.....I wonder if there is something wrong with the car......"

And then it died.

Right. in the middle. of the road.

With cars piling up to my left and behind me.

And it wouldn't go no mo'.

(It was *just like* this picture, except I'm not as young and cool as this guy, and I drive a big blue mom-mobile, and I had six kids hanging out with me.....)

I'll tell ya, it gets HOT FAST in a car when the windows can't go down and the a/c just went off!

Thankfully, my cell phone was handy so I called my Battalion Chief husband, "Help! Come rescue me! The car just died in the middle of the road in front of the post office!"

And then I sat there wondering what on earth I was supposed to do. I couldn't remember or figure out where the hazard lights were. Cars were piling up. I didn't know if I should attempt to get the kids out of the car or just sit there. Both seemed somewhat risky.

There was a real genius right behind me that was honking his horn. What a moron. I mean, honestly, did this guy think that as I was driving along that I just decided not to go any more, and that by honking he might help me realize that I should make the choice to proceed onward? Jeepers.

A nice man stopped his truck and came over to see how he could help. He motioned for the cars behind me to go around, and then he pushed my car back into the parking lot so that I was at least out of traffic. Thank you, nice man!

By then my husband had arrived to rescue us.

Thankfully we were right at the PO so I was able to take the kids into the air conditioning and wait until we figured out what to do next. As it turned out, we had the car towed up the street to a repair place, and the kids and I walked a couple blocks down the road to a friends house.

Funny "coincidence" was that as we were walking along, we got to a cross street and a car pulls up to the stop and rolls down the window. It's one of my kid's friends and his mom! She's like, "What are you guys doing?!" "Oh, just hoofing it to a friend's house because our car broke down!" She had us hop in her car and drove us the rest of the way to the friend, plus she took my one kiddo home with her to play with her son.

Meanwhile, we're missing book group, missing the elementary school thing, hungry, tired, and of course I can hardly wait to find out how much our little repair bill will be.....

But! They got the car repaired very quickly (new alternator and battery) and we were on our way before 5. I raced home to pick up my oldest, dropped off the younger kids with the friend that was watching them, headed over to the high school thing which was both boring and a madhouse in the way they "organized" it. (not) Then had to eat something (starving!!), tried to backtrack over to the elem. school to see if any of our teachers were still there (nope), then debated about whether or not to pick up my stray child at his friends house, or pick up the other 4 kids. Decided on the other 4 kids, but then plopped down there and started gabbing. Before I knew it two hours had flown by and it was 9pm. ugh.

So I hurried over there, apologizing profusely for leaving her with my child so long (she seemed fine about it), and finally made it back here a little before 10.

ugh.

And I didn't even get any yummy bread. :(

So, what did you do for fun today?

And why do school events seem to be geared toward people that are unable to read simple information for themselves, or for those that would really, really like to hear the same basic concepts repeated many times?! Mercy me! What nonsense....