I am blogging while I wait up for Laylee to get home from her evening activities and then I’ll sleep. I was going to wait up for the pies to cool but I don’t know that it’s worth it. Because there are no pies. Only pie soup with floating meringue. Two hours of my life in a dish with floating blobs of meringue.
And I’m good at pie. I SLAUGHTER AT PIE. But not this time. Because this time it matters. This time I’m making pie for two pie competitions, one at Magoo’s school that he desperately wants to win and one at Dan’s work that I desperately want to win because he’s in his new job with his new co-workers and I don’t know anybody and I have this irrational desire to win Stay-at-Home-Mom/Wife, Microsoft edition. It’s not a thing, but in my special brain-world it is and if I’m going to place in the top 3, I at least need to be able make a freaking pie. Right? Right?
I want to punch myself in the face for typing that because truly? Truly? Who cares? No one. And tomorrow not even me, I guarantee. But in this moment I’m epically sad about losing at pie.
I did good things today. Drops of Awesome were everywhere, but I ended the day exhausted, with liquid pie guts in a dish and I say, “Serve me up a different day, please. Because I’m sending this one back to the kitchen.”
The weather was gorgeous.
One of my kids left the house this morning seething with hormonal rage, aimed at no one in particular but flowing in my general direction. My throat hurt. I had a writing deadline and the post was taking me forever.
By 9:45am, I had heard that someone I care about had passed away, I had gone out in public unshowered and with Wanda looking like a pajama-clad orphan and I’d been pulled over by the police for speeding on a street where Dan has told me no fewer than 30 times to slow down because I would likely get pulled over for speeding.
Preschool, road construction, baseball practice, errands, more road construction, lateness, tween rage, nothing for dinner, trashed house that was clean YES-TER-DAY, instrument practice, play rehearsal, homework, shoes and backpacks everywhere, WAY more shoes and backpacks than there are humans living in my house. Way more. Like I could start a shoe and backpack emporium for people who like shoes with shredded laces because no one under the age of 30 in this family will ever EVER tie their shoes. They just let the laces drag behind them until they wear down to the length they want. Like beaver teeth.
And then Magoo and I spent two hours that I didn’t really have making lemon meringue pies from zest-and-squeeze-your-own-lemons scratch and the lemon fillings wouldn’t set at all. It was like yellow water in soggy hand-rolled crusts. And I blopped the meringue on top and baked them anyway because I was so mad at those pies, I thought a good fifteen minutes in a hot oven would serve them right.
And while I was typing this rant, Laylee came home from her rehearsal and I told her about my day and I cried a little and I told her sometimes it’s hard being the mom. And she said, “Your friend died and you got picked up by the police. That’s a hard day for anyone.” And she hugged me and told me she loved me.
And I loved her more.
I feel better now and I considered letting this post die on my computer without seeing the internet light of day. Because I am Drops of Awesome lady. I’m an author and a public speaker. I think positively. I love myself fully and never ever want to put my kids to bed at 5pm and hoover all the chocolate in Washington State. But that’s not always the case.
Sometimes I’m Drops of Awesome lady. And I’m tired.
And I’m fed up.
And I’m not rational at all.
And I murder pies.
And I thought you should know.
My little tween mom-substitute told me I should go to sleep. I think she’s right. Everything will look better in the morning.