It's a Great Day to Have a Great Day...

Have you ever had one of those days that started off rough? You know...one of those days where you think, "Can I go back to bed and start all over again?" That was me. That was today. My husband and I just got back from Pennsylvania because we were attending my 30th high school reunion. It was so great to take a trip down memory lane and see faces that I haven't seen in years. A great friend of mine was watching the kiddos. Listen...it's tough watching three young children - I TOTALLY get that! Fast forward to today. It was the first day I actually felt like I got some great sleep. We left on Saturday morning from Charlotte, NC to head to Aliquippa, PA. It is a very, long drive. We got to where we were staying and almost immediately started getting ready for the reunion. We stayed out super late to enjoy some camaraderie and headed back to North Carolina the very, next morning. Whew! We fabulously slept in until 8:00 am, (listen: when you have three, young kids, 8:00 am is a sincere luxury). As we were going about our morning, my husband comes running up the stairs and announces our large, stand-up freezer was wide open. We had lost everything. When I say everything, I mean thousands of dollars in frozen meats and other foods. What can I say? We were quite literally prepared for the apocalypse with what we had in that freezer. I immediately texted my friend who had watched the kids. "Did any of the kids go into the garage while we were gone?" "No," she replied. We were perplexed. We gathered the kids and asked them if any of them went into the basement knowing that was a possibility because they did that from time-to-time looking for ice cream. They all looked at us. Point blank. "No," they all replied. So, I texted the sitter again. I told her the reason I was asking was because our large freezer had been left open and we lost a lot of food. "Kai asked for ice cream several times and I told him no," she said. I then knew what happened. He had snuck into the garage to get ice cream after the sitter told him no. (Unlucky for him, there actually wasn't even any ice cream in that freezer anyway.) The private investigator in me tried a little reverse psychology on the children. One-by-one, I called them down and told them, "I already know the truth. Were you the one that left the freezer door open?" In actuality, I didn't know the truth, but I knew saying that would cause one of them to fess up. And fess up, he did. To be honest, I wasn't so mad about the food anymore, but...he lied and I don't like lying. After hours of cleaning up and punishment for my middle child in the form of grounding...the dust has settled. It's hard during frustrating times like this, but I thought, "I hope this is the worst problem I ever have in my whole life." Nothing is ever too big to realize how blessed we are and that today is...just that...one day of life. Tomorrow. Tomorrow it will be better and it will be a great day to have a great day.