At least it wasn't a patient - aaaaand I just jinxed myself.

It's a bad month for anything glass around here. I've mentioned my klutz gene before. I spend at least ten minutes a day cursing gravity, walls that jump out from nowhere and my tendency to bruise easily. I've passed this on to my child, and even though it's against all laws of genetics (or NON-genetics) I've somehow passed it on to the dog. (She was spinning in an excited circle tonight and somehow misjudged the distance between her noggin and the wall - thunk!) I've broken three plates and bowls in the last three weeks. And today was ridiculous.

The PLAN was to leave the car running in the driveway while I rushed a few bags of groceries into the house, threw perishables into the fridge and then got my tooshie to a friend's for dinner. Opened the door to Chad's truck (I drove it today, honey, it still works!) and out hops a jar of suicidal spaghetti sauce. Ka-BLAM. Kapowie. Fell with a wet, red, tomato-ey THUD and exploded all over the driveway. The most pathetic part of this story is that this scene is a replay of last week's spaghetti-sauce-kitchen-floor-explosion. Same brand and flavor of sauce - in fact this jar was to replace that one. The only differences between that and this scenario was that this time I could hose it off the driveway quickly, there were no dogs around to sneak into the trash bag and make off with tasty sauce-flavored glass shards, and I managed this scene of destruction in front of nearly ALL OF THE NEIGHBORS, who were having a party next door, instead of the quiet privacy of my own home.

Rest in sweet peace, Three Cheese. Maybe I'll go with another kind of sauce next time.

Tonight's post brought to you by Tylenol PM

The six-month mark of the deployment. It's finally here. I'm halfway done. With this anniversary comes an entire new hand of emotions that I'm ill-equipped to deal with. One minute I'm thrilled, because this means that I have managed to make it through six months of single-momming it again a.) without burning down the house, b.) I've managed to keep my husband's truck running (we'll just not talk about the required jump-start at one point due to my complete lack of attention to it) and c.) everyone in my immediate vicinity is still alive. This is truly a miracle and leads us to discussion of our next emotion, the blind paranoia/irritation/rage at nearly everyone around me. Sometimes it's deserved (repeated passive-aggressive Facebook friend requests from my sister's ex's new wife aren't going to just earn a "reject request" from me, I'm going to openly make fun of her for being a psycho) but I suppose that I *can* admit to myself that everyone driving near the Gilbert area last Thursday probably didn't deserve to be flipped off. Except that guy that was actually driving the SPEED LIMIT in front of me on a one-lane road when I obviously need to get to Target right away. He was asking for it.

Chad is coming home for a few weeks, hopefully soon, so it finally gives me something to look forward to. This also means that he'll leave AGAIN and I won't see him for months again after that, but I'm trying not to dwell too much on that at this point. One mountain at a time!

I've also finally lowered my hours at work and that has helped decrease my bouts of crazy to about two shows a week. It's been a nice change. Emma's been able to stay with me more so that we don't have to deal with too much handing off to someone else while I'm working. She's been having some issues with not wanting to do homework, which is odd for my little bookworm/straight A girl. I've talked to her teacher, who assures me that fourth-grade girls tend to start being moody in preparation for the teen years, so I'm chalking up the homework issue to this and the stress of the deployment. I'm trying not to be too hard on her, since she still has all A's and only one B (in homework), is DIVIDING FRACTIONS IN FOURTH GRADE and just expressed an interest in reading To Kill a Mockingbird (uhhhhh, maybe not yet, dear) but I know I put too much pressure on her to be perfect. Sometimes I have to remind myself to breathe and just remember that she's a kid! I was still making cushion forts and playing with My Little Ponies at that age. And I turned out.....ok, not a valid argument. But she really is a great kid. I need to not take all my stress out on her, my poor only child.

I guess what I'm trying to say with this whole thing is that I'm feeling unstable and to everyone around me: I'm sorry.

Unless you're a slow driver.

And with the end of that rambling post I'm going to bed. Have to gear up for tomorrow's start of my *gasp* whole two days of work in a row for this week!

Before I married Army Man she even wore pink.

During the two-hour car ride back from Emma's school today (ok, it's not two hours but after staying up half the night because sleep and I are apparently mortal enemies, it feels like two hours!):

Emma: I think I'm finally turning into a lady.

Me: Oh really?

Emma: Yeah, you know how Mr. Able hates it when people fart in his class and says that we either have to just go outside or hold it?

Me: Uh..... you went outside today?

Emma: Nope. I held it. And I only burped once today! That's just *not* natural. In fact I think I've held it in a little too long......*maniacal giggling*

Me, rolling down the windows: *sigh*