Oy vey...what a day

As Mondays go, this is one that I would like to crumple up into a ball and throw right into an incinerator, if by "incinerator" you understand that I mean "hell's front door." Ugh, what a day.

First of all, the problem with the Blazer that we hoped was the battery but might be the alternator turned out to be the alternator. That's over $600 in car repairs in the last month.

Second of all, Aisling has cried four times today: once over algebra, once over piano music, once over something Meelyn said and once over the slowness of the computer.

Third of all, Meelyn did a biology experiment about enzymes involving Jell-O and fresh pineapple and left sticky puddles of lime gelatine and fruit juice over every available surface of the kitchen, possibly including the ceiling, although I don't have a ladder to climb up there and find out. There was also a saucepan, an uncanny amount of measuring cups, measuring spoons and mixing bowls, using up all the counter space and the last bit of my day's supply of patience.

Fourth on the list is the fact that we are having bean soup and corn bread for dinner, which everyone else in my family finds simply delicious and which I would rather eat pine cones gathered from the park down the street.

The fifth item is that school stretched out like something invented by Rip Van Winkle today and the girls didn't finish until somewhere around five-thirty. They did do some extra work to make up for going to our monthly Book-It lunch tomorrow, but five-thirty? That seems a little excessive, especially when you consider that Meelyn had an algebra test and a vocabulary test.

And finally, when I woke up this morning, it was still February. I'd been dreaming it was high summer, and I was getting everyone ready to go to the pool: Meelyn was making sandwiches, Aisling was putting water bottles in the cooler, Kieren was collecting towels and Dayden was putting on his floaty vest. Then I woke up and ewwwwww.

I'm so glad Book-It is tomorrow so that we can go and visit with our friends and spend the early part of the afternoon talking, eating and having some fun. It's kind of strange to feel that I need a day to rest and relax when 1) we've just come off the weekend; and 2) we've had only one day of school so far this week.

Help.

Edited to add: I just went to open the glass jar of Randall navy beans I was intending to make into soup for dinner -- the corn bread already in the oven -- and when I twisted the lid, they came open very easily with no popping noise. No vaccuum seal. My feeling is that I spent enough time with bologna and its derivatives over Christmas to want to risk a family-wide botulism spree, so now my husband is stopping on the way home from work to bring me another jar of Randall's. I wish I could get him to bring me a bottle of something, and I'm not talking about shampoo.