All the Mess.

My life was a series of unfortunate events today. Not devastating, not earth shattering, just unfortunate.

At 11:00 this morning I was sitting on the shoulder of a major Dallas highway. Wanna know why?? Do you????? I forgot to put gas in the car. Oh you know, that thing that makes it RUN?? And remember how I’m the wife of a mechanic? Oh, the humanity. I just wrote THREE separate explanations of WHY I forgot. But all of them were borderline lies. And although they would have been terribly funny, I can’t bring myself to keep them. Exaggeration for the sake of emphasis is a beautiful thing, though.

See? I’m such an honest, wonderful person. Speaking of honesty, I’m totally going there tonight, so buckle your seat belts, we’re about to get real up in here.

Speaking of seat belts, there I was, buckled in on the side of the highway as trucks, semis and cars sped past me in the right lane. My car was rocking with their high speeds and I was basically hyperventilating as I waited for Chip and the boys to come to my aid.

Fast forward to the point where I was walking down the service road (if you saw the red head carrying a water bottle and LAUGHING HYSTERICALLY to herself at 66 and Bush today then yes, it was me.) Why was I laughing you ask? Because I was thinking about how utterly stupid I looked and cracking up at the insanity of the situation and repeating in my mind (in my dad’s voice, by the way), “This was SO avoidable!!!” So Chip pulled over, made an off-color joke as I jumped in the passenger seat, and off we went to the gas station.

We got BACK to the car and just……… well, the below picture is EVERYTHING. I don’t even need to embellish it. So, let’s just leave this right here. If I were to put a caption, I suppose it could read, “this poor soul.”

Frank was watching this charade from the backseat and his cute little voice stated so matter-of-factly, “DeeDee fix gas in mommy car.” Thanks, Frank.

So the car is gassed up, and Chip jumped in and turned the key. Nope, not today. It wouldn’t crank. Dead battery. Chip’s jumper cables are God knows where, and I don’t have any, so it’s BACK to QT to buy a pair.

Then guess what happened? (Please reference the above picture)

See how there’s quite a ditch getting up to my car? If you’re a Dallas resident, then you know where this is going. We’ve had constant rain for the last like, decade (read 10 days or so), and Chip’s truck got stuck in the mud in his attempt to drive up the bank. So now we’re stranded with two precious boys in the back of the truck. Bob’s now screaming and the only thing I could find to give him were the Cheerios that Frank had dumped all over Chip’s back seat last Sunday night. So we ate stale Cheerios.

While waiting on the tow truck:

• Pop Pop came to pick up sweet boys so they would be comfortable and safe with him and Grandma while Chip and I waited for the tow truck. That was my first sigh of relief.
• The second exhale came when the Good Samaritan (read country boy in a Big-Huge-Dodge-Ram-with-a-Cummins-engine) PULLED US OUT OF THE DITCH USING A CHAIN AND A TRAILER HITCH. Thanks, MacGyver hillbilly. Yes, I did emotional cry on that one. You would too if Chip told you how he offered the guy a $20 and his response was, “No man, you’re in a tight spot.” ……….indeed.
• I almost peed 3 times in the truck. Chip tried to find a cup in the rubble of crap all over his floor boards, but no dice. And anyhow, I really couldn’t promise my aim would be all that great. Then I spotted a little cedar tree grove off the service road, but I realized I didn’t have anything to use as toilet paper, so it truly was a no go. And we also decided I would really suck at being on one of those survival-challenge shows.

**sigh**

Tow truck came, towed me to the Target parking lot, I peed in an actual bathroom, and I found out my battery bit the dust because I left my emergency lights on after the car had died (which I didn’t even know was a thing).

Really, the biggest shock in all of this is that I didn’t end up spending any money at Target.

The boys and I arrived home several hours later and I thought to myself, the second half of this day is going to be so much better than the first half.

How wrong I was….. Shall we take a little photo journey of the rest of our day?

I took this picture as soon as I set Bob down after walking in the back door. I swear this house was spotless 2 days ago. I cleaned on Saturday.

Anytime I lament about the state of our house and how I clean and then it’s promptly THIS again, Chip says, “it just shows it’s lived in!”

Poor Bob was so upset at me. Know why? THIS SAD FACE WITH ACTUAL TEARS is because I didn’t let him grab the refried beans off the spoon I was holding. This sweet muffin is the epitome of independent and a pox upon anyone who tries to do something for him. He has never let anyone hold his hand to help him walk. If he can’t do it himself, he ain’t doin’ it at all! Bless him.

This face both made me laugh and broke my heart, so there are refried beans all over the kitchen that I still need to clean up. (shock!)

This is zucchini for the flatbread I made for dinner (thanks, Hello Fresh!) Our stove broke the week before we left for our most recent Vegas trip (last week of August) and we still haven’t replaced it. So we borrowed my mom’s convection oven and heat things in stages ’round these parts.

We just need to break down and buy a stove. But who has the time to do that?? The shopping and the researching to find the best deals..? Not the Stanesic’s, apparently!

Apparently the house is in such disarray that one of the messiest members of the family walked around the house screaming, “C’EAN DA HOWWWSE!!!” while pushing the broom. I’m actually counting this moment as the “win” of the day!

I don’t even have pictures of the mess the chickens make of my life every single moment of every single day.

Why am I sharing all of this, you ask? Because if I see one more picture on social media of a mom of toddlers with a pristine house and well-dressed babies with not one stain on their clothes I may actually scream out loud (or may already have). I don’t know about you, but I feel like I’m not just riding the crazy train, but I am the actual train itself and I just need to know that I’m not alone. Maybe you feel that way too? So I’m putting my crazy, messy, wonderful life out there, in the hopes that if you’re like me and you just need to hear a little authenticity and a little real, I gotchoo boo.

And if you’d like to come over and hang out in our mess and drink some wine and have some laughs, we’re always up for that too. Just dodge the chicken poop on the way to the front door, try to avoid the countless monster trucks scattered around the floor, and don’t trip over the mops and brooms lying in the hallways.

However, if you can look past the disorder, you will find some people who deeply care about you, want to engage in really amazing conversation and also send you home with a dozen eggs.

Cheers!