Happy Monday

Last night, my little Sugar Plum Fairy had her first ballet recital. She did awesome!


She told me that, after they finished and headed in to the wings, her teeth chattered like crazy from delayed nerves. It was her first time on stage. Very cute.

Then, even better, I slept like a rock for the first time in a week -- it was great! I woke up this morning, and had a pretty positive outlook on life for a change.

And then I got out of bed.

First off, the fire in the wood stove was out. Usually, either my husband goes to bed pretty late, so it's still burning when I get up at 4 a.m. or I wake up in the middle of the night (1 a.m. or so) and throw a couple logs on. Neither thing happened last night, and I am the worlds worst firestarter.

After about 45 minutes, I finally managed to get a couple half rotten logs to smolder -- which got me to thinking: how the heck do wildfires start from a burning cigarette? I mean, I pile in newspaper, little bits of dried kindling and one small log, adjust the draft just right and put a flame to the whole thing and it won't burn. But flick a butt out the window and set 20,000 acres on fire. I don't understand.

Anyway, after having lost almost an hour of my writing time on that little chore, I trotted my happy self downstairs to the basement, stepped off the bottom step and....

SPLASH! Three inches of water.

Oh.

No.

Go wake up the husband, call my SIL (the only relatively normal in-law I have, and thankfully another early riser, considering that it was 4:45 a.m.) and ask to borrow her wet vac. Spend an hour sucking about 14 gallons of water off the floor.

Now it's 6 a.m., DD is awake, husband is grouchy, dog is off her food, I haven't written a word, my entire tower of canning jars and supplies is ruined ...

The good news is, it's all (to borrow from Shania Twain) up, Up, UP from here!