Red Letter Day

Telling a reporter from The New York Times that I needed to hang up the phone in the middle of our interview because my toddler was standing in the doorway naked, covered in black Sharpie marker and sporting a shaving cream Mohawk is one of the more interesting things that has happened in my life.

It’s been a REALLY interesting day, people.

Remember that last post of mine? The one where I told you all that my life seems to have both very bad things and very good things happen all at once?

Today has been an excellent example of that.

It certainly did not start off well.

As some of you know, the last month has been riddled with a whole lot of stressful, bad, and painful things. I’ve felt like I haven’t had a moment to catch my breath and get up from one disaster before another one smacks me down again.

I woke up this morning feeling awful due to horrible back pain.  I don’t know any of you suffer from chronic pain, but it is awful. Butterlump has been having a hard time during the night since we moved. He often wakes up crying and frightened because of nightmares and last night I was up and down with him a lot. Lifting him up and down and sitting to rock him for a lengthy amount of time took a toll on my back and I woke up feeling like I had been thrown out of a train. Then run over by a tractor. Then peed on by the guy driving the tractor.

I had to take a couple of pain pills and had to wait for them to kick in before I was able to get up. I felt frustrated and glum and was going all Alexander and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad, ‘I think I’ll move to Australia!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’ day in my head.  (Moving to Australia sounds so nice right now. It is warm, and sunny, and full of awesome accents, crocodile hunters, Hugh Jackman and enough cool things that I am willing to overlook the fact that it is also the birthplace of that foul-tasting, sludge-in-the-bottom-of-the-oil-can looking substance called Vegemite. How people manage to choke that stuff down eludes me, dudes.)

So anyway, my day was not off to the best start.

THEN I checked my email and my outlook vastly improved.

I had back-to-back interviews with Parents Magazine (Who I am thrilled to work with again. I loved the way the article about my visit to The White House turned out.)  and then with The Times.  

Parents Magazine spoke to me about a blog post I wrote about having a favorite child and The Times wanted to speak to me about my amazing visit to McDonald’s USA headquarters with my family and the wonderful working relationship that I have be privileged to have with them ever since. The article in Parents Magazine is set to come out in a year or so and The Times is being published in a couple of weeks or so. I am not sure if I will be included in the story but being interviewed by The New York Times is simply one of the greatest honors and thrills of my life. Since my father spent his entire career as a newspaper man, I have been reading them since I was very small.

Both of the journalists that I spoke to were simply delightful and I had a great time. I think I avoided saying anything too idiotic, but this is also the chick who smelled marijuana smoke for the first time while walking with friends outside of the dorms in college (I was pretty sheltered growing up) and proclaimed, “That’s marijuana? Dude…that stuff smells like burning weeds!” (Yeah. I know.) so I will probably remain nervous until both are published and I see if I made the cut and which quotes were used.

After my interviews, my back felt well enough to drive into Logan to go to a board meeting for The Social Media Club of Cache Valley. It was only the fourth time that I’ve left my house since Christmas. I seriously feel like I am two steps away from becoming a shut in that owns 20 cats and orders everything from the JC Penney’s catalog, dudes. The meeting went well. We are all such good friends and it was so lovely to see everyone.  It cheered me up so much and I am grateful I was able to get through it.

I even had enough stamina to swing by to see my new friend, Annaleee.

Did I mention I made a new friend?

Well, I did!

I met Annalee at the gas station that I go to when I want to imbibe in ‘The Dark Waters’, otherwise known as Diet Coke. I pulled up to the drive thru window and she said, “Are you Loralee?!” She has been reading my blog for a long time and she just moved back to Cache Valley after living away for a long time. She knows my beloved friend, Brigitte, and so I invited them both to my house for lunch and we were instant friends. We have A LOT in common. We have both lost babies, we have so many similar things that have happened to us it’s crazy…we even have the same blood clotting disorder (Leiden V factor). I feel truly blessed that we have become friends.  I have been very distraught and sad since my BFF Kim left Logan to move to Texas a year ago. I still have wonderful friends in the valley but I have really missed having a friend that lives by me that can understand what it is to have lost a baby and go through some of the things I have. No one is a replacement for my Prairie Mama, but Annalee is just great and I am so happy she recognized me at the gas station and that we have become friends.

My night is set to be a happy one as well. Jonathan is working late tonight so I am ordering a pizza and have a pint of Ben & Jerry’s with my name on it. AND I am FINALLY going to watch the movie, Driving Miss Daisy. How it is that I have a vagina and went 37-years on the earth and love shows like Matlock, Murder She Wrote, The Golden Girls and Designing Women, yet have not seen this movie is totally beyond me, but I am finally rectifying that situation. (Don’t be hating on the old people television shows, people.) (Or Air Supply.) (Or Neil Diamond and Barry Manilow, while we’re at it.)

And saving the best for last…BUTTERLUMP WENT TO THE POTTY ALL BY HIMSELF TODAY! I didn’t ask him, or help him or anything. He handled it himself from pulling down his pull ups to flushing and washing and drying his hands!

(And yes, it truly is the BEST part of my day. Y’all have no idea how much potty training and I do NOT get along.)

So, there you have it.

You just don’t get better than days like today.

Even in Australia.

;)