Sound the Alarm!

That's where I was headed just a couple of hours ago.  I put my daughter on a plane to Guatemala this morning (Friday--I'm posting this a little late) for a two-week vacation.  She has been there before, and has a surrogate family there, so I wasn't worried about her taking the trip by herself.  Three and a half hours after the time that she should have arrived, I went into almost-panic mode.  Not surprisingly, I couldn't reach her by phone, and there was no Facebook activity which meant she wasn't wired in.  Something had gone amiss...I tried not to think the worst, but let's just say that "scenarios" went through my mind.

Earlier in the day, I had been feeling pretty down.  The word LOSER even came to mind.  I really wanted to finish a DIY project today, but it was raining.  It stopped, the sun came out and I went to buy some paint.  I came back, got the piece cleaned up and ready--and it started raining again.  Okay, so much for that.  I was late picking my son up from camp today, and I already mentioned that it was raining.  They let him out 10 minutes early, which made me even later.  He couldn't call me...why?  Because I gave my phone to my daughter to take to Guatemala!  Okay, let me explain.  She bought an international SIM card for her phone and it didn't fit.  The card fit mine, so I gave her my phone.  While switching cards, she misplaced mine.  I thought I'd put it into an old phone I have around the house, but I have yet to find the card.  So he was worried and upset because I got there 12 minutes late, which really turned out to be 22 minutes, but ONLY because the coach decided to leave 10 minutes early.  Follow?  He was also a little nervous because a storm was coming.  It looked treacherous, but ended up being no stronger than a ceiling fan.

Someone made me really mad yesterday. I was still steaming. Someone else really offended me.  I was still hurting.

Then, to top it all off, the newbie blogger (me) apparently committed a no-no regarding the ads that USED TO run down the side of my blog. I haven't really figured out what I did, but I think it had to do with writing on Tuesday "be sure to visit my advertisers".  That's against the Blogspot laws and one infraction is too many. They even took back the $24.81 that I had amassed.  Barely enough to buy a day's groceries, but it was symbolic.  Remember how excited I was two weeks ago when they appeared?  I feel like I've taken a huge step backwards and this really had me feeling disappointed and upset with myself.

So back to the beginning.  I was super-sulking about my string of recent failures and went home to take a nap.  Soon, I began checking for messages from my daughter, realizing that she should have called by now.  I went into pre-panic, then panic, then pre-freaked out and then she called.  I won't even go into what happened, but let's just say that she won't be doing any more travelling alone. She's way too absent-minded for that.  But she is safe and sound and I'm superbly happy about that.  Suddenly my crappy mood turned to gratitude.  Nothing like a near-tragedy to put things in perspective.

Antigua, Guatemala