Change is inevitable, pain is optional

My husband Tim is sitting next to me as I'm sobbing. What a day I had. I recount my getting lost on a road that brought me to sluggish traffic and than a deadlock on a highway. As I sit in traffic with 5 very grumpy kids I vow not to end up at the mall. I'm want what started as a country ride to nowhere to end up being something a little more productive. As they say when you are heading nowhere that is where you will end up (or something like that). I finally see the mall and there we are. Now the kids are happy and I'm grumpy. Thank God it had a play area. Then I take my son to the bathroom. He is progressively potty trained but not always making it in time. I have to clean him up and it's not pretty. I put my cell phone down to keep it from getting drowned in the sink... then I forget it. Finally we leave and I'm resigned this was a "good" day (although I had envisioned much better at a park or a museum). We leave and I get on the wrong highway back to the cottage. I didn't notice it was the wrong road until I was quite far from my destination (this time I "knew" where I was going). Then I notice my cell phone is missing when I go to call Tim to ask him the best way "home" from way far away. So I turn back. I am requesting the kids pray that the mall is open late. Thank God the prayers worked. They say that God listens to children. I've got 5 at the moment so graciously I had an advantage. I go in and find my phone at the security desk. They ask me my name and then tell me that my husband had called me. I roll my eyes thinking of what me might have said to them "oh she lost the damn thing again!!!" I had just lost my keys a few days earlier and a stroller about 3 weeks before that. Not all these losses were my fault entirely but they stung none-the-less. I finally get us on the right road back to the cottage for what I hope is a peaceful weekend. I take a few things out of the car and head for the door... open the screen door and start to walk through when the door comes very quickly to a close before I get my left foot inside taking all the skin off a back portion of my leg down by my ankle. I gasp and hobble to the deck which is several steps away in order to sit down outside where the blood will be less of a problem (rugs versus wood deck... it wasn't an easy choice) when I notice too late the sliding screen door is not open... I knock the door off it's track, the screen tears and I go falling onto my hands on the deck on top of the whole bent out door. Flash to the sobbing part where my husband is listening to his wife rehashing the day in incoherent sentences. He tells me that I've done this all before... the last time we made changes in our life. Our move of 3 years before was fresh on his mind. Here I am in our new cottage (Mary pictures will be up here eventually!!) trying like a mad woman to enjoy it or else. I remember that when we first arrived in our new state I was under the same kind of "do or die" stress. Change... even positive and fun changes can be stressful... but pain is optional! Next time I need to beware of the doors!