Sitting on our cushy, comfy, stained-beyond-cleaning couch with my feet up on the cedar chest that my mom bought before I was born. It’s our coffee table/foot rest now.

Smelling the rain outside.

Listening to the ceiling fans and the football game Troy is watching on TV.

Drinking nothing at the moment, which is unusual. I almost always have some kind of drink at hand.

Reading The Other Side of the Story by Marian Keyes. Re-reading it, actually. I read it before when it first came out, right after Annalie was born.

Loving that I live just five minutes away from a pottery-painting studio now, instead of 45 minutes away.

Dreading the day when Annalie says things like, “You’re a mean mommy, and I don’t like you anymore!” and really truly means them.

Eagerly anticipating our upcoming trip to Texas: seeing Sarah and Kristen and Bekah, the Sanders family, Troy’s mom and stepdad and assorted relatives, Angie & Chris, and maybe even Jamie.

Worrying about my cousins whose dad just died.

Wishing I didn’t live so far away from so many people I love. Also wishing for a sugar-and-cinnamon BeaverTail.

Praying as often as I can, though probably not as often as I should.

Grateful for my mom.

Sharing the couch with Troy.

I got this list from Karen. Feel free to copy.

Today I was an impatient, easily-angered mess. I’m going to blame a combination of hormones, too little sleep, reading and thinking about this post of Loralee’s, and Troy being gone. Not to mention that Annalie was being rather challenging today, growling at me or calling me stupid when she didn’t like what I said. Clearly I don’t want her to think it’s okay to talk to anyone like that, so we had several stern conversations and I ended up losing my temper during one of those chats.

I apologized to Annalie for speaking sharply to her and explained that I was having a sad, bad day. She kindly patted my arm and said, “It’s okay Mama, when I don’t feel good I have bad days too.” At least we weren’t both having a bad day.

Then bedtime came and I let Annalie stay up longer than I should have. By the time I laid down with her for prayers she was overtired and giddy, bouncing off the walls and having trouble settling down. Normally I stay in the bedroom singing lullabies or hymns till she’s asleep but tonight that clearly was keeping her awake and her antics were annoying me, so I decided to give myself a five-minute time-out in the other room. I kissed her good night and told her I’d be back to check on her soon. She wasn’t happy about that and I could hear her crying for a couple of minutes—that’s when I took the above photo, thinking a photo that showed my annoyance and frustration would be an accurate representation of my day.

But then I went into the bedroom to check on her and she was snuggled up with Brownie Bear, almost asleep. I quietly sang one more song, kissed her and told her I loved her, and was rewarded with a drowsy, “I love you too, Mama,” before she zonked completely out. I decided that that was the moment I wanted to document.

And really, despite my moodiness today wasn’t a bad day at all. We’ve developed a tradition of having a breakfast of doughnuts and lattes on Snail Mountain with Brenda and Bug while they’re here visiting, and last night after they’d gone home Annalie realized we’d missed out on doing that this time. I suggested we could do that today, just me and her. She really liked that idea.

Photo by Annalie, age 4

We had fun climbing around on some rocks we don’t normally climb on, and saw a bunch of swallowtail butterflies swooping about in addition to enjoying the scenery and our delicious doughnuts. And later this afternoon we did some alfresco painting with watercolors on the deck while the cats watched. We even strung up some twine on the deck so we could hang watercolor paintings up to dry, and watched a praying mantis who sat on the ceiling of the deck all afternoon.

It wasn’t a bad day at all when I look back on it. But I still am very happy that Troy will be home tomorrow. That alone will make it a much better day than today!

ACTION is today’s 7 Days theme. Here I am loading the dishwasher so fast I’m a blur. Even though it’s a prosaic task and doesn’t make for a terribly exciting photo, I really like this shot. It’s a little piece of my daily life.

I had another option for today’s self-portrait but it was of me doing a cartwheel with my back to the camera. I decided against using it even though it was a fun idea. For one thing, it wasn’t that great of a photo; for another thing, I wouldn’t put it past Sarah (also known as that chick in England) to use it in the end-of-week mosaic just because it was of my butt. She’s devilish like that.

Photo by Annalie, age 4

I told Annalie about the day’s theme, explaining that she should be doing something in her self-portrait. She immediately decided she wanted to dance with Baby Annie on the deck. This is another self-timer photo. I was the tripod, but she looked through the viewfinder, lined up the shot, and pressed the button.

Annalie is dancing in her brand-new dress, a gift that arrived in the mail yesterday from the lovely Bex. She put it on the moment we got it, wore it to bed last night, and kept it on for much of the morning. She told Troy, “I only wore it for a couple of hours before bed last night, so I guess it’s okay for me to wear it today too!” Fair enough.

Along with the dress (bought on clearance at Target when Bex still worked there) the care package included sparkly star stickers, a little teddy bear, a Halloween duckie, bracelets for me and Annalie, and a pack of her favorite pens which are now one of my favorite pens too.

Annalie insisted on dictating a thank-you email right away. I swear this is exactly what she said to me.

Dear Bex,

The End.