one of those mornings

it started with me waking up with memories of horrible dreams. not scary, nightmarish kinds of dreams, but dreams of specific people and situations that i'd rather never think of again. so there were crabs in my eyes (figuratively, not literally of course) when i first woke up this morning.

to add fuel to the festering fire, my precious precious little baby, who was sleeping beside me, woke me up a good hour before my alarm was set to sound. you know that feeling right? when you are awakened in the critical "last hour" of sleep before you have to start your day? RAAH. i was not happy. but i couldn't be mad at her...her little tummy was hungry. i guess if my stomach was the size of a golf ball, i'd get hungry pretty often too.

by the time i nursed her and drifted back off to sleep, my alarm was going off. i snoozed it for 20 minutes before finally getting up.

then i was late of course...

and being late made me even crabbier. so i stomp into the living room to find that one of my mischievous cats had opened every door she could find: the linen closet door, the DVD cabinet door, one of the kitchen cabinet doors. she has this obsessive-compulsive need to do this almost every day, and i can't figure out what the heck she's looking for. this morning, discovering all these doors opened annoyed me way more than usual, so i stomped around slamming each one closed with a vengeance as my cats stared at me with wide green eyes as if to say, "What the heck is wrong with you, lady? meow..."

to make matters worse, i realized when i went into the kitchen to get the baby's bottles for the day to put in her diaper bag, that i had NO clean storage bottles with which to pump at work. they were all dirty, in the dishwasher, which i forgot to run last night. so i had to hand wash several bottles to take to work with me.

that helped my lateness for sure...

after finally getting showered, dressed, changing and dressing the baby, nursing her again and getting her strapped in her car seat, i realized i needed to stop by the rental office to pay my rent.

SIGH.

then i hightail it across town to my grandma's to drop my daughter off and head to the metro. the remnants of the snow storm we had over the weekend littered the parking lot, and i nervously made my way through dirty snow, slush and ice to get to the escalator (which felt like a good half-mile away from my car seeing as how one of the few spaces left was way in the back). when i finally reached the front of the station, i reached into my pocket only to discover that i had forgotten my SmartTrip card (for those of you not from the DC area, it's the plastic card you can re-add funds to and use for train trips and parking fees).

UGH. it was still in the car....

"BUT I COULD HAVE SWORN I PUT IT IN MY POCKET!" I screamed in my head. then i remembered that i opened the console where it was located to get it and put it in my pocket, but got distracted with something else and never followed through.

sigh...so i trekked back to through the slush to the Netherlands where my car was parked to get that one little blue and white card that runs my whole life.

i finally eventually make it onto the platform and wait the 5 minutes (which felt like a freezing eternity) for the next train to arrive. once i settled onto the train, i got comfortable and closed my eyes for some prayer time and a nap.

"sigh...Lord? i thank You for......SNORE"

the next thing i know i wake up and we're in the tunnels. i wondered which stop was next. when we pulled into the next station, i was surprised to find that i had slept through most of my journey. only 2 more stops and we'd be at mine. so i closed my eyes to finish the prayer that never really left my heart.

somehow i fell into a deep enough sleep to dream a little mini dream and wake up to find the train doors closing on the platform...of the station...where i get off.

i missed my stop.

i was so tired and over life at that point that i didn't even bat an eyelash. i closed my eyes again and waited for the next station, quietly got off the train and walked to the other side to wait for the next train going back in the opposite direction. i didn't have far to ride, as it was only one stop away. but when i got off the train, i was so disoriented as i walked up the escalator that i didn't notice which exit i was taking. there are two exits you can use, and each puts you on a different street. one exit puts me literally right at the side of my office building. the other exit is 2 blocks away.

guess which one i took?

SIIIGH. i realized it as soon as i had paid the fare out of the gate. so i couldn't go back to the correct exit without having to pay again. which meant that i'd have to walk two long blocks in the cold to my building.

there's probably more to tell but i'm tired and don't even care about this post anymore.