It's What I Get

Princess Bossy called from a state very far away in a sad state of illness.  With a 103 degree temperature, to be exact.  Her second day of fever, and her first of many being under the weather, I'm pretty sure, as it sounds like a big case of the flu.  When she was in college in the Big City an hour away, I could drive over, bundle her up, and bring her home to the couch.  Not with her in Oklahoma.  And on a weekend Prince Helium was out of town, too.  I got off the phone and my mommy-heart was broken.


I went upstairs to take a shower.  Everyone else in the house had taken one before me, so mine was cold.  And the room was cold to exit into, besides.  Bad medicine for the mood.


Much of the family had rushed out of the house to various activities... leaving tasks undone, and the house cluttery in their wake.  I wasn't happy about dealing with the cleanup... AGAIN... especially for those who had made promises, but ran late, and ran out on those assurances instead.


I was having a bad, sad day, and sat down at the computer to write a quippy (whiny) Facebook status, and complain by email to a couple of mom friends I knew would understand the aggravation I was feeling.


Wallowing in my own self-pity, and giving it this undue time, I only made my own day worse.  Prince Stoic was coming home for a long awaited visit (that day only), and had requested Mexican Chicken Slop for dinner.  So I'd started a HUGE pot of beans the day before, anticipating serving my unfried, refried beans to the honored guest, and having plenty left over to freeze and feed hungry snackers for the next week or two.  My 16-quart pot was almost 3/4 full of soaked beans.  


I had rinsed them, added water until the beans were just covered, and set them on the stove to simmer the day away.  But it was the water that simmered away, unnoticed, while I sat at my griping email.  I got up to find a blackened pot with a crispy layer of blackened beans stuck to the bottom.  I tried to save the un-black ones, which was most of the potfull, but they all smelled awful, and I was sure they'd taste terrible, too.  
It wasn't worth it to add more ingredients to try to make something out of what would still end up to be garbage.  There was no time to start over.  Not that he really cared, but I knew my son was perfectly capable of opening a can of refried beans at his apartment in the Big City.... I'd wanted to give him better.

Now today, after 2 days of soaking it in baking soda water, I'm still faced with this, basically, self-imposed "punishment."


I'm somewhat over-dramatizing being hard on myself for straying from the path of thankfulness and PAYING ATTENTION... But there definitely are consequences to things like that sometimes!  ;-)