NEWS FLASH! Damama endures hell week and lives to tell the story!

Hey gang! I’m BACK!!! Thank you all for your wonderful well wishes and emails encouraging me to hang in there. And get the job done. And get my (not so) scrawny tail end back here. Now, as promised, here is my week in a nutshell:

Sunday – PANIC ATTACK #1: Spent 5 hours tearing apart every nook and cranny in Daughter’s room looking for her Texas State ID. Needless to say (but since when did that stop me??) it WAS NOT in her green wallet as reported so confidently during our visit on Saturday. Hubby finally found it in the back of the top of the closet in the bottom of a large black canvas tote bag that she has not carried in months. I had already looked in that bag and had missed it. HUBBY IS MY MIRACLE MAN because not once did he give up or complain about having to do this.

Monday – PANIC ATTACK #2: Spent 8 hours driving to every #@&%^$ store within a 50-mile-radius trying to find gray gym shorts made of t-shirt material and with no pockets or logos. (Yes, I called several first, but kept being told, “Sure we have those” only to arrive at the store and find that they were the mesh kind. With pockets. And logos. Hence, the driving frenzy.) I thought I’d solved the problem before Christmas by ordering them online when nobody had them then because they were out of season. And they were still out of season on Monday night when I finally gave up and came home crying to Hubby again because I had no idea what I was going to do at that point. Up jumped MIRACLE MAN again, and with his lightening quick fingers and keen sense (that’s all. not sense of something. just sense – as in he had some where mine was way long g.o.n.e), immediately found a reliable supplier on the Web.

Note to wise: Do not order things on the internet from places you have never heard of just because the item seems affordable. Not everyone honors their stated shipping schedules.

• Internet purchase #1 - $53.20
• Gas to look for replacement for Internet purchase #1 – $65.18 (Gas plus lunch out)
• Internet purchase #2 - $84.00
• Guaranteed delivery by Thursday $13.90
• Returning Internet purchase #1 – Don’t know because it’s not here YET. On the up side (I can’t say that phrase now without thinking, “Hi, Kellan!”), the charge hasn’t hit my credit card yet, either. Hopefully, if their telephone wasn’t burned to a crisp after my very heated call, they got my message and just dropped the whole thing.
• Having my very best friend and personal hero as my husband: PRICELESS!

Tuesday – My regular 160-mile round trip day. Thankfully, it was sans the need to go to Lowe’s and risk running into Oggy again! (I now refuse to go to Lowe’s on Tuesdays for fear I’ll find him there waiting with flowers and moonshine in hand, and that drunk snaggletoothed donkey grin plastered hopefully across his grizzled old face!)

Wednesday – PANIC ATTACK #3: D’s Social Security Card was missing from the folder where it is always kept. The very military-minded attendance people at the school said that they required the ORIGINAL. Her birth certificate was there. The Order of Name Change from the adoption was there. The receipts from when we ordered her Texas ID, her new birth certificate and new Social Security card were there. BUT THE ORIGINAL SS card was MISSING! There was, however, a copy of the SS card with her new name on it in the folder because when I showed the original to the entrance application reviewer at the school he’d made two copies by accident and gave me the extra. THANK GOD HE REMEMBERED THIS because I’d made a big, goofy deal out of not wasting paper (see, Mom Thing, I’m greening up too!). And because he had seen her original card with his own two eyes they agreed to allow me to submit the copy as long as I had an application for another new card attached. Crisis averted, I went to Rita’s to help her unpack some stuff.

Thursday – FIBRO MELTDOWN – All the stress finally caught up with me. I spent most of the day incapacitated, being pampered by Hubby who had taken the day off to help me get the rest of the $700+ worth of supplies labeled and bagged. He cooked and cleaned and waited on me hand and foot most of the day. Every time I tried to do anything he ordered me back to the couch and asked what I needed. This has been his MO for over 26 years. He takes such good care of me! God, I am crazy blessed with this man! He is truly my One in a Million. And the best thing of the day – THE SHORTS ARRIVED!

Friday – PANIC ATTACK #4 – The copy of the SS card was missing. I COULD NOT, nay, WOULD NOT, call those people again and ask if I could get a copy of their copy to turn in with the admissions packet. I tore through the house un-cleaning everything Hubby cleaned yesterday trying to find one stupid piece of paper. After calling Rita to tell her why I was running late to come pick her up, I sat down one more time at my desk to cry a few poor pitiful me tears. And while shuffling stuff around again found the copy paperclipped to the back of a fax I’d sent the doctor requesting that she fill out medical prescription forms. Wondering what part of my anatomy my head was stuck in when I clipped those documents together, and when that might have occurred, we headed:

• 23 miles into The City to get Rita’s pay check and go to the Social Security office to order yet another card
• 68 miles out to the County Juvenile Residential Center School to pick up the dismissal paperwork
• 38 miles back to our town to the Jr. High to pick up Rita’s son, Young Brat (WHAT? That’s not ugly! I can call him Young Brat since he insists on calling me Old Lady!)

Saturday – VEG DAY!!!! Yes, I said it and I DID IT! Hubby and I pretty much vegged out all day. We rechecked the duffle bags to make sure everything was there. I rechecked all the paperwork to make sure the admissions packet was complete. And neither of us got out of our PJs until after 3:00 when we were hungry and wanted to go get a hamburger!

Sunday – TODAY! D-DAY (Pick one: Daughter Day, Dump Day, Done Day) Up at 4:30 a.m. to drive the 35 miles to pick Daughter up at JDRC, then another 63 miles to the military school admissions site. It was a bittersweet time for us all. We are so glad she is going because she’s going to have a chance to make a huge positive change in her life. We are also very sad because for the next 4 weeks we will not be able to see her or talk to her on the phone at all. Letters only.

I’m really going to miss our Tuesdays together. Maybe I’ll go see what Oggy’s up to after all. On second thought - NAAAAHHH!

Wishing you Peace, Blessings, and a Miracle Buddy to help you through all your panic attacks.