I truly believe God never gives me more than I can handle.

But every now and then, during the odd moment of weakness, I’m prone to little pity parties.

Care to join me? I’m projecting this lonely little lady tonight. Video is at the bottom in case you’d like to read the rest of this whine accompanied by depressing music.

April was busy.

In addition to doing the A to Z Challenge here on the blog, I also started a new job, had volunteer commitments, managed to FINALLY sort out French summer camp (warrants a blog series of its own), celebrated my eldest daughter’s First Communion (that involved dress and shoe shopping, brunch booking and managing to get her not to wear the shoes or dress until the ACTUAL DAY), planned and hosted a party for my husband’s 40th, hosted my mother-in-law for a weekend, dealt with tutor scheduling issues, paid our taxes, managed to exercise a few times, bought a new car (’cause our old one died) and managed to get necessary shoe and birthday gift shopping in there as well along with other standard weekly commitments.

I’m sure I missed stuff, but you get the picture.

I kissed my mother-in-law goodbye and went to work the morning of Monday, May 1.

I came home to water in our basement for the first time in four years.

Granted, we’ve gotten a lot of rain.

And it was just a trickle, and certainly fixable.

But COME ON.

Not even a week to collect myself before you throw the next volley?

It was less the water – which was minimal – than what I knew would be my husband’s reaction when he came home.

We’ll figure it out.

I’m coping.

Which Karma apparently interpreted as “smug”.

So, today, after a long day at work, I picked my kids up from after-care and my eldest excitedly and expectantly handed me this specially crafted invitation:

For those who either can’t read French, or my daughter’s penmanship, it’s an invite to a school open-house. Tomorrow. At 1:00pm.

Conversation kinda went like this:

Mom, you’re coming right?

…. uh, I can’t. I didn’t know until now and I can’t rearrange work to be there.

What happened next felt kinda like this:

While this clearly wasn’t the best time to be having this conversation because she was tired, it’s not like I was given much choice, so I explained I had a job and meetings and commitments that I couldn’t change on less than 24 hours notice.

I told her I’d be happy to attend events in future if I know about them, but that an invite the day before is bad planning. I asked if she’d wait until the day before her birthday party to invite anyone.

She likes party planning, so that one calmed her down and made her think things through.

That let her at least randomly attempt homework while I took a moment to draft a note to the teacher explaining my frustration.

I then saved the draft and went bog walkin’ at Mer Bleue with the girls.

Because Tuesday is Brownie night, and tonight? Well, that’s how they rolled. Family was welcome to join and little sis was pretty thrilled.

Little sis is in the pink and big sis is sporting moody faux leather (because I’m not coming to open-house).

So, let’s get back to the rain. Because, wow, lots already and more coming.

With the open-house drama we were late leaving the house.

My boots were at work and my youngest’s are too small so we were both in runners.

We had planned to shop last Thursday, but a warm evening and impromptu street fun with the neighbours derailed that plan.

So, bad mom. No boots.

I got there and Brown Owl loaned me hers. Then another mom had a spare pair in her car that fit my youngest and gifted them to us.

I also truly believe in the village – and the community required to raise children. A blogger I love spent much time reflecting on this a few years back here. It’s like tonight they just knew I needed help.

My youngest even ended up having a classmate there, so she was thrilled. They’ll be Sparks together next year and so she’s psyched. My eldest calmed down. I calmed down.

Rain even held out until the end.

But even though it didn’t?

Meh. We got boots.

I edited and hit send on my email to the teacher and got a response. There was apparently a note in the last school newsletter about open house. I suspect I ignored it because, well, I work so not available and didn’t realize this would happen. She apologized. I felt heard. We’re good.

Tomorrow?

Let’s dance.

Just remember I’m wearing boots.

As for the title inspiration for this post, here’s the video. From 1999, it was Scottish band Travis’ international breakout hit. It was big when I was in London, England on a school term in 2000: