There's a little black cloud round my head tonight

Did you ever have one of those days (weeks, months) where nothing seems to go right? I'm feeling a bit like Eeyore right now and trying not to do the "oh poor pitiful me" thing (well, except for blogging about my miseries).

I try not to talk about work, but it's been a circus lately, a constant state of flux that leaves me wondering what next. That sets the mood. Then my relatively new house (6 years old) seems to be falling apart. It started on Sunday. I wasn't in a good mood to start with (mid-life hormones and all). One of the zones on our sprinkler system wouldn't shut off. It ran for something like 3 hours. I was home alone. I pulled the lid off the valve box out in the yard, but couldn't get it to turn off. I turned the whole system off. It still ran. I unplugged the system. It still ran. I interrupted a golf match to get it taken care of. Probably not a good move on my part, but I had other things to do.

Today, the smoke detectors were apparently going off for 2-3 hours before there was resolution (had to interrupt the start of a trip for that one0. The sensors are hard wired with battery back ups. A low battery in any one of the dozen (seriously) sensors will cause the whole system to go, as will dust in the attic, temperature differentials between the attic and the hallway. Have to remove ALL of the batteries, then start replacing one-by-one to find the problem child. .

And speaking of problem children, one had a baseball game about 30 miles from home (45 miles from where I work) that I hightailed it to. Brother of child not playing called to see if he could come, but since I was already within a mile, that was out of the question (remember, this is within an hour of the smoke detector fiasco). No sooner had I arrived at the park (5 minutes later) than I got a frantic call about damage to a car. Minor stuff, really--a mirror broken off pulling into the garage. But this is the car with the lease that is up in a month, and just another chink in the armor. Then came the baseball game--the boys did not play well--they are probably having the end-of-school jumpiness. It made for a long evening. It was longer because I spent 40 minutes in a car coming home with a 14 year old who attituded himself right out of dinner (he had to fend for himself when we got home). And now the Red Wing are losing. Maybe a bubble bath will help. I'll find out if and when I pull my head out of the sand.

Send me jokes people (clean ones!). I need a good laugh.