Day Five Hundred and Seventy

The Frustrated Jacksonville Resident

Multitasking at its finest.

This is what happens with the Husband tells me I have 5 minutes to get ready.

Ok, exhale.

The past two days (actually three, but I can't technically count today yet) have been quite frustrating. It seems that I have a knack for wandering into the sketchy parts of town. And if you know me, you know that I'm the definition of scaredy cat. On Monday, I found my way to four different dollar stores, all of which I was too afraid to enter. Finally, I trashed the dollar store idea and just went to Wal Mart. Yesterday, I called TEN seamstresses and visited two before quitting my search. I was seven miles away from home by then and decided just to sit down at a local cafe to write my blog. I stepped into the cafe to order and knew this would be a first for me. Nobody spoke English, and in fact, I don't know what language they did speak. That's fine with me. I got my coffee and sat down to drink it. Then the smoke hit me. On every single table, an ash tray was centered. And at every single table: a smoker. Dang. And finally today (I'm cheating and telling you a bit of what I just now went through)...I'm about two steps from going off the edge. All I wanted to do was get our truck washed. It had bird poop, bug guts, and dirt all over it and was really looking disgusting. I drove to five (5!!!!!!!) car washes before I felt ok about getting out of the truck. And now I'm 18 miles away from home. At least this dumb thing is clean now! Maybe I'm just paranoid. Maybe I'm being too sensitive. But I don't think that's the case. Jacksonville, from what I've heard, has some very scary parts to it. In fact, I've read that it's murder rate is the highest in Florida. This certainly isn't Jupiter, but I'm hoping that given a few more days, I'll be able to actually find my way around the safe parts of town. Because I know they exist! Oh! I found out, too, after my horrendous afternoon, that unlike anywhere I've ever lived, Jacksonville is a GIGANTIC city and comes with traffic so heavy that I'm NEVER driving at 5 PM again. Darn. Darn. Darn! Not a good day...

And it didn't get better either. At least not for a while. When I finally got home after my unsuccessful search for a seamstress, I noticed a burning smell. Uh oh. Well, turns out that I forgot to blow out the candle I had lit 5 hours earlier. But actually, that wasn't the problem. Come to find out, the coffee pot that I purchased on Monday doesn't automatically turn off by itself! You must do it manually. Lesson learned. And now my brand new coffee pot has burned coffee to the bottom of it. Awesome.

Finally, my day saw the light! It always does...and I just need to keep that in mind when I'm the most frustrated. I got to see Adam throw in a "sim game" yesterday against his teammates. I was stealthy in my entrance because I was the only fan in the crowd...and to me, that's intimidating. So I tried my best to be sneaky. Adam did spot me though. That boy has some good eyes on him! I sat back, relaxed, and watched my man do his thing. He was allowed two innings of 15 pitches each, regardless of the number of outs he recorded. But I did count them! In 30 pitches, he faced 8 hitters and got them all out! Atta boy! I can't wait to see him in his real uniform when he pitches on SATURDAY!!