The Sorely Trying Day

The Sorely Trying Day is a children's book that I love by Lillian and Russell Hoban. (Russell Hoban also wrote the Frances books.) It details how a day goes terribly wrong for a family and what they do to make it better. It's charming. It has also become a short hand around here for days that just continue to fall apart. 

Mine began with the barn chores taking significantly longer than usual because everything is thawing. It's good that it's thawing and I'm thrilled to get to start putting things back to rights, but it takes a long time and is a lot of physical labor. 

School actually was fine, but we got interrupted by a phone call from the vet. They finally got Vienna's labs back. It took so long because the lab couldn't believe the number for Vienna's insulin the first time around. It is literally off the charts. It explains a lot of what we're seeing with her, but that doesn't make it good. I spent a good part of the afternoon chasing down special hay and collecting yet more medicine for her. The vet bill arrived in my inbox today and I haven't had the guts to open it yet. I'm feeling more than a little defeated because we've done everything right. But, as I've been told more than once over the past few days, ponies are like that.

It probably also explains why I've also been stewing about a couple of replies I received on something I wrote explaining why families like mine find comments from other Christians to be so painful. I'm not feeling as though my filter is functioning very well, so you want to see?


I can't decide whether it is worth replying or not. I'm pretty sure I won't be heard, but I rarely write on social media to the original poster. I write for all those other people reading, who might be filled with hurt or shame because they only hear one voice. For the record, I think this comment is all shades of wrong and I actually can create a cogent (and calm) response. But how much value does it create for how much effort the calmness will cost me? I don't know. It also goads me just a bit to have the writer think I am cowed because of my silence. I realize that specifically is completely a me problem and I should probably just let it go. 

I'll pause while everyone works on getting rid of the ear worm I just put in your head.

But we did manage to redeem the day a bit. One of my many errands today was to stop by Patel Brothers grocery store to pick up a few things because we were having an Indian dish (palak paneer if you're curious... paneer cheese in a mixture of onions and tomatoes) for dinner. Fresh samosas and chapatis do go a long way towards making everything better, don't they? 

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