rainbows and ponies and flowers, oh my!

written at 9:11 a.m. on 08.12.04

There are days when I love my life, when my life could be illustrated with rainbows and ponies and flowers and sunshine. Today is not one of those days. It is August. It is also fifty four degrees Fahrenhiet. The skies are clouded and grey, and I worked an obnoxiously long day at work.

Work was unexpectedly interesting, and I was solving a lot of major problems. There is nothing more rewarding than being faced with a massive, seemingly impossible challenge and then wrestling that challenge to the ground, dancing in victory over its corpse. I literally left work with a humongous grin on my face, skipping out to my car. I ended the work day by defeating yet another challenge, this time by finding a much-needed book for my music pastor. He had called in earlier, sending me looking for the book, which I could not find. I put one on order, but he hung up anxious and not completely satisfied. I located the book elsewhere in the store just as my shift was ending. I quickly called the church and proclaimed the news joyously to my pastor, offering to swing by and drop off the book immediately. He was stunned into silence for a moment, then burst out laughing, saying, "Rachel, I'm never going to let you go to college!" I laughed, telling him I really desperately needed an education, and he agreed to let me go. I dropped off the book, and the look of joy on his face made me so incredibly happy! Words cannot even begin to describe the surge of pleasure that raced through my veins as I helped serve one of the most important people in my life.

Now, by this point, the introductory paragraph seems to make no sense at all. The "natural high" lasted for quite some time. In fact, I even agreed to give up a night of designing for a night with my mom, watching The Mexican one last time before we return it to Blockbuster. Then, the inevitable happened. I let my mom's late-night irritability get under my skin, and I wrote the introductory paragraph of this entry.

As I write this, I am realizing that I am letting one bad argument ruin an entirely amazing day. Writing about the great day I had at work makes me forget about the pain in my neck, back, and knees. The joy has not completely faded, and I suppose I shall just forgive my mother and enjoy a great day. Though.. the weather did suck. My dad's company has a branch in Florida, and one of the executives was here this week. He complained today that "The weather in Florida doesn't get this cold even in winter!" But, snuggling up under blankets gave me a prime opportunity to snuggle with my lap-snuggling cat (as opposed to the non-lap-snuggling cat). I will miss my little fuzzballs, even though the lap-snuggling one has licked most of her fuzz off of her rear end. Poor thing.

Wow, I have no idea where the optimistic "Well, on the bright side" Rachel came from, but hopefully she will find the courage to make appearances more often. Meanwhile, all this happiness stuff is draining the energy from my body, so I shall retire. Being that my mom decided that I had not worked enough hours for the internet to be turned on, I shall post this a day late. (Can you guess from whence the argument stemmed?) I bid you all a very fond farewell.