Awful, Wonderful Day

I was running behind this morning, as usual. To say my daughter and I aren't morning people is oh-so-truthful. I don't plan many things for the morning. On Monday, I was supposed to meet up with the coordinator of the Banff After School program, but my husband was home sick with a bug and my daughter was bit sluggish. In the end, she didn't get sick but we rescheduled our meeting for today, at 11 AM. No worries, right? Well, yes and no. We were ready to leave the house on time, but driving would probably have been a better idea than walking. Both in time factor and the fact that there were storm clouds brewing, something I only noticed once we were pretty far from home. I almost turned around but QQ wanted to "walk" (she was in the stroller)... so I pretty much ran, and I was pulling up to the Town Office pretty much on time. I started to gather all our bags and my child and then I noticed, MY PURSE WAS GONE!! It had been hanging off that thingy you hang your bags off of on a jogwger stroller. And now it was GONE. Of course, I am panicking, not sure if it fell off or, since I live in a densely populated tourist town this time of year, if it was stolen. I was completely frustrated that I was going to have to run and tell the person I was meeting that I needed to reschedule YET AGAIN. I ran in, put down my other bags, daughter on hip, not even able to remember the name of the person I needed to meet. There were about four people standing inside the door of the community services office and I blurted out, "I just lost my purse, I have to go." One woman, was like, "go,go!" and the person I was meeting who had at this point been identified, looked shocked. Then, I left. As I RAN back through all the steps I had taken I was feeling for the most part stupid. Stupid because I had been in such a rush, stupid because I had not taken the car (since I would have just throw my purse in), stupid because I know better than to hang my purse on the stroller when I can put it safely underneath the stroller, stupid because every time I try to do something work related lately I feel like I fail, stupid because maybe I was just an airhead and had left the purse in the house, or the garage, or on top of the car in the driveway, stupid because I had worn uncomfortable shoes with no socks and now my heels had blisters the size of quarters... I was huffing and puffing when I got home. No purse on the car or in the driveway, not in the front entry, upstairs, or the garage. Oh, I forgot to mention in between feeling stupid I was thinking, "oh no, my cell phone (which I had already replaced last fall because I put it on top of the car and drove away), my wallet, my $600 Leica Point and Shoot digicam that I bought myself for Christmas after wanting it for two years, my little notebooks with all my ideas, notes, designs.... gone, all gone! I hate owning things I can't do without but I guess to some extent that is inevitable. We need wallets, I am a photographer so I need a camera, and well, cell phones... No purse at home, at least I was not an airhead. I called my cell phone, no answer and more importantly I could not hear it ringing in the house. I called my husband to tell him the whole story. I called my credit card company and my US debit card to place blocks on the accounts. I called the woman who I still needed to meet with to reschedule and apologize. Andre, my husband, called the Town to find out where I should file a missing purse report, which conveniently happens to be at the Town Office, where I was now headed back to for my meeting. As I got in the car it dawned on me that I had ALMOST put my house and car keys in my purse but had handed them to my daughter instead, otherwise we would not have gotten into the house and could not now drive the car. A-ha, things COULD be worse. And my two year old had actually been really really extra good while I was making all of these phone calls, since she knew I was distraught. I drove to the Town Office, had a great meeting while QQ played on the floor in their box of toys. Good news is, I am going to be the local artist who comes in to teach the Recycled Art Project for the After School Program, one Monday a month, starting in Setember. Yippee! I am very excited about that! Ok, off to file a missing purse report, and then we went to the PO, Nester's Local Grocery, the Parks Administration Building, and the OH Canada Museum to see if anyone had turned my purse in. Nope. But, I did make 6 Polaroid Spectra double exposures for my October exhibit during the course of all this craziness. I figured why not since we were visiting all these local places, which are a big part of the subject matter of my exhibit. Are you starting to see the theme of my day, Awful, Wonderful? All day it was bitter sweet. Well, ok, not all day. It was exactly 2 1/2 hours from the time that I lost my purse to the time I returned home to hear Andre on our voice mail telling me he had found my purse by calling my cell phone every five minutes until someone picked up. It was at the coffee shop next to the post office and he was on his way to get it!!! OH, yeah! No more thoughts of applying for a replacement health card, driver's license, debit card, etc etc etc. I just had a feeling it was all still in my purse. And I was getting a warm fuzzy feeling about how I knew that someone would do the right thing (ok, I didn't know, I had my doubts, but I was hoping...) and how great that is! Andre came home, all was in my purse, and he told me that someone had turned it in and how nice the people who had it were and I felt like I am right to think the best of my fellow man. Breathe. Deep breath... get on with the rest of the day. Call and take the block off the cards, have lunch, get Etsy trade and client CD ready for the post office, drive to Canmore, go to thrift store, find house plant (yippee!) and some terracotta pots for after school program, as well as some chipped pottery destined for recycling to use for my kitchen back splash, QQ & I see chiropractor, pick up snapshots at photo lab from our Ottawa trip, go to post office, drive home, Q nap, edit client session, meet friends visiting on a whim from Vancouver for dinner, grab Starbucks, home, get friends settled for 4 day stay, have a glass of wine, package another Etsy order, sit and chat, put Q to bed, upload portrait client session to the web. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!