Today was an otherwise really good day completely wrecked by a bad moment. I went out around 4:45 to buy a gift for Frances that I had a coupon for, and when I got in the store, I realized that my ATM card is gone. What's irritating about this is that this is a multi-times-a-year occurrence. I've lost so many cards that it's obviously my fault. I'm ashamed of my behavior. I broke a whole set of small toy china and also kicked out some slats in the dog gate to our kitchen. And was mean to my kids, since I was feeling so terrible myself. I was deeply angered that the kids would not help, even with a promise of a $100 check if anyone found the card. They wouldn't move from their video game. It was the moment that I realized that I'm such a pathetic case and always have a problem and always have something I need now and can't find, and no one even cares any more. I should be shot and killed. I was seriously thinking about killing myself by the time I had ripped apart my car and house again. I'm sure my family would run much more smoothly with someone more organized in charge.

What's kind of ironic and uncanny is how my driver's license or my ATM card ends up being lost when I've just done major cleaning. And it was gone before I started the cleaning, and i never come across them in my cleaning. This afternoon I thoroughly cleaned my car, and last night, because Ollie wasn't feeling well, I cleared the kitchen, living room, all bathrooms, and Frances's room so I could disinfect and keep things clean in case the rest of us went down with a nasty illness. I have physical evidence that I last used the card at 2:20 yesterday afternoon, and after that, I went home, sat on the bed for more than an hour while Rutledge napped, then gathered children and took them to the play. By the time I got home, Kerry and the boys were back.

When I lost my driver's license a few weeks ago and didn't have it for election day, I beat myself up horribly. Guess where it finally turned up? In a Kleenex box under the Lego table in Rutledge's room, with a bunch of tissues on top of it.

What frightens me most about all of this is that I'm worried that my mind is going. I'm worried that I have early onset dementia or some kind of genuine problem that makes me leave things in unpredictable places and makes it difficult for me to go through my daily routines without problems.

Friday night, I was really torn apart by forgetting to take the canned food for the Thanksgiving basket to the Cub Scout meeting. It was on the counter, but by the time I got all four kids in the car and looked for an extra checkbook (I had only one check left and three checks to write), then ripped apart my room looking for the new Webelos uniform patches for their new uniforms--still missing, I guess I left without the food. Kerry said we didn't have any more checkbooks, but I knew I had seen one somewhere earlier that day or the day before. Somewhere like under a table or beneath a piece of furniture in a pile of dust bunnies. When I had to make my emergency trip back home with Frances and Rutledge, I managed to come across one in a basket on the wall in our home office, but it was the damn darkest night I've ever seen, it was about 25 degrees and windy, and I somehow dropped one of the cans of food out of the plastic bag it was in, so it turns out that the basket is short a can of green beans anyway. I also lost the check I wrote to the Den Leader for their dues, and had to write another one (I found the original one in my car right after the meeting, but it was too late). I can't do anything right.

I am reminded each and every day lately that there is no way that I could work outside my home. I am simply lacking all executive function. Nearly every single day I do something that would be entirely unacceptable if I was working for or responsible to someone else, something egregious enough to get me fired. What matters is getting it *all* right. Today further drove home that no amount of other deeds can counteract the one awful one (losing the card); twenty rights don't make up for a wrong. I started as usual by cleaning up the shoes, socks, bedding and remotes and video game cases that were left all over the living room (the dogs can't come in unless all chewable things are put up). Then I put in a new rug under all of the furniture so it will be more comfortable when we have guests this week, no small task with a 30 pound dog and a 35 pound child standing on it every time I needed to adjust the position. I put 1.5 coats of paint on our end table, turning it from "distressed" off-white with lots of stains and water damage to black. I repainted five of our kitchen cabinets and the side and back facings of the cabinets, which were badly nicked and had lots of dirt and food stains and grease on them and needed some retouching before guests come for the holidays (unfortunately, though I chose to just repaint with the creamier white Duration paint I have, which is supposed to be extremely wipeable, the color is reading pinkish to me, and I don't think I can deal with that and will end up repainting what I've done), and started to steam the carpets upstairs. I bleached and then semi-power-washed the area around our front door, which was really nasty and full of spider webs, bug smears, and mildew. Unfortunately, the hose wasn't doing enough, so I re-bleached and then hand wiped what I could reach from a chair. I also got some of the junk off the porch, like the mail Kerry left there Friday.

One thing I can say: I did not sit down once today after we came home from the potluck at church, not once until I sat for a few minutes while Frances was at "open gym" tonight. I put away lots and lots of other people's things, washed other people's clothes, took down the shower curtain other people have used, did yardwork no one else will do, repaired and reinstalled window mullions that I didn't break, and even ate my dinner standing up with Kerry goading me to go faster, faster, so that he could put Rutledge to sleep. Basically, it was my standard day: wake up and immediately start picking up things I didn't put there. And then end the day by listening to everyone else snore while I walk around and turn off all the lights in everyone's room. I should not complain though--at least the economy of this country and the future of any company or county don't depend on me! What's sad is that this is my chosen job, and I can't expect other people to do my job and the job they get paid for because I'm not competent at mine.

Here's how pathetic I am and how much I want to blame someone other than myself, who really deserves it. I figured that I probably lose my ATM card an average of twice a year, and I most likely use it in an average of 2 transactions per day (withdrawals, gas, purchases, food, etc.)--yesterday I had 4 uses of it. So it's only getting where it isn't supposed to be about 1 time for every 365 times or more that I pull it out. Those odds don't sound so bad, do they?!