Dogs are nature's happy pills

I thought for sure that today was going to be a bad day right from the beginning. I have an alarm set up on my phone to go off every Tuesday & Thursday morning at 7 a.m. so I can wake up my daughter to get her ready for school. I woke up at 7:33 a.m. this morning...crap I'm running later. I looked at my phone to see if something messed up or if the battery died, but no, the alarm had gone off--I just didn't hear it. I hurried up and got out of bed and got her milk ready all the while feeling a migraine coming on. Oh the morning migraine, my favorite. That usually means I'm going to have a headache all day--yay me. So after her milk is ready I go and wake her up. Luckily for me she is nice and happy when she wakes up in the morning, something she gets from her dad :-)

So she turns on the TV and I give her her milk and go to sit next to her like she asked me to. But as soon as I sit down and see what time it is, I realize I don't have any time to relax because I have to get ready so I can get her ready once she's done with her milk. If I were Jewish this is where I would say 'oy vey'. So I get myself dressed and ready, then I get her ready. Ironically enough us waking up late and rushing causes us to leave the house a little earlier than normal. Go figure!

So we get to school and I'm starting to feel a little relieved that the morning went smoother than I expected for waking up late, minus the headache I have that is progressively getting worse. Then I see it--carts outside the classrooms for us to put food on. Food that we volunteered to make for the preschool Thanksgiving get-together on Thursday. Carts for the banana bread I volunteered to make and didn't because I thought we didn't have to bring it in until Thursday, since that is when the get-together is. This is what is going on in my mind: "What the...? Are you serious? Crap..."

Talking to one of the other mothers I realize that I'm not the only that thought that the food didn't need to be brought until Thursday, but there on the bottom of the signup sheet in bold letters is "Bring food in on Tuesday, November 17th!" So after dropping Lilly off at school I realize that instead of going home and getting to work out with my sister-in-law, I have to hurry up and make 2 loaves of banana bread....again, oy vey.

I stop for breakfast on the way home, hurry up and eat, take migraine medication, and realize I have to go to the grocery store because I don't have enough eggs. Call the sister to tell her working out will have to wait, then go to the store and get eggs, extra flour (just in case) and 2 disposable loaf pans. Get home and start making banana bread. Open up the pantry to get some of the ingredients I need and leave the door open knowing I'll have to put this stuff back in a minute.

Then here comes my 8 year old black lab Allie. Even though she's technically a "senior" dog, she doesn't act like it...still hyper but not as hyper as she was as a puppy. She goes and gets her squeaky tennis ball from the bottom of the pantry and starts running around the house squeaking that ball. She comes back in and drops it on the floor next to me and then her ears perk up and she starts pawing at it trying to get it out of the corner. That did it. I instantly just felt so much better. She looked so cute playing with her ball and so freaking happy running around making it make noise that I just felt like "ahh..."

All the pressure and frustration and the worry just instantly lifted off my shoulders and went away. When she came back into the kitchen with the ball in her mouth trying to dig a second ball out of the pantry I just started dying laughing. I looked at her and said, "Allie, I love you!" That crazy dog just made my day.