Life at 7000 feet

After I posted the snow pics yesterday afternoon, I was looking at all the pics stored on my camera and thinking that I really needed to download to my computer. One of my *darling* children was looking at them with me and basically wrenching the camera from my hands. I finally just handed it over, and this child (who will remain nameless) immediately dropped my camera. I groaned and made a not-so-nice remark and glared at this child for a minute before they left the room in shame--with my camera still in hand. About a minute later, this child returns in tears and hands me my beloved camera...broken. Nothing on the screen and totally unresponsive to the control panel. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. My camera is dead. And I am depressed. I totally wanna blame the kid who dropped it...but I think I already made them feel bad enough. I called John at work near tears, and he made me feel a *little* better promising we'd get another one. But I spent the remainder of the afternoon and evening sulking in my chair in front of the tube. I even managed to catch the episode of LOST that I missed last week and even stayed awake for the new episode that followed. WOW. Impressive.

So this morning we're heading out the door for school and errands and I look at the beautiful sunshine and my kids in shorts and see about 18 inches of snow in our front yard and driveway and think I need to take a picture before we leave. But then I remember, I can't. And I feel mad again. Yuck. Abbey and I drop the kids off and head to Target so I can get the stuff I need for a baby shower I'm helping host this weekend. At Target I coast by the cameras and see red clearance stickers on ALL the models in their case. Okay, that gets my attention. And the camera that I want, which is the newer model of the one I have is marked down from $350 to $200. So I call John and ask if I can buy this (getting close to payday and we're on a tight budget) and he says he's been praying about the whole camera thing, but he'll let me decide about buying it. So I walk around Target for 20 minutes or so (praying) and decide it's a deal. God's will?? Who knows, but I think this is a phenomenal deal and it's a whole lot easier for me to justify $200 than $350. So I'm happy, happy, happy again. Even tried it out while eating lunch. I think I hit the jackpot. The kids were sweet this morning. They knew that I was upset about the whole thing yesterday and they gave me a beautiful picture they collaborated on coloring. Will said they were saving it for Mother's Day, but thought I needed it earlier. And then they asked if they could put up a lemonade stand and use the earnings to buy me a new camera. Sweet, huh? If they decide to sell lemonade this afternoon, you can guarantee I'll be taking lots of photos...and they'll be pleased to get to keep their money.