It's only money

Today I started backing up out of the parking lot when I heard a big "crunch."

I hate that sound when you're in the car.

I had forgotten to load my stroller back in the car and had driven onto it. It took three guys and a crate to delicately maneuver me off of the stroller while trying to do minimal damage to the stroller and no damage to the car (we hoped).

It happened because I loaded four humongous bags of compost into my trunk, well, the Lowe's guy did the loading and even he commented "wow, these are heavy-did you lift them onto the cart yourself?" Yes, I did... anyway, back to the story. I took the stroller out so we could load them. We even talked about the stroller and how he had the same brand. He shut the trunk and said, you're all set, have a nice day, and without further ado I got back in my car and started to drive.

Considering the big crunch it made I got off pretty lucky. We think we can bend it back into place. And wash off the tire marks on the metal and the canopy.

I didn't take it too well initially though, and drove to Costco in tears. I got in line at the gas station-the two pumps were in use in the line I chose- and turned around to give my crying child a snack. I turned back to the front to notice a guy just pulling into the front pump. I couldn't believe it. I was in line, I had hardly been turned around for a few seconds, it should have been obvious I was in line and just helping my kid, and this guy just chose to completely ignore me and cut in front of me. In the crushed stroller state of mind I was in I didn't take it too well. I had my response ready for when I finally got my turn and got out of my car. He was still in front of me, but I held my tongue and only gave him half an evil eye.

After shopping at Costco I came out and looked at my tire which looked like it was going flat. Great. The one where I had run over the stroller. In more tears I drove to the tire place (I had to get back to pick Rebecca up from the bus) but in the end he thought it might just be low. He filled it up and told me to keep an eye on it.

This story leads me to something I've been wanting to write about for awhile now. One of my biggest personality challenges. I don't take my own mistakes very well. Especially when they involve things that cost money to fix. (Things that can't be fixed with money are a topic in themselves-for another day.)

For example, nothing drives me more crazy than a lost library book. I try to tell myself, it's only money, but that doesn't help. (Luckily I've found them all so far and haven't had to pay for one yet.) Or the time I broke some little piece off my brand new expensive paper cutter. Or mail in rebates we forget to mail in.

I get frustrated with the things the kids do to hurt the house/furniture/etc., but not anywhere nearly as badly as the things I mess up myself. In my mind I should be above silly mistakes and accidents. It's a very uptight part of myself and one I'm not happy with or proud of and one I'm trying to work with, but it's very very hard for me. I know there are things in our lives which are out of our control, but the things in my control I feel like I shouldn't be messing up. Like putting a stroller down and while doing it thinking: I shouldn't be putting this on the ground, I might forget it!

Luckily I have a husband who listens, who never gets mad about me breaking/ruining/losing ANYTHING. I don't think I could do anything wrong in his eyes in that department.
He's a gem.

One piece of advice that I tried to use today with another incident was something along these lines: if it's not something that will be a serious concern for you in ten years, why worry about it now. It helped somewhat. Does anyone have any other good ideas? HELP!