Mind over matters...

There was a time when I was actually the mistress of my domain and could rely on my mental acuity alone to maintain a running inventory of foodstuffs, cleaning supplies, and essential bits of clothing, not only for myself, but for each member of the household.

Times have certainly changed and I am unsure whether it is a function of advanced age (thirty-eight is old) or the continuing pressures of life's demands, but my brain has begun to short-circuit and the once clear and sharp mental pictures of where things were are hazy at best and increasingly blank.

Case in point: a month ago I took some great shots of the girls that I wanted to share with family and friends. I uploaded the images to Snapfish to order multiple prints of each shot. From the time I ordered the prints until they arrived in the mail, the four year old had pictures taken at day school. Instead of immediately mailing the pictures out when they arrived, I secured one set for me in the photo album and decided to hang onto the rest until the "school" pictures came in, a "kill two birds" kind of thing.

Well, the school pictures have arrived (and, yes, they are delightful!), but I will be damned if I cannot find what the hell I did with all those prints that I ordered. If there were not a set of them in the photo album, I would swear I did not order them to begin with.

Seriously, this kind of thing drives me completely insane. I have zero tolerance for it and it puts me in an absolute twist.

Add to the mix, one of the two new cordless phones I just bought is absent from its cradle. Apparently, it has been absent for a while because the battery in it has died and we are unable to activate the "homing" alarm which is "supposed" to alert us to its whereabouts. I have no clue where the damn thing is.

Last night, the wee child prepared for her bath by selecting the appropriate sleepwear for the night.

This is a big deal to her. There are nightgowns, pajamas, and short sets to choose from and it makes her happy to be able to ruminate and reflect on just the right ensemble each evening. I like to think on occasion I actually choose my battles and this is not one where there will be any winners, so I learned long ago to let her have her way and not to rush her.

In any event, she picked out a pajama set then announced she had no clean panties to wear.

Not possible.

Simply not possible.

When I buy panties, I buy freakin' panties and before school started, I bought panties for both girls, copious panties for both girls.

In addition, my washing machine seldom has a day of rest. There was no way that child had no clean underwear.

So, I sounded the alarm and had both girls join me in the search for a four-year-old's panties.

Total number recovered from a house-wide search, including the hamper and the ones on her little body: three.

Less than a month ago I bought no less than a dozen new pairs, not to mention the ones she already owned prior to the shopping excursion.

The wee child and twelve-year-old both remember her picking out which panty packages she wanted: Sponge Bob (don't ask), Princess Barbie, Strawberry Shortcake, and Hello Kitty. I remember buying the damn things. What I do not specifically recall is opening the packages and washing them, but something tells me I've seen Sponge Bob in the wash on more than one occasion in recent weeks.

Could it be someone is nicking my wee child's knickers??

Or have I just completely lost my mind?