Check, check, check, no check

Hire a sports guy - check (did that Monday)
Buy my dream German Shepherd - check (did that Tuesday)
Cry angry tears because I couldn't get my pilot lights to stay lit - check (did that Wednesday)
Deliver 7 Aussie pups - check (did that Thursday)

It's amazing how, out of all those glorious things, it's the one piddly thing in the middle that drew my emotion Wednesday night.

Okay, so I'm a girl.

But at that moment, when I'm laying on my stomach in front of the hot water heater, flame thrower in hand, trying to make sense of the directions and it's not working, and I really just want to take a bath and enjoy the luxury of, oh you know, hot water - at that moment angry tears burned my eyes and I grumbled about the "f*&^ing directions" and the "damn hot water heater" and I think I even (gently) tossed the flame thrower on the table in hopeless retreat.

So I can't do everything. And lighting pilot lights is one of those things.

"Where is a man when you need one?" was the real question running through my mind. When you actually need one for all the handiness that makes them, well, different from me, you can't find one.

My co-worker mused over lunch:
"Holly, I just can't figure it out. I mean, you stay up all night to deliver puppies, you're a ranching girl, you cook, and you STILL can't snag yourself a good cowboy? Not even to light your pilot lights?"

Yeah, that's how bad it's gotten, Sam. I can't even get a damn pilot light lit.

As if my honey-do list wasn't long enough after 25 years of...waiting, I've got one more thing to add before the order is shipped:

MUST LIGHT FIRE

The interpretation is yours to make.

While you're making it, I'm heading home to make a truce with the flame thrower I (gently) tossed on the table last night and try this whole thing over again. You know, with as much flame and propane as I've been mixing in the house over the past two days it's a wonder there hasn't been an explosion on my road.