My No Good, Very Bad Day.... With Good Pictures

For those of you who follow me on Facebook, you may have already heard my story of what happened to me on 08/14/2013, the day before my birthday.  If you haven't, please let me fill you in on the details.  It started of pretty great actually, I went to renew my license since it expired on my birthday, and that was the last thing I wanted to do on my actual birthday.  When I got there, I signed in with my cellphone and realized there was a two hour and forty-five minute wait.  Instead of waiting around, I decided to leave and come back when it was closer to my time.  They text you 15 minutes before your number is called, so I knew I would have the time.

I decided to go to a few of the parks in my neighborhood, of which there are around five.  I stopped at Riverside park first, but mainly walked along the river bank.  I then stopped at the gazebo of Villa Park, but not for very long.  I mainly wanted to see the small pond there  My last stop was Oak Park, one of the parks I rarely get to anymore.  I wish I did, especially since there is a nice walking trail that takes you through a wooded area.  I love it there, and will occasionally walk down the side trails as well.  I took a lot of pictures during the park time, pictures I'll share at the end of this story.  But as I was leaving, as I'm turning around to walk back to my car, I'm tackled by this huge dog and knocked to the ground.  The poor guy was wanting to play, and didn't mean any harm, but when he knocked me down, my camera fell on a rocky area, barely missing going into the water.  Now you would think that the dog's owner would have asked if I was okay, or at the least apologized for what happened.  Instead, she calls the dog away and disappears from view.  When I picked the camera up, all I saw was green static on the screen, and I could not turn the camera off.  The lens was stuck out, I thought the poor thing was finished.  Almost in tears, I took the battery off, which did shut the camera down.  When I put the battery back in, the screen went back to normal and I thought all was right with the world.  I was so wrong, the screen was actually cracked, and it was cracked right where the push screen button for my flash is at.  I had the flash off since I was taking pictures in the sunlight, and now it's stuck off.  I can no longer access that button.  So my camera works, but I can't use it inside after a certain time of day, or at night at all.

So I finally get back to the DMV, with 15 minutes to spare.  I get up to the counter and I'm told I don't have all the info I need, that I need to go home and come back.  You see, I had moved a few months earlier, but only to a different apartment within the same complex.  My street address had not changed, even though my apartment number had.  I had called them the week prior and was told since the street address did not change, I did not need to bring anything with me to prove the move.  Well now I'm being told I need that proof, and because of my already crappy day, I was less than happy about it.  So I storm off like a four year old, go home, and go back to the DMV.  Luckily, they didn't hold my temper tantrum against me, and allowed me back into line without having to wait too long.

So now I'm back home, wanting to rest a bit.  I'm lying in bed, watching TV and I notice that my patio doors are a little dirty.  I decide to wash them really quickly, and the inside takes just a few minutes.  Around this time, my roommate and son leave to go run some errands.  I leave my cellphone on the bed, and go outside to clean the windows.  As I'm cleaning them, the safety bar comes down and locks me out on my patio.  I'm on the second floor, with no real safe way down from my patio.  So I'm out there for about an hour to an hour and a half, when I decide I really, really need to go to the bathroom.  I'm hoping against hope that my front door was left unlocked, and I take my time trying to get down.  I eventually figure out the least dangerous way of getting down, and go for it.  When I land, I twist my ankle a bit, but thankfully with no other damage.  When I limped around the building, and up my stairs, I was praying that my front door was unlocked, and thank the lord it was.

After that, I took a shower, drank some wine, and posted about the day on Facebook.  I was really hoping all my bad luck came out on that day, so my birthday would go without a hitch.  For the most part, it did.  I had a quiet birthday, which was just what I wanted.

So now that I've bored you with my bad day, it's time to show you the pictures I took before everything took a turn for the worse.

The first eight pictures are from Riverside Park.

The following three pictures are from Villa Park

The rest of the pictures are from Oak Park.

I was standing on these rocks when I was knocked over.