Female Pheasant, originally uploaded by CaroWallis1.

A bunch of Brad's friends from high school are coming over tomorrow night. We don't see them very often and they haven't been to our place since we moved in two and a half years ago, so I guess it's a bigger deal than your average gathering.

Naturally, I've procrastinated on getting ready for it. There's food to be prepared and some cleaning to be done. But I was sure Friday night and Saturday during the day would be plenty of time for all this.

This is why procrastinating is bad: because you never know what's going to happen at the last minute. Hint: this is probably a good time to be asking yourself why on earth I'm posting a photo of a pheasant.

This magnificent creature ran out in front of my car tonight. I slammed on the brakes, but to no avail. I can't seem to shake the upset feeling. It happened about four hours ago; the stomach pains are just starting to subside, but I still can't stop crying.

We managed to get the grocery shopping done, but I'm so depressed right now I honestly don't know how I'm going to clean and get the food ready before tomorrow evening. I can't make Brad do all of it, not with his broken bone. And as lovely as I think the people are who are coming over, I can't get excited about seeing anyone right now.

These are the kinds of days when I wish I had a thicker skin, like a normal person. Yet I'm not sure I'd want to not be this horrified by killing something, either.