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There's a children's book I think about anytime I'm having a bad day.

My mother read it to me frequently when I was a child, and one of the lines in it has stuck in my head through the years.

"Some days are like that, even in Australia."

The 1972 book is called, "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day." Written by Judith Viorst and illustrated by Ray Cruz, it has won awards and been featured on children's shows, including "Reading Rainbow," which I watched as a child.

Alexander's day involved things that bug you when you're a child, such as not finding a prize in the cereal box, losing a toy, going to the dentist, the wrong pajamas being clean, etc. The issue was that it was one thing after another, all adding up to a really, really bad day.

And to make matters worse, his mother keeps on telling him that it's just part of life, essentially, "get over it."

One of the best parts of this book is that everyone can identify with Alexander; we all have bad days. And I think each of us has had his or her own version of a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day - or several of them.

Monday was one for me.

It was one of those days when it feels like nothing is going right, when there is absolutely no time to do everything that needs to be done, and too many things keep popping up, one after another.

What those things were is not really important to you, I'm sure. (I will let you know that it wasn't which pajamas were clean, which would have been my own darn fault, since I wash my laundry.) It was just life's little - and big - annoyances.

Individually, I could handle them, no problem.

Like for Alexander in the book, it was when they kept piling on top of one another that it turned into my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

Maybe I wasn't as prepared for the new week as I should have been Monday morning. Maybe I tried to cram too many things into one day. Maybe I should have cleaned off my desk last week, instead of procrastinating. Maybe this, maybe that.

I couldn't put the blame anywhere except on myself.

But, man, if I didn't want to chuck my hat against the wall, tear my hair out, throw a temper tantrum and then spend some time sulking in the dark in the bathroom.

But some days are like that, even in Australia. And my Mommy isn't here to tell me that (although she was here this weekend for the holiday), so I have to tell myself.

My staff hears me repeat the "Australia" line frequently. It's a way of calming myself down, especially when I know I need to take a moment and collect my thoughts before speaking - or even blinking or making a face.

And while "some days are like that, even in Australia" is the saying from my mother that I think about and use most frequently in these situations, I sometimes also think about a couple of my mother's other sayings from when I was a child.

My siblings and I would often say, "that's not fair!"

Mom would reply, "the fair's in August," or "the fair's where they show the pigs."

In other words, life's not fair - get over it.

She was right, of course.

Life's not fair. And some days are like that - even in Craig.