Perspective

I try to keep things in perspective. Sometimes it's harder than it sounds. Sunday was awful...

As you saw from yesterday's post, my house is a mess. Our water heater decided to spring a HUGE leak out the top at about 6:45am. Just what we needed on the one day in I don't know how long that we could actually sleep in. Yep, thanks for that.

In my panic and eternal optimism, I threw an entire load of freshly laundered towels onto the hallway floor, where I saw the biggest puddle. Hubby yelled mentioned calmly that the towels wouldn't help...it was way too much water for that. I was hoping, in my heart of hearts, that he would be wrong. Surely it couldn't be that bad, could it?

Of course it could.

The carpet in the living room had to be pulled up, the pad was trashed, carpet in AJ's room had to come up, closet doors had to be removed, baseboards have been ripped off of walls, and that was just in the first hour! What a mess...

All of that, my friends, was just the start of what would prove to be a very trying day. Of course all of the neighbors, once they were up and had gone outside to get the morning newspapers, had to come over and check out the excitement at our house. Now, don't get me wrong, I LOVE to entertain my friends, but this was NOT what I had in mind for this particular morning. I guess it was the two "rapid response" trucks pulled haphazardly in my driveway that gave away the fact that something exciting was going on. Ah, that's me, I love excitement.... notice the sleepy eyes...

Several hours, and several cups of coffee later, (and I'm not usually a coffee drinker) I was trying to put the work I had ahead of me (and a couple of other things) out of my mind for a short while. I stepped next door to see my neighbors new backyard turf, and oohh, and awe over her lovely landscaping. As I trotted home through the front yard, barefooted of course (who'd had time to think of putting shoes on?) I stepped on a bee. The little sucker's stinger got me just on the inside part of my heal, where the tuff skin stops and the tender skin starts. Just what I needed. The last time I was stung, on the tip of my thumb, it swole (swelled?) to twice it's normal size. Ah, Mother Nature giving me a reminder, to watch where I was walking I suppose. I was able to get the stinger out quickly,and kept the swelling to a minimum.

Shortly after the bee sting, I had to start getting ready for a job. Remember, I'm in the home party business, so it's common for me to have to work odd hours on the weekends. I got ready to jump into the shower to get myself cleaned up, and realized we had no hot water. Delightful! Of course I'd cut myself short on time, and didn't want to bother a neighbor for a shower, so I just stuck my head under the faucet, shampooed quickly and towel dried my (very) cold head. I grabbed the hair dryer, plugged it in, and turned it on. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. With 24 industrial size fans and 4 huge de-humidifiers running in the house, there was no power left for anything else. There I stood, ever so briefly, in front of the bathroom mirror, with hair that resembled Bozo the Clown and burst into tears. Realizing that I still had to be 30 miles away, and I had 45 minutes to get there, I didn't let my pity-party last very long. After a nice little round of cursing up a storm, and towel-dried my head as best as I could, thru a little styling gel in my hair, grabbed my equipment, and hit the road.

I must say, I was happy to be out of the house and especially out of the noise for those few hours. With all of the fans running, it sounded as if our house was square in the middle of an airline hangar.

After a pleasant few hours away, where I nearly forgot the frustration of the day, I came home, and was treated to a lovely dinner prepared by our neighbors. I think was the very best part of the day. We had fresh fried catfish, home made french fries, cole slaw, corn bread and strawberry shortcake for dessert. It was fantastic, and much needed. I thought the day was finally turning around and getting better. After all, things are supposed to happen in "3's" right? Within the last week we'd dealt with a broken windshield on our Smart car, a broken dryer, and a broken water heater. That was 3, and that was enough, right?

Wrong. I'm guessing now that I think about it, the bee sting must have been the start of the next 3 things to happen, even though they were less severe, they were no less aggravating.

First came the bee sting. Then the blow dryer. What's the third thing? How about to top off the night, Kona, being a bit freaked out by everything that had been happening in the house earlier in the day, jumped up to greet Bear when she'd come over to see the damage. They somehow managed to bump teeth. Dogs teeth are apparently stronger than our teeth. Kona chipped Bear's front tooth at 9:30pm Sunday night. Bear, the one member of our family with absolutely PERFECT teeth, straight, white and gorgeous...never even a cavity, now had a broken front tooth.

I did manage to keep something in mind though, and kept reminding myself about it over and over. "It can always get worse." It was my mantra for the day. The flood could have been worse. The bee sting could have been worse, the tooth could have been worse - the entire day could have been worse.

I reminded myself of the parents we'd spent our morning with on Saturday, at the Celebration of Champions. Each of those parents were there because their child had cancer. Some of the children were survivors, some were currently battling, and some had lost their battle. My worst day could not compare to what those parents had been through, day after day. If that wasn't the perfect way to get my day into the proper perspective, I don't know what was. My Sunday wasn't that bad afterall...