If my life were a t.v. show, I’d wake up tomorrow completely gray….or bald. So thank heavens this is real life and I’ll only awake to the bad hair-day of my life. And, yes, that is my being optimistic. I haven’t told you about the past twenty-four hours, yet.
By the way, thanks to those of you who responded to my Facebook plea for blog material. Because it’s been a terrible day, there’s still time for you to enter. And, technically, I can pick up to three winners (if I’m so inclined).
Last night, we arrived home from our Colorado adventure about an hour after the kids’ bedtime. We arrived home to a note on our door. It said something to the affect of “There seems to be broken glass all over your living room,” and it was left there by our landlord (who, by the way, is not the type to shatter and run). Since we are in a rental, however, we’re not convinced we, besides our landlord, have the only key. Especially since it seems unlikely that our once huge and heavy mirror jumped away from the wall and shattered itself all over our floor.
Yeah, highly unlikely.
It did, however, end up shattered, delaying our entrance into the house by almost an hour (Papa Bear went inside by himself to de-shard). By the time I did lay the kids in their beds, I was too tired to move to my own. I stayed cuddled next to Baby Bear until Papa Bear woke me with a problem.
He was having trouble submitting a late project for one of his online classes. He thought I could help. I couldn’t. What I could do was erase hours of work by closing a read-only project that had not been properly saved. Papa Bear went to bed, and I stayed up trying to complete a project for a class in which I am not enrolled. I gave up, in tears, somewhere around three in the morning.
This morning, of course, I woke up sick….but really sick. Cuddle Bug isn’t reacting well to the severe cold front, either, and the rest of the kids are fighting about who is the closest to hospitalization. Lovely. I insisted that we attempt a six hour nap starting almost immediately after breakfast….and we watched a lot of t.v. to pass the time.
It never crossed my mind, as I wallowed and moaned this afternoon, that things could get much worse than they were today. Three still packed suitcases line the living room wall. Oh, and we haven’t eaten much more than pb and j because my refrigerator is temporarily in the garage (I really can’t handle telling that part of the story right now), and I was too tired and too cold to walk outside.
When Papa Bear came in from work, I expressed to him that I had just about had it. I’d already sat on the floor and cried three times. And, “Have you talked to the landlord about the mirror mystery, yet?” I asked.
It so happens that our landlord was working right outside, so Papa Bear went out to talk to him and hopefully receive a much needed pat on the back for all of the hauling and clearing we’d been doing at his request. So, when Papa Bear ran back to the door less than five minutes later and announced, “We owe him $1,000!” that’s when I’d had more than I could take.
We’re in this run down, washer and dryer free, tiny little cabin to save money for the winter. That’s it. The views are gorgeous and we’ve been making it work well for our family, but we would never have picked this place if it weren’t for the opportunity to save big and give big throughout what is usually our most difficult season. In exchange for the very low rent, however, we’ve been given a laundry list of chores and favors that he needs completed as an out-of town landlord. And, although it’s been difficult to work these things into our lives, we’ve been happy to repay his generosity.
And, apparently, we’ve done a lot more than that.
It was just about three weeks ago when I sat with my landlord on the front porch, taking scribbled notes of all of the things he wanted done before his next visit. When he pointed to the large pile of boards and trash and carpet scraps in front of the cabin and said, “Have Papa Bear haul this off to the dump,” well, it didn’t cross my mind that it wasn’t all trash. Why? Oh, I guess because it was all in one big pile!
I’m seriously never communicating with any man besides my husband for the rest of my life. Sigh.
At least we don’t actually owe him $1,000, we do owe more than we would have owed if we’d stayed in our townhouse (you know, the one with the washer and dryer), though. And I cannot even tell you how much that hurts my already tired faith right now (just being honest).
On the off-chance that tomorrow really will be better, I’m going to post this disgustingly real and whiny post, and then I’m going to crawl inside the covers and curl up next to the love of my life.
In other words, I am still aware to some extent. I have a lot to be grateful for.
And, by the way, our landlord really is a great guy. No matter how great a guy, though, no one likes having their stuff thrown away while they’re out of town.
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