Bad Luck and Trouble

I'm not sure what it is. Perhaps I'm finally cashing in on all the bad luck I've been avoiding. Perhaps I'm storing up for good karma for the future. Perhaps God is trying to tell me that adverse conditions are strengthening my marriage as we both work well under stress and we need to concentrate less on creating our own drama and more on working together to solve the worlds ills. Perhaps I'm just having a bad time. Whatever it is, I get the message now (or at least, all the possibilities) and it can stop. Just less than a month ago my father-in-law died suddenly. This was after months of overspending on our part - to move here, to visit family, to go the Sock Summit - and consequently exactly when our savings was at its lowest point since 2002. Now we're broke. Real broke. At least according to us. This has no made my husband happy. He DOES NOT do well with these kind of circumstances. The idea of holding a balance on our credit card (note, not plural there) is totally horrific for him.

So, here's the list of what has happened since. Note that this is all me. My Emma knocks my glasses off and the lens falls out. (Yes, I am pretty blind without my glasses.) We patch them back together, but they are going to have to be replaced. The buckle on my birks (the only shoes I wear) breaks making them impossible to wear. I am wearing my "beach shoes" (ie crocs). And today, in a fit of total absent minded stupidity, I tried to back the car out of the garage with the driver's door open. I broke the window-rolling mechanism. It is a $125 dollar part and Jase will have to take the door apart again (the first time being tonight to figure out what was wrong). Frankly I feel like I got off lightly with that one.

There are other things going wrong as well. I cannot find my diamonds - necklace and earrings. These were a joint gift of my girls and Jase and I haven't admitted they are missing yet. They are worth a lot of money. I have gained back 10 pounds and am completely sugar addicted again. (Thank you stressful times.) I broke the "button" on one of my two functioning pairs of jeans (ie. one of the two that fit). I only wear jeans. I have no other pants that "function" right now. I am not a skirt person. We can go into the irony of having a daughter who only wears skirts some other time. And the gopher in my backyard has completed the total destruction of everything I planted with Ari except the sunflowers. I expect they are next.

I promise, I'll try to go into what's going right tomorrow. If I can think of anything.

Writing

I've vowed to write something every day. Perhaps a post or an e-mail to someone I haven't talked to in a while or a few paragraphs on a story somewhere. Something.

Richard's things arrived on Monday. They are sitting the garage, smelling bad, and staring at me. Jase isn't ready to go near them yet, but I would like to get them out of the way a bit. Over with so to speak. The new cabinet/hutch that was J's grandmother's goes nicely in our middle room. He's working on how to clean up the finish a bit. Sooner rather than later I hope, since I'd like to put (some) of the contents of those boxes in it.

I finished up on

e of the brown basic socks for my father for Christmas. There is something really amazing about working on, and completing, something for Christmas already. When this is all over and we've finally paid off everything related to Richard's death, I'm going on a stash building hunt. Nothing fancy, but something to replace what I'm using up in presents.

I had a wonderful idea of what to get Emma, by the way. She's a hard one, because just about everything an 18 month old girl would want we've already got. But she's showing a real aptitude for, and interest in, tools and building things. So we're going to get her a play tool bench! I'm feeling very brilliant now.

I'll end with a little picture.

Isn't that amazing? I don't believe I've ever held a bird, at least until this day. We were at Gilroy Gardens. One of Ari's favorite places. I got a to hold a bird too. I participated in a dove release. It was really cool. The dove held still in my hands, just waiting it's chance. It was humming in anticipation. It was so light (and bony). And it flew beautiful when released. A very magical thing.