the roller coaster of life...in a snowglobe

This is right now out my window, from my comfy chair.


We have had a mild winter, so we aren't allowed to complain. Just an hour or so north of here, along the eastern shore of Lake Ontario, there are places that have gotten feet upon feet of snow. The snowbanks are ten feet high. But. We're getting a little dose of it today.

School was delayed for two hours, then cancelled. I was supposed to go pay the taxes, but Paul nicely said he would, hey, he has a truck.

The refrigerator guy is coming in a few hours. I have a feeling he's going to look at it, and come back next week with the part to fix it.

My 3 high school teenagers are sleeping in, they are thrilled to have a snow day!

I didn't get to sleep in, because the refrigerator guy was going to call, then he did, and now he's coming. So up I got.

It was particularly painful this morning because I had somewhat of a turbulent night. Duke, Old Dukey, started in on his persistent intermittent barking at 4:00 a.m. At 4:13, I got out of the warm bed and ventured out here. I immediately spotted a pile of poop, which I stepped over, right into: (sorry if you are having breakfast), a pile of doggy throw up. I will be kind and spare you the details, and also I am not sure what I said, but it most certainly wasn't, "Yay!"

So I shooed the dogs out into the cold snowy night, and got to work. I cleaned up the messes by the door, and looked yonder into the living room, and what the heck? It looked like someone was playing a big joke on me. There were, no lie, eight more piles of barf. Eight. At first I suspected Duke, he's getting old and all, but then I realized there were chewed things in it, sorry, but it HAD to be puppy. Little Miss Sunshine. She was eating tree branches in the yard. She eats plastic bags if she can get them, she eats anything. It's like babyproofing for a toddler around here, yet she still finds things to eat.

Anyway. I cleaned it all up, let them back in, gave them a biscuit and told them to go lie down. I washed off my feet, and climbed back into my warm bed. It was 4:43.

And I tossed. I turned. I thought about our trip. I thought about homeschooling reports, assignments, packing. I thought about my sister (she's doing pretty good, but how is someone supposed to do after going through such an operation?)(she has an excellent attitude, but there is a lot of suffering!). I prayed for my kids, I prayed for my friends. I thought about myself and how I waste time and energy so often on feeling this way or that, instead of just giving it up and being good. I thought fondly of Paul, and what a good guy he is...he is going to be gone for two weeks, and that gets long. And I thought about our van.

I brought it in for an oil change yesterday, and I asked them to please give it a good look to make sure it will make the long drive to Florida. I know they can't guarantee we won't end up on the side of the road somewhere...but they can give us an idea.

So their idea was that we should not drive this van to Florida. It needs a new catalytic converter, which we knew, but we were told we could drive it like that for a while. Yesterday they said it was really clogged up, and they wouldn't recommend a long trip like that with it like that. Okay, I said, knowing they are very pricey, can you get it done by Saturday? Ha. The part takes five days to get in, once it's ordered. Okay. hmm. I asked Paul if he thought our old van would make the trip. He didn't think so. It's mileage is closer to 200 thousand now, and...he will be all the way in India, he just didn't think we should take it.

So all of the sudden, I was faced with not being able to go. We were thinking of other weeks, but with Paul's travel schedule, and Margaret and Adrian already having some off from work, and the fact that for once, I am ahead of myself and ALREADY PACKED. I was feeling rather down, rather like I was going to cry. Now, I don't like being a drama queen, I actually thought to myself, Now, what would I tell someone else in this situation? Maybe something like, "accept it, make the best of it, it happens for a reason, go cry about it then get over it."

Sometimes you can't help feeling like you're going to cry. Jonathan was hilarious, he was the adult while I sulked. Okay, I didn't sulk, not a total sulk, just a let down blah.

Then Grandma came through and suggested we rent a car, that she'd take care of it. Well, Jonathan said, "I knew there was a reason I didn't get really sad." And he proceeded to make a nice offer on Priceline.

So we'll be driving a nice new rental down to Florida.

Yay!!!

I am tired today. I am ready to take Duke out and shoot him, but I don't really mean that. He's my little buddy. He is moving so slowly, I know his days are numbered, but it takes so little to make him happy. He's always been the kind of dog that you just look at, or when he could still hear, say his name, and he would wag. Now I just pet him and he looks at me and and wags, and honestly, I feel like lately he's looking at me like he's saying, "I'm getting so done with all of this.".

Anyway. Time to get moving.