Following Up. . .

Well, I'm not exactly sure that I've gotten more clarity on the "good stuff" that is brewing here. I was looking over my archives (short as they are!) and wondering at the sense of loose ends I still feel regarding this post. I can tell you that since this was written, it has felt like our life has become "A Series Of Unfortunate Events."

I've been reading and re-reading Genesis 22 since this sermon was presented, and with all that has been brewing in my mind and how close I am to it, I can't really tell if these events are truly out of the ordinary for our life. Or if I'm just hyper-aware of them as I'm processing and grabbing a hold of what the Lord's trying to teach me through this season. I will say this: at this point, I'm trying to adopt the attitude that there's no such thing as coincidences and that I must NOT let it all steal my joy. After all, like I've said about my parenting goof-ups: if you don't learn to laugh about this stuff, you'll just cry about it. Crying messes up your makeup. And in my case, leaves huge unsightly splotchiness all over my face and neck. It's just not a pretty option.

Here's a sampling of what's going on around here, since about the first week of May:

• Our basement flooded with 9" of gross, slimy, oily water.
• The furnace was fine, but the freezer perished in the flood.
• The Boss's day off was spent cleaning the basement instead of hanging out with me and Baby Blue Eyes before the Men's Retreat.
• Our insurance covered the cleaning and drying, but we had to pay for the freezer.
  
• Three days later, I ran over a spike and flattened a tire. Not covered by insurance!
  
• My cell died while trying to phone for help. Picture me just laughing hysterically in the parking lot of my local Curves.
  
• My cat developed a UTI because she couldn't get to her box in the flood.
• Then the fans and de-humidifiers scared poor Maggie so badly she couldn't pee even though she wanted to!
  
• The Boss got sick with an ear infection - that required serious pain meds and an antibiotic fit for horses.
• The Boss has now been sick for 4 + weeks. And let's just say, when Daddy's sick, the whole house feels it!
• The cat got sick again. May be chronic urinary tract disease.
  
• Our AC broke, the night before The Boss and Dr. Doolittle left for a weekend camping trip.
• In the midst of it all, we found a couple bills we forgot to pay (ooooops!) when we were consumed with cleaning the basement and drying it out.

This brings us to today. I chucked my "To Do" list, indulged myself in an hour at Curves and a long hot shower. Then I took my kids to play mini-golf (on a 1 year-old gift card! I know, I'm such a miser!) and out to eat. Not my normal Saturday, and certainly not how I've been coping with all these crazy events thus far. But "thus far" wasn't working, and laughing over Baby Blue Eyes whacking his little blue golf ball into the water at every other hole worked just fine for me.

So, I'm still brewing. And this loose end is still loose. And the way we all played on the mini-golf course, I'm sure the family behind us thinks we all have a couple screws loose.