God has a sense of humor. Sometimes it doesn’t seem so funny in the moment. But ultimately, I’m glad He’s in control, not me! And sometimes His expressions of humor are exactly what I need to learn new lessons or be reminded of old ones … reinforcement, if you will.
I thought a recent chain of events was worthy of journaling as a reminder to myself (and maybe others) of God’s goodness in the middle of life’s hiccups. I don’t know yet exactly how some of these things will be resolved but my job is to give thanks with a grateful heart and to rejoice in the Lord ALWAYS. (And “always” includes more than when things seem to be going my way. In fact, even thinking about “my way” implies a focus on myself instead of trusting God to handle things HIS way!)
I’ll start with my sunburn on Friday. It isn’t really related to the rest of the events but it occurred to me that the reason for my sunburn was pride. It wasn’t that I forgot about sunscreen or that I didn’t have access to any. Or that I misjudged the sun and my tendency to burn easily. Nope, it was pride. A willful choice to not bother with sunscreen and accept the consequences. What am I, FIVE?? Yes, times something plus some more. Anyway, no big surprise. I got a sunburn. Certainly not the worst I’ve ever had, but go figure that it took some of the other events for me to clue in on how pride even impacted my choice to go sans sunscreen.
The rest of this will probably flow as the events occurred. In typical Red-fashion, I will probably throw in some bonus details that may or may not have anything to do my points. But they’re part of my story and I’m the one telling it so there.
Anyway, that same evening I decided to look up what kind of care is required for Labradors (after seeing some in an Air Dog Show and thinking, “Hmm, I actually might LIKE these dogs and I don’t think I would be afraid of them!”). Apparently one site I went to was a virus and my computer went bezerk. I texted a friend about what was happening and he said he could look at it when I was back in town. Praise God that it happened toward the end of vacation and (hopefully) isn’t too serious.
The next day, my son (J) and I began our return home and encountered some flight delays at our connection point Saturday evening. Apparently the pilot was sick so we had to wait for another pilot to be located and to arrive. J and I weren’t hungry so we went exploring. The airport was surprisingly empty so we had the moving sidewalks and escalators mostly to ourselves. That’s not always a good thing for two goofy people. We were cracking each other (and ourselves) up by walking backwards or around each other or pretending to hide behind a pole (completely visible) to “surprise” the other person. We probably weren’t setting a good example if there were kids watching. But we had fun and it was a slight workout all things considered. And it helped pass the time.
Anyway, the original plan was to arrive at our destination around 9:15 pm. We actually got in about 12:30 am. It wasn’t a big deal to arrive a few hours late. But then we got to our car and it didn’t want to start. It cranked and cranked I believed it wanted to start so I tried several times. At one point my son and I looked at each other wondering what to do. So, just like any mother would do when they don’t really have a solution, I tried again and it started! Praise God!! Granted, it didn’t sound great but we had been gone for 10 days and my car never did sound “great” to others so it seemed good enough. Good enough to get by until I could call a mechanic or take it in on Monday. Ha. More on that soon.
We got home about 1:15 am. As we walked in the door I heard the unmistakable “chirp chirp” of my smoke detectors. All of them. At different intervals. I was pretty certain I had just replaced all the batteries only a few months ago. Regardless, they would need to be replaced again. As I started looking for some batteries, I thought I heard a water sound in the bathroom. My son & I went to investigate and sure enough, some water was spraying from a pipe behind the toilet. The floor was mostly dry; it was just wet in the area around the toilet. J reached back and adjusted the valve until it seemed to stop spraying.
We returned to the living room to resume the hunt for batteries. Suddenly I heard a much louder sound of water. We ran back and the water was spraying everywhere! This time the whole floor was getting wet. I realized this was not one of those moments to just pretend nothing was happening. It had to be addressed. So I reached to the back and tightened the valve all the way. The water stopped spraying! (At the time I thought I had somehow fixed it but I found out later I had just turned the water off. Still have some learning to do but at least I did something useful!)
With the leak presumably under control, J volunteered to clean up the bathroom while I tended to the incessant chirping of the smoke detectors. I needed five batteries but found one. As I prepared to step up on the chair to replace one battery, I noticed that my foot was wet. I thought that was strange so I looked and noticed that water seeped up from under the carpet. Not much but enough that I noticed there was a problem. Imagine if I had been wearing shoes. I wouldn’t have felt it. Or imagine if the smoke detector wasn’t chirping or if I hadn’t gone to that particular detector first. How long would it have taken for me to realize there was an issue? So praise God for the annoying chirps!!
Once the bathroom was cleaned up around 2 am, J and I discussed whether to go to a store to buy more batteries and replace all of them immediately, or to try to sleep through the chirps and take care of things in the morning (or rather, later in the morning). We decided to get things done right away. This time I bought extra batteries to last another full round so we wouldn’t be stuck in the middle of the night again. We got home and the chirps stopped after replacing only two batteries. Praise God!
After resetting the clocks on the stove and microwave (clue: power had been out at some point!) we went to bed.
When we were both up, we investigated the refrigerator to see if anything had gone bad. Understatement. A lot had gone bad and needed to get tossed. Two garbage bags later, all I had to do was empty a half-used jar of pasta sauce and rinse it out. While running water with the pasta sauce I noticed that it wasn’t going down the drain. I flipped the switch for the disposal thinking something was blocking passage. The disposal started arguing with me and then just shut up. The liquids didn’t go down and the disposal wasn’t working. I tried again but nothing. So I went outside, flipped the breakers, and tried again. Still nothing. Well praise God all the garbage had already been taken out and nothing was sitting in the disposal waiting to get churned up!
Since there wasn’t much to eat at home, J & I decided to run out for a quick lunch. On the way back, the car made this “ding ding ding ding” sound but didn’t provide any warning lights to go with the sound. Then the noise stopped. I knew that wasn’t a good sign and I would definitely need to look into it very soon.
When we got home I started looking up homeowners insurance in order to address the carpet issue. I also spoke with a friend who was willing to drag her husband over to check out the situation and offer some help, suggestions, or moral support (or any combination). It turned out to be a great help because that’s when I discovered I didn’t actually fix the pipe problem and had only turned off the water. Fortunately it seemed to be something easy to fix and he took care of it quickly. Praise God!! He also looked at the disposal and that appears to be something that can be fixed fairly easily too. YAY!! Even the carpet problem doesn’t seem extensive. The area is reasonably small and it might not be a big deal to have someone replace the padding in that area and preserve the carpet. First guess is that it would cost less than the insurance deductible, so not a major issue. I have a friend in the construction business and he was able to recommend someone to take a look. Message left so we’ll see what happens soon! Praise God for amazing friends in times of need (and confusion and “helplessness”).
Then I left to take J to his youth group. The car sounded funny to me but I wondered if I was over thinking things. On the way home, the car stalled at a light. Fortunately no one was behind me and the car started back up. I knew I was only about 8 miles from home so my goal was to just get home and then figure things out from there. God had another plan. A few miles later the car conked out close to another light, started smoking, and wouldn’t start back up. As I sat there wondering where I would have my car towed and who to call, a police officer pulled up behind me and assisted with moving my car to the farthest lane and out of traffic. He was on his way home but called a tow truck for me and waited with me (not exactly “with” me since he went back to his air-conditioned car behind me) until another officer could arrive.
The tow truck arrived quickly (apparently they respond faster to law enforcement than little old me when I’ve called on my own, haha). One look at my car and the driver said, “You just lost your car.” I confess that my heart sank when he said that. This car has presented numerous adventurers (aka mechanical learning opportunities) in my brief custody but I loved it. This was the car that taught me about downstream (and upstream) oxygen sensors, alternators, headlights, timing belts, catalytic converters, and dual exhaust systems (and more). It was lowered, tricked out (strange thing to do to a Neon), had an awesome sound system with killer bass, and nothing I touched was stock in this car (all of this happened by some previous owner). It was a unique ride and loud, and I loved it.
The tow truck driver gave me a ride home before taking my car to their shop. I’ll have confirmation soon that the car is indeed toast (can I have some butter with that??).
