fate laughing at me Archives - Page 2 of 4

Mar 28, 2011

Bad Car-ma

Our family doesn’t have good luck with cars. It seems as soon as we fix one thing, something else goes wrong.

Aaron took our little sedan to NYC a couple of years ago. I expressed worry that something bad would happen to it, parked in the big city. Sure enough, it came home with a big dent in the side from being parked on the street.

Whenever we take a car in for maintenance, they always find something ~~major~~ costly wrong with it. And then a month after all of the expensive work is performed, the check engine light nearly always comes on.

Our SUV got a chip in the windshield last year. We had the auto glass folks come out and patch it. Then a few months ago, the patch gave out and the windshield cracked all the way across. Hello, new windshield!

Late last year, we had a nail in a tire on the SUV. We took it in to get the nail removed and patched, only to find it was in the sidewall and couldn’t be patched. And oh yeah, two other tires have nails in the sidewall. And the fourth tire had a broken stem valve. So one nail somehow turned into four new tires.

Last week, I tried to drive to work in the sedan, only to hear something thumping. Stopped at a gas station and found one tire flat. I tried to put air in it, but could hear the air hissing back out. I filled it up enough to drive home and switch cars, cursing our continuing bad luck with cars.

This poor little car has 188K miles on it. It’s running on a frayed rubber band at this point. It officially has a Do Not Recesuitate order on it – comfort care only. But I need it to last a little longer until we can save up for a down payment on a new car, so I had to buy two new tires for it.

As I drove the car home after getting two new tires, I pulled into the driveway to see the SUV had a low tire. With a nail in it. Seriously?

And then the same day, while driving on the highway, a small rock jumped from a semi-truck, over the car in front of us, and chipped the new windshield of our SUV.

Maybe we need to move to a city with better public transportation? Because we clearly aren’t meant to have cars.

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Filed Under: daily life, fate laughing at me, money, random ·

Oct 5, 2010

Down but Not Out

By Christina ·

There are times when everything is going great in my life, and I can’t wait to write out all of the good here on my blog.

Then there are times when I’m frustrated, or something isn’t going the way I’d like, and I turn to this blog to vent or get advice.

And then there are times like the last two weeks, when life hands me a body blow – body blow – uppercut TKO and I’m left sprawled out on the mat faster than you can say Mike Tyson’s Punchout.

Right after Cordy’s birthday, my job went from your normal 8 hour job to a crazy mess. Overtime was strongly encouraged and soon I was only working – sometimes sleeping and sometimes eating – with the rest of my life simply put on hold. I was happy to help out in the situation, because we really needed everyone to give everything they had, but it quickly wore me down.

At the same time, Mira was also in the middle of a strange stomach virus. She had vomited the week before, then went a few days without eating much, then vomited three times in one night. Lather, rinse, and repeat the entire pattern two more times, and we’re left wondering what kind of virus can skip a few days and come back again. It also took away my chances at more sleep, meaning I’ve been extremely underslept for the past two weeks. One night was bad enough that I was sure I was hearing voices and hallucinating.

Then, just because a work crisis and a sick child weren’t enough, I developed the stomach virus as well, although mine was more of the single 48-hour variety. But in that 48 hours I purged everything from my digestive system and developed a strong aversion to food. It took several days for me to gain the ability to eat more than a few bites of food at a time, which was a shame considering my work was provided gorgeous meals for everyone working overtime that I couldn’t enjoy.

Add in a broken water heater, a three year old who cut her own hair on one side only, a headlight out on the car, and one aggressive school nurse threatening to pull Cordy out of school if we didn’t get her vaccinations updated ASAP, and I was starting to think it would be easier to stop trying to get up every time the karma bus ran me over and just lay there instead.

Everything else was in stasis for the week. We used any clothing we could find for the girls because I didn’t have time for laundry, other than laundry that involved puke. Pizza and fast food were regular meals for the family. I would often turn the TV on and nap on the couch when the girls got home from school. And I haven’t ran or exercised in any way since the March of Dimes 5K. Internet? Ha. I barely knew what was going on in the world.

There has been some good in the past two weeks, though. Seeing everyone at work pull together to get the job done has been inspiring. Aaron has a temp job – where I work, actually – helping out with all of the little extras that need done during this crisis. Cordy read every one of her birthday cards this year, impressing everyone with her previously hidden reading talents. And Mira…well…Mira only cut ONE side of her hair. You could call it a fashionable asymmetrical look.

What energy or personality I possessed was ruthlessly drained from me in the past two weeks, and I’m now desperately trying to pull myself back together and refuel my life force with small servings of Facebook, Twitter, cuddling on the couch with my family, and phone calls with friends and family.

Things are slowly going back to normal. Slowly. There is still a lot of overtime expected at work, but I got to sleep 8 hours this weekend. And do a couple loads of laundry. I got to spend more than a couple of hours with my husband and children, when we were all awake and no one was sick. It was short-lived, and I’m back to only sleeping and working, but I know those peaceful moments will be back again soon.

And I’m slowly inching my way back out into being social again.

Hope you haven’t forgotten about me. I’ve been here the entire time, missing my blog, my friends, and my leisure time. Life should get back to normal soon (whatever normal might be), and as it does nothing will get in my way of getting back to what I love.

Filed Under: clearly insane, fate laughing at me, me me me, plague, the J-O-B · Tagged: sick child

Apr 26, 2010

You Take The Good, You Take The Bad, You Take Them Both and Then You Have…

By Christina ·

…a lot of suck if you’re us.

(What? You were expecting Facts of Life?)

As usual, things were going far too well to last. I have a new job I love, Aaron really liked his job, and Cordy was on the list for three different schools we liked for kindergaten.

And then we got word early last week that in our school system’s lottery, Cordy didn’t get into any of the schools we wanted for her. None, including her current one. We were disappointed, but we also felt like we still had options. With both of us working, we could consider private school if we had to.

And then Aaron was told in the middle of the week that the volume of work was looking slow for his company, and while they’d love to keep him, there’s just not enough work to go around, and to consider himself laid off as of May 7. He was devastated. Not only about losing a job, but losing a job he really liked, one he planed to stay with for some time to come.

You could argue at this point that we’re cursed. The thought has crossed my mind from time to time. Or you could point out that disappointment is just a learning experience in life. In which case, I think I’ve now got my Bachelors in Life by now, and I’m really OK with not pursuing the PhD.

I was upset by all the bad news last week. It didn’t seem fair – we were making plans to pay off debt and finally get ahead for once. We were prepared to pay for private school to make sure Cordy could get the best education despite her autism. And now our plans have come to a halt again.

I’m not letting myself dwell in disappointment for too long. I don’t have time for that. Aaron will find another job, and hopefully he will enjoy it as much or more than his previous one. I’m a little worried about being without health insurance (again) – my job is a contract, and we had planned that he would get benefits by the end of May. That plan is no longer valid, so we’ll have to look into private plans, because $1700 for COBRA is, well, outrageous.

As for Cordy, I had a little talk with the school district and she will now be allowed to stay at her current school for next year. I had to pull out her IEP and argue on the basis of consistency to make sure her name was on the list, but it worked. (OK, I feel a little guilty at using her special needs to force a spot, but it’s for her good, so why not let it help us for once?)

And the debt we planned to pay off, the home improvements we planned to save for, etc.? It will all happen on a slower timeline now, or in some cases will be put on hold to wait for better times. I won’t dwell on the negative, because that gets us nowhere. Far better to focus my energy on finding new opportunities and plan for the next time the stars align in our favor again.

The facts of our life? Karma seems to enjoy teasing us, but I’ll continue to smile back in response.

Filed Under: Aaron, Cordy, daily life, fate laughing at me, me me me, school, the J-O-B ·

Feb 11, 2009

Dear New York City,

By Christina ·

I send my husband and my car to you for one short weekend, so he could attend a little convention for work, and this is what I get in return:

Where’s the love, NYC? You’re totally off my Valentine’s Day card list.

Signed,

An Ohioan who is thankful our parking lots aren’t full service and employing blind armless monkeys to move cars.

Filed Under: fate laughing at me, rant ·

Jan 15, 2009

Why Am I Heard At All The Wrong Times?

By Christina ·

So, two days ago I might have been a little worn out from Cordy begging me for three days straight to build a snowman. I would have given in, if there had been more than a dusting of snow on the ground. So then I possibly Tweeted something like this…

Sometimes? Mother Nature listens:

Naturally, now that we have the snow she no longer wants to build a snowman. Now she wants to shovel the driveway, the sidewalk, and all of the grass. Soon our entire property will be completely free of the thing she wanted so much.