On another good note, our friend who was in the truck wreck is doing well, and it turned out that N has gap insurance which will cover the money not given back to him by the insurance company. A friend of ours is selling a truck so this all might turn out to be a blessing in disguise. N will be rid of a truck payment and will owe his friend less than half of what he still had to pay off on his wrecked truck.
Have a blessed two weeks, everyone!!!! I'm off to my beloved Boston!!!!
I thought I would post a quick blog tonight, since there is a real possibility that tomorrow our power will be out (though I hope not). Tropical Storm Faye is already notifying us of her presence. We are right now experiencing bands of rain which begin softly and graduate to downpours. Later tonight we are expected to receive LOTS of rain, along with heavy winds. I sincerely hope that the earlier part of the day is not a portent to things to come. One of N's guys wrecked his truck in the earlier part of the day today; a wreck on the highway in which, thankfully, no one was hurt except for the truck. The truck is damaged on all sides; someone who was driving a bit too fast for the road conditions apparently lost control of his own truck and slammed into E, who, in turn, slammed into a wall and spun around. It seems that every side of the truck is now decorated with dents and scrapes and it had to be towed away. Fortunately, the guy at fault has insurance, the claim has already been filed (after a few telephone calls and much repeating of information by my husband), and the wheels have been set into motion (no pun intended). We are keeping our proverbial fingers crossed that the truck won't be totaled and that this whole mess can be sorted out quickly. N is driving a rental Dodge Avenger at the moment; we drove through the rain to pick it up so he will at least have a vehicle. (Abundant sighs....) So, now we're hunkered down for the night (well, N drove over to Home Depot to buy some gas for our stove in case the power goes down in the night) and I'm going to cook some hot dogs and mac and cheese, give Little One a bath, and snuggle down as far into the covers as I can.
Most of of us have probably heard the saying, "Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?" I certainly have found this question to be necessary in my life quite often over the past few years; I think that anyone involved in any sort of close relationship can gain a measure of perspective from it. I became upset over a perceived injustice last night. N and I each have two nights when we go out on our own for an hour or so. I treasure that time because it provides me with an opportunity to refresh and to replenish my energy. Most days I feel like I spend lots and lots of time trying to make other people happy (as many of us do) with little time left over for my own pursuits. Such is the nature of being a parent and a spouse and most days I'm really okay with it (I waited a long time to be blessed with a family). Still, those two days help me to stay centered and calm and not so crazy. Last night N announced that he will be playing paddleball with the boys on Thursday night, one of my nights. While he offered to bring Little One down to the beach with him, this is not really a solution for me. The beach is crowded at night, there are lots of strange people wandering around down there, and I won't be able to focus on anything I'm doing if I'm worried about where my daughter is and what she's doing. Of course, he would have someone watching her, but who I don't know. I don't even know if he's figured the whole scenario out yet. Besides that, we've been talking about trying to get her on more of a routine and keeping her out late on a Thursday is not going to help in that cause. At any rate, I was upset; why can't I just have that night, like I have for a long time now, to go out and not have to worry about anything? I felt hurt and angry. Once I began to think about the situation, though, to reframe a bit, I calmed (of course, this took me the entire night). Looking at my little girl this morning, sleeping soundly beside us (she awoke at 6AM and wandered into our room-it's almost a ritual these days), I thought about how some day she will be grown and I will look back on the time I spent with her as a child and wish for that time back. I thought about how much I enjoy having her with me during the day, how she takes mundane errands and turns them into joyful adventures. I thought about the impermanence of everything in life. I thought about how precious energy should not be wasted on anger and resentment that I have no desire in nursing anyway. This morning, peering over my coffee cup at the man with whom I share my life, I felt a sense of love and peace.
We checked out the house yesterday, and the amount of work that would need to be done to this place in order to create a halfway pleasant living environment is daunting. Give me a New England farmhouse over most of what I see down here any day. I'm a feeling a bit depressed by this whole house hunting venture.
On another note, I'm feeling overwhelmed in general. I have tons to do today; I awoke bleary eyed and tired this morning to a notepad full of urgent tasks to be completed. I am looking forward to running to the refuge of New England for a couple of weeks; I need some down time with my family up north (although trips like this present their own measure of stress). My dream is to open a small gallery where I and local artists could show their work, be it painting, sculpture, jewelry. Not having enough time to paint lately, I've been putting together a bit of my own jewelry and enjoy it quite a lot, so maybe I've hit on a new creative avenue. At least it provides me with some sort of outlet to the insanity that is my life most days (not that I mind the insanity most days-I still need an outlet, though!). Ah, a little art gallery in the heart of New England; tis a nice dream....
We are going to look at a house this afternoon, one which N and I checked out a couple of days ago from the outside but not the inside (we were not with the realtor). Yesterday, N stopped by the property and knocked on the door; the owner happened to be there, is eager to sell the place, and allowed him entry so he could have a better look. His impression was mixed. The house is located on a beautiful peice of land, with a canal behind it (which has ocean access much further down). There is also a park behind the house, which means that all of the beautiful trees currently shading the area will remain (unless a hurricane tears through the area and decimates everything). The house itself is in quite a state of disrepair. The owner has been allowing homeless people to camp out there, which means that we might have some problems once we move in as far as letting people know that the home is no longer open for vacancies. Additionally, there will be MAJOR cleaning to be done before we can even think about moving in there with our almost four year old. On top of that, there is a leak in the roof which will need to be fixed, and we would need to make sure the leak has not caused serious mold encroachment. The house will need to be thoroughly examined before we can sign any type of real deal, but I'm willing to take a look. The neighborhood is a very nice one, with houses selling in the near $300,000.00 range and if we fixed the house up it could be beautiful. I'm good with designing/decorating and N is in the construction business, so we have an advantage on those fronts. He told me that he would have to build on an addition for the house to really big large enough for us to live in, but the lot is huge and we can do things slowly, over time. The truth will be revealed at 4PM!!!!!
(Obviously, the picture above is not the house; I borrowed the image from a site called Wikimedia Commons!)
