What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger
Every once in a while, I have one of those days that seems like crazy insanity throughout the day, but when I look back on it, I realize the day was actually a success. Wednesday was one of those days.
Terence and I had known ahead of time that Wednesday would be challenging. He had a training class to teach and then a night shoot to attend and would be working from 10 am until at least midnight. I knew I had my regular Wednesday stuff plus the meeting about J's evaluation plus two big school projects to work on with the kids. When I got up in the morning, I tried to mentally prepare for the onslaught. It worried me because not only was I an emotional wreck, but I knew I would be exhausted by the end of the day-- two things that could spell absolute disaster when it came to working on projects with the kids and staying patient later.
The morning got off to an inauspicious start. M, who usually is in the shower right up until about five minutes before we need to leave, had gotten out a good 20 minutes earlier. Not a good sign. She informed me that there was no hot water at all. I had just long enough to check the water heater and see that the pilot light was out. Dang it. I am quite handy around the house (have to be) but lighting the water heater is always Terence's job so I had no idea what to do-- and no time to deal with it. (I was in the middle of the school morning rush.) When I woke up Terence for family prayers I asked him to take care of it when he got up, but in the meantime poor M had to take a cold shower.
I ran the older kids to school and then came back to plunge into a frenzy of chores. I needed to get dinner made so Terence would have something to take with him for his long day, I desperately needed to get a few loads of laundry done, and S and K needed to be fed breakfast. I was also hoping to get a little more time on my bike (I had ridden 30 minutes on the bike trainer at 5:30) but I didn't get done with the other stuff in time. Actually, when it was time to go to my Primary meeting, I was still wearing my sweaty workout clothes, K hadn't eaten anything, and S was covered in yogurt from breakfast, and I hadn't had a chance to sort through my Primary papers. Yeehaw, Heidi.
(I did remember to kiss my husband goodbye since I wouldn't be seeing him again all day.)
At my Primary meeting I completely fell apart. It was getting close to the meeting about J, you see, and I was at my most wigged out about it. Almost, almost at that point I wanted to give up on my day. But Kami and Tanna (also at the meeting) are shouldering burdens even more challenging than mine and not throwing in the towel. In fact they were willing to go out of their way to help. So I pulled myself together. Most importantly, this is when I remembered that I didn't have to do this alone. Prayer helped a ton.
At home I decided that I would take a hot shower, wash my greasy hair and get it looking decent and actually put some makeup on. I figured putting some effort into my appearance would help me feel more confident and better all around-- and less likely to dissolve into a blubbery mess during the meeting. But wouldn't you know it? The pilot light was STILL out on the water heater. Terence had never gotten around to it. So much for my hot shower. I think I was feeling sick by this point. I'm not brave enough to wash my masses of hair in freezing water so I ended up pulling it back into a bun and using hairspray to kind of camoflauge the fact that I hadn't washed it in a few days. At least I could change into some nicer clothes too.
Since I wasn't bringing the kids to the meeting, I had just enough time to pick the older ones up from school, run them over to Amy's house and race back to the school. During that drive I noticed that the temperature gauge was inching up on the van. A couple of summers ago we had real problems with the van getting too hot while idling during our blistering summers, and I made a mental note that we would probably need to get the van in to get checked again. It's getting warm, but it's not that hot yet (if high 90's were a problem, the van was going to croak by mid-June).
I already blogged about J's evaluation meeting and that went so well that I left the school feeling really, really good. The only thing was that it had been a very long meeting so I was starving and I knew the kids probably would be too. On the way home from Amy's we made a quick run through a drive-thru for a snack and then continued on our way. That's when I noticed things were really starting to go wrong with the van. It was jerking every time I accelerated. Even more scary, the temperature gauge was steadily rising. Turning off the a/c didn't help. And sitting at stoplight didn't stop the rise either.
By the time we headed into the last mile before the house, the temp gauge was just a smidgen below that H, the completely overheating point. Again, I was praying desperately that we would just be able to get home. I didn't have a cell phone (long story) and being stranded on the road with five kids in 95 degree weather was the last thing I wanted to face. Fortunately, we were blessed enough to make it home.
At this point it was getting to be late afternoon. I had no way to contact Terence, a van that I feared to even turn on again, and a regular afternoon slew of things to tackle. It seemed certain that I was going to have to get the van into our mechanic, which is no easy feat. (He's in Mesa, and I only have a four hour window when I don't need my van on a school day. Can't make the school run with all of us shoved in the front of the pickup!) I was frantically wracking my brain for a way to accomplish this. Usually we try to borrow my parents' car in such situations but my parents are in Europe right now and it would take awhile to hear back from them, email and facebook being pretty much my only ways of being able to contact anyone. I looked up renting a van and found that we were looking at, best case, $85/day. Eeek!
Stress was eating me alive by this point.
Kristi helped me out at this point by texting Terence and asking him to call me. I unloaded the whole mess onto him (which I'm sure he didn't need in the middle of his stressful day) and he called a neighbor who is a mechanic to come down and take a look at it. Rob came right down and took a look and found that we had no antifreeze left at all. No wonder the van was overheating!!! The crazy thing was I had just taken it in for an oil change and supposedly they had checked the coolant levels. Yeah, right. Rob said everything looked fine-- there were no cracks or leaks-- so the coolant had just been evaporating over time and never gotten refilled.
Now I've learned my lesson. I need to learn how to check my own fluid levels and do it myself.
Rob warned me not to drive it at all until I had some antifreeze in there or I would damage the engine. Luckily, I didn't have any where I needed to go Wednesday night! When Terence's next check in call came, he promised to pick up antifreeze and have the van ready to go for me before I had to drive the kids to school Thursday morning. After that I tried to settle down to tackling J's book report with him and M's wax museum poster with her. Plus the regular homework and chores grind. It went pretty well with J, but with M it was a long, drawn out battle (again). The only thing she really got done was typing up her captions for all her photos. I did manage to get several loads of laundry done during the middle of all this though (Yay! We had clothes to wear!) but during all this I had pretty much left the younger kids to their own devices. When I came out to get dinner on the table, I found that they had decided to take the matter of food into their own hands. There were cupfuls of goldfish crackers poured on the living room floor, and a liberal scattering of brown rice all over the kitchen floor. Yogurt was smeared on counters, chairs, and the floor. And water was everywhere.
Don't you just hate that?
Going in search of the culprits I found them in my bathroom. Playing with Terence's shaving cream and my liquid foundation. A smeary mess of brown and white everywhere. But you know what? After everything I'd been through that day, I didn't lose it with my kids. That right there is proof that I wasn't alone. There was enough calming influence of the Spirit to keep me somewhat sane.
My day was a series of blessings disguised as challenges. With good friends at my side and help from above, I managed to navigate my way through a very rocky day. Thank goodness for blessings, small and great!
Terence and I had known ahead of time that Wednesday would be challenging. He had a training class to teach and then a night shoot to attend and would be working from 10 am until at least midnight. I knew I had my regular Wednesday stuff plus the meeting about J's evaluation plus two big school projects to work on with the kids. When I got up in the morning, I tried to mentally prepare for the onslaught. It worried me because not only was I an emotional wreck, but I knew I would be exhausted by the end of the day-- two things that could spell absolute disaster when it came to working on projects with the kids and staying patient later.
The morning got off to an inauspicious start. M, who usually is in the shower right up until about five minutes before we need to leave, had gotten out a good 20 minutes earlier. Not a good sign. She informed me that there was no hot water at all. I had just long enough to check the water heater and see that the pilot light was out. Dang it. I am quite handy around the house (have to be) but lighting the water heater is always Terence's job so I had no idea what to do-- and no time to deal with it. (I was in the middle of the school morning rush.) When I woke up Terence for family prayers I asked him to take care of it when he got up, but in the meantime poor M had to take a cold shower.
I ran the older kids to school and then came back to plunge into a frenzy of chores. I needed to get dinner made so Terence would have something to take with him for his long day, I desperately needed to get a few loads of laundry done, and S and K needed to be fed breakfast. I was also hoping to get a little more time on my bike (I had ridden 30 minutes on the bike trainer at 5:30) but I didn't get done with the other stuff in time. Actually, when it was time to go to my Primary meeting, I was still wearing my sweaty workout clothes, K hadn't eaten anything, and S was covered in yogurt from breakfast, and I hadn't had a chance to sort through my Primary papers. Yeehaw, Heidi.
(I did remember to kiss my husband goodbye since I wouldn't be seeing him again all day.)
At my Primary meeting I completely fell apart. It was getting close to the meeting about J, you see, and I was at my most wigged out about it. Almost, almost at that point I wanted to give up on my day. But Kami and Tanna (also at the meeting) are shouldering burdens even more challenging than mine and not throwing in the towel. In fact they were willing to go out of their way to help. So I pulled myself together. Most importantly, this is when I remembered that I didn't have to do this alone. Prayer helped a ton.
At home I decided that I would take a hot shower, wash my greasy hair and get it looking decent and actually put some makeup on. I figured putting some effort into my appearance would help me feel more confident and better all around-- and less likely to dissolve into a blubbery mess during the meeting. But wouldn't you know it? The pilot light was STILL out on the water heater. Terence had never gotten around to it. So much for my hot shower. I think I was feeling sick by this point. I'm not brave enough to wash my masses of hair in freezing water so I ended up pulling it back into a bun and using hairspray to kind of camoflauge the fact that I hadn't washed it in a few days. At least I could change into some nicer clothes too.
Since I wasn't bringing the kids to the meeting, I had just enough time to pick the older ones up from school, run them over to Amy's house and race back to the school. During that drive I noticed that the temperature gauge was inching up on the van. A couple of summers ago we had real problems with the van getting too hot while idling during our blistering summers, and I made a mental note that we would probably need to get the van in to get checked again. It's getting warm, but it's not that hot yet (if high 90's were a problem, the van was going to croak by mid-June).
I already blogged about J's evaluation meeting and that went so well that I left the school feeling really, really good. The only thing was that it had been a very long meeting so I was starving and I knew the kids probably would be too. On the way home from Amy's we made a quick run through a drive-thru for a snack and then continued on our way. That's when I noticed things were really starting to go wrong with the van. It was jerking every time I accelerated. Even more scary, the temperature gauge was steadily rising. Turning off the a/c didn't help. And sitting at stoplight didn't stop the rise either.
By the time we headed into the last mile before the house, the temp gauge was just a smidgen below that H, the completely overheating point. Again, I was praying desperately that we would just be able to get home. I didn't have a cell phone (long story) and being stranded on the road with five kids in 95 degree weather was the last thing I wanted to face. Fortunately, we were blessed enough to make it home.
At this point it was getting to be late afternoon. I had no way to contact Terence, a van that I feared to even turn on again, and a regular afternoon slew of things to tackle. It seemed certain that I was going to have to get the van into our mechanic, which is no easy feat. (He's in Mesa, and I only have a four hour window when I don't need my van on a school day. Can't make the school run with all of us shoved in the front of the pickup!) I was frantically wracking my brain for a way to accomplish this. Usually we try to borrow my parents' car in such situations but my parents are in Europe right now and it would take awhile to hear back from them, email and facebook being pretty much my only ways of being able to contact anyone. I looked up renting a van and found that we were looking at, best case, $85/day. Eeek!
Stress was eating me alive by this point.
Kristi helped me out at this point by texting Terence and asking him to call me. I unloaded the whole mess onto him (which I'm sure he didn't need in the middle of his stressful day) and he called a neighbor who is a mechanic to come down and take a look at it. Rob came right down and took a look and found that we had no antifreeze left at all. No wonder the van was overheating!!! The crazy thing was I had just taken it in for an oil change and supposedly they had checked the coolant levels. Yeah, right. Rob said everything looked fine-- there were no cracks or leaks-- so the coolant had just been evaporating over time and never gotten refilled.
Now I've learned my lesson. I need to learn how to check my own fluid levels and do it myself.
Rob warned me not to drive it at all until I had some antifreeze in there or I would damage the engine. Luckily, I didn't have any where I needed to go Wednesday night! When Terence's next check in call came, he promised to pick up antifreeze and have the van ready to go for me before I had to drive the kids to school Thursday morning. After that I tried to settle down to tackling J's book report with him and M's wax museum poster with her. Plus the regular homework and chores grind. It went pretty well with J, but with M it was a long, drawn out battle (again). The only thing she really got done was typing up her captions for all her photos. I did manage to get several loads of laundry done during the middle of all this though (Yay! We had clothes to wear!) but during all this I had pretty much left the younger kids to their own devices. When I came out to get dinner on the table, I found that they had decided to take the matter of food into their own hands. There were cupfuls of goldfish crackers poured on the living room floor, and a liberal scattering of brown rice all over the kitchen floor. Yogurt was smeared on counters, chairs, and the floor. And water was everywhere.
Don't you just hate that?
Going in search of the culprits I found them in my bathroom. Playing with Terence's shaving cream and my liquid foundation. A smeary mess of brown and white everywhere. But you know what? After everything I'd been through that day, I didn't lose it with my kids. That right there is proof that I wasn't alone. There was enough calming influence of the Spirit to keep me somewhat sane.
My day was a series of blessings disguised as challenges. With good friends at my side and help from above, I managed to navigate my way through a very rocky day. Thank goodness for blessings, small and great!
Comments
SUPER WOMAN!
you have so much on your plate and you survive.
I love how you write, I always feel like Im right there with ya. I wish I was, then I could help