Murphy Makes a Visit
Wow, my blogging is really slipping down the list. I haven't given up on it altogether though. The end of June was madcap busy-- I was getting ready to go on vacation (among all the summer craziness), and getting a family of seven out the door for a trip is a serious undertaking. This year we escaped to the mountains again. (Last year we went to the same place, only we had to leave Terence at home. This year he came with us.)
It was such a nice break. If you've never lived through a desert summer, you don't know how wondrous it is to escape the heat-- real heat, mind you, not wimpy 90's stuff-- and breathe fresh air and actually put on a jacket at night. But I honestly wondered if I was going to survive getting there.
My life has been scheduled out hectic. Crazy busy. I know, I know. It almost always is. But the week before we left for Pinetop, I had everything scheduled down to the wire. Monday we were going to Big Surf Waterpark. Tuesday, I had a primary presidency meeting, a doctor's appointment up in the valley, and scouts in the evening. After the summer movie Wednesday I intended to have a laundry marathon and get all the kids packed. Thursday I had eight piano lessons planned, plus getting my house cleaned and the van all clean and ready to be loaded. Oh, and I had to get my newsletter for the week edited and formatted. Friday I was supposed to get to the gym, get the newsletter published, and finish up any loose ends before getting on the road by 2 pm.
Of course, you'll notice I didn't really have any room in my schedule for things to go wrong. But go wrong they did. I pretty much handled the insanity of Monday and Tuesday according to plan (other than being exhausted and grumpy). Wednesday morning we headed out to the summer movie in the morning (Kung Fu Panda 2, I think I'd only seen bits and pieces before-- I actually liked it better than the first one). So far so good. When we got home I started right in on the laundry, planning to hopefully have enough clean clothes to pack by the evening. But the mother of all monsoon storms decided to roll in and tackle our neighborhood. It was a doozy. B tracked me down in my room to tell me that it looked like a tornado was outside and that our dogs were panicking. When she let them in, poor Willow barged in to my room just quivering with fear. Not long after our power went out. Not unheard of during monsoon season, but just imagine being without power during a Phoenix summer evening. It gets brutal without a/c. Worse, my laundry was NOT getting done. My friend Kristi called with the bad news-- there were power poles down all over the place and nearly every road leading out of our development was closed. It was going to be hours before the power came back on. I threw in the towel and loaded up the kids. We decided to head out the only way we could, hoping to maybe meet up with Terence and say hi (he was working). Apparently, we arrived in town just ahead of the storm. Terence couldn't drop by and take a dinner break with us-- he had a car fire and then a fatal accident back to back. Then the storm made its appearance where we were, and I decided to move on to my parents' house.
Apparently we were storm magnets because the storm hit us again once we had safely reached their house. Buckets of rain unloaded on the house, but the power stayed on. (Thank goodness for that!) We waited all the way until about 10 pm, when I got word that our power was back on. Exhausted beyond belief (I had been up since 4 am) I loaded up all my kids to make the hour long trek back to our house, avoiding all the roads that were still closed (including the stretch of freeway where Terence was still dealing with that terrible fatal accident). But lo and behold, I must have forgotten to shut off the storm magnet in the van again, because while we were on a very deserted stretch of highway, another deluge opened up on top of us. The rain was so bad I could barely see five feet ahead of the van. The came the real kicker-- another text from Kristi letting us know that the power was off again in our neighborhood.
No freaking way.
We couldn't go back to my parents' at that point. It was nearly 11 and I was nearing the zombie zone. But of course when I got home I couldn't sleep. The kids weren't going to sleep with another thunderstorm going on and no power in the house. And it was hot and muggy after hours of no a/c. I ended up sweating on my bed with the three younger kids piled around me or stretched out on the floor. It was impossible to get any sleep at all until the power came back on, somewhere around 1 am, I think.
That meant Thursday I had 8 piano lessons, 6 loads of laundry, packing, cleaning, a gym workout, and interviews for me and J at the church to cope with on a measly four hours of sleep. It was just awesome. When I got back from the church (about 8:30) I still had to tackle the newsletter.
Yeah.
Friday I still had so much to do that I literally was working frantically from the time I got up until I herded all the kids into the van. We did, however, manage to leave right on time. Even though I was having anxiety attacks most of the morning.
Oh man, did I ever need a vacation after all that. (Vacation report to follow soon!)
It was such a nice break. If you've never lived through a desert summer, you don't know how wondrous it is to escape the heat-- real heat, mind you, not wimpy 90's stuff-- and breathe fresh air and actually put on a jacket at night. But I honestly wondered if I was going to survive getting there.
My life has been scheduled out hectic. Crazy busy. I know, I know. It almost always is. But the week before we left for Pinetop, I had everything scheduled down to the wire. Monday we were going to Big Surf Waterpark. Tuesday, I had a primary presidency meeting, a doctor's appointment up in the valley, and scouts in the evening. After the summer movie Wednesday I intended to have a laundry marathon and get all the kids packed. Thursday I had eight piano lessons planned, plus getting my house cleaned and the van all clean and ready to be loaded. Oh, and I had to get my newsletter for the week edited and formatted. Friday I was supposed to get to the gym, get the newsletter published, and finish up any loose ends before getting on the road by 2 pm.
Of course, you'll notice I didn't really have any room in my schedule for things to go wrong. But go wrong they did. I pretty much handled the insanity of Monday and Tuesday according to plan (other than being exhausted and grumpy). Wednesday morning we headed out to the summer movie in the morning (Kung Fu Panda 2, I think I'd only seen bits and pieces before-- I actually liked it better than the first one). So far so good. When we got home I started right in on the laundry, planning to hopefully have enough clean clothes to pack by the evening. But the mother of all monsoon storms decided to roll in and tackle our neighborhood. It was a doozy. B tracked me down in my room to tell me that it looked like a tornado was outside and that our dogs were panicking. When she let them in, poor Willow barged in to my room just quivering with fear. Not long after our power went out. Not unheard of during monsoon season, but just imagine being without power during a Phoenix summer evening. It gets brutal without a/c. Worse, my laundry was NOT getting done. My friend Kristi called with the bad news-- there were power poles down all over the place and nearly every road leading out of our development was closed. It was going to be hours before the power came back on. I threw in the towel and loaded up the kids. We decided to head out the only way we could, hoping to maybe meet up with Terence and say hi (he was working). Apparently, we arrived in town just ahead of the storm. Terence couldn't drop by and take a dinner break with us-- he had a car fire and then a fatal accident back to back. Then the storm made its appearance where we were, and I decided to move on to my parents' house.
Apparently we were storm magnets because the storm hit us again once we had safely reached their house. Buckets of rain unloaded on the house, but the power stayed on. (Thank goodness for that!) We waited all the way until about 10 pm, when I got word that our power was back on. Exhausted beyond belief (I had been up since 4 am) I loaded up all my kids to make the hour long trek back to our house, avoiding all the roads that were still closed (including the stretch of freeway where Terence was still dealing with that terrible fatal accident). But lo and behold, I must have forgotten to shut off the storm magnet in the van again, because while we were on a very deserted stretch of highway, another deluge opened up on top of us. The rain was so bad I could barely see five feet ahead of the van. The came the real kicker-- another text from Kristi letting us know that the power was off again in our neighborhood.
No freaking way.
We couldn't go back to my parents' at that point. It was nearly 11 and I was nearing the zombie zone. But of course when I got home I couldn't sleep. The kids weren't going to sleep with another thunderstorm going on and no power in the house. And it was hot and muggy after hours of no a/c. I ended up sweating on my bed with the three younger kids piled around me or stretched out on the floor. It was impossible to get any sleep at all until the power came back on, somewhere around 1 am, I think.
That meant Thursday I had 8 piano lessons, 6 loads of laundry, packing, cleaning, a gym workout, and interviews for me and J at the church to cope with on a measly four hours of sleep. It was just awesome. When I got back from the church (about 8:30) I still had to tackle the newsletter.
Yeah.
Friday I still had so much to do that I literally was working frantically from the time I got up until I herded all the kids into the van. We did, however, manage to leave right on time. Even though I was having anxiety attacks most of the morning.
Oh man, did I ever need a vacation after all that. (Vacation report to follow soon!)
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