When It Rains It Pours Or A Really Bad Day

When I was a few months out of college, I got a job working for a college textbook company. I was hired as a manager trainee and knew that when I got finished with my training I would have to relocate. When it came time to relocate, I was sent to the Rio Grande River Valley. I was excited. Winter is really not a thing there and it was only about 5 hours from my family and friends.

There were several things I did not really realize when I moved. First, I didn't realize how hard it would be without friends or family nearby. Second, I didn't realize that I would be the only white person in the room most of the time. 

Well, on my day from hell, only a month after moving there, both of those things became extremely evident. My day started around three o'clock in the morning. My bed had gone crashing into the floor or at least one corner of it did, which jolted me awake. So, I proceeded to struggle with my mattress and box springs to fix things so they did not get ruined or break the three bolts that were still holding my bed frame together. 

This day I was filling in for a manager at our sister store across town and had to get up earlier than normal to be there. When I woke up it was raining cats and dogs. I have a tiny car and the streets were starting to flood. I made it to the store before the worst of the flooding started. Just after I got there and let myself into the building they started closing streets all over town. 

When I walked into the store, I was greeted by water all over the floor. The building was leaking in several places. There was water running in under the back door and water running down the wall and in the windows that lined one wall. There were textbooks sitting in boxes and piles on the floor getting wet. I quickly moved the books out of the water and then was left wondering how I could possibly get all the water that was left off of the floor and how to stop it from pouring in. While I was doing all this the power was flickering off and on constantly and resetting the computers.

Even worse the phone kept ringing as our regional manager called wondering if I had opened the store. He kept telling me to open the store and to clean up. I was trying, but his constant phone calls were not helping. The roads were closed so we would not have any customers until the road opened again, nor would we have any employees until the road opened again. The regional manager was flying in later that morning so I was rushing trying to get the disaster cleaned up. After mopping for what felt like hours and dumping hundreds of buckets of dirty water out the back door the floor was mostly dry and the rain had lessened enough that water was no longer pouring down the walls. 

The regional manager arrived and so did the other employee. After a lecture from my boss, I headed back to my normal store. On the way, yet another disaster struck. As I was making a turn something on my car snapped and I lost power to the car. I coasted into the parking lot of Peter Piper Pizza. Sitting in the car without power in South Texas is HOT. It was the middle of July and the rain had stopped which left everything more humid than normal. I called my insurance companies' roadside assistance that told me that it would be about an hour before the tow truck arrived. While I waited I crawled under the car and found a chunk of metal hanging down. Turns out it was some kind of important pulley and it had snapped in half. I put it on the seat of the car and walked into Peter Piper to buy a bottle of water. Just as I was getting back to the car a large Hispanic man came up and grabbed me by the arm and started to try to drag me to his car. The whole time he was talking to me in Spanish, which I only have a minimal grasp on. I could not get him to let go even though I was yelling and struggling. He finally turned towards me and I kneed him, right in the balls, and took off running for my car. I jumped in and locked the doors. He was in pain and kind of waddled the rest of the way to his car and left. 

So, I sat in the car with the windows rolled most of the way up waiting for another 30 minutes for the tow truck. I answered numerous phone calls from my boss who was asking when I would be back at my normal store. I continued to tell him it would depend on when the tow truck arrived and what happened with my car. He was not happy. When the tow truck arrived I got in (even though I was a little afraid to do so after my last encounter with a strange man). The tow truck driver asked where I wanted to go, and I said "I don't know. Somewhere that can fix my car today without costing a fortune." He made a phone call to a company that said they could do it and off we went. As we drove we quickly were driving through places I did not recognize and there were signs saying "10 miles to Mexico" and counting down quickly. The last sign I saw was only 2 miles to Mexico. I was starting to feel concerned again and then we finally pulled into the shop.

The shop quickly found the problem and then had a hard time finding the part. After two hours of phone calls, they found my part in a junkyard just across the border. I told them that was fine as long as it could get fixed that day. While they went to get the part I walked down the road to Subway for a late lunch. I was greeted by an employee who says "Wow, you look like hell." I responded with something like "Thanks, I guess." 

Thankfully after more than four hours, they fixed my car. When I got back in my car, the first thing I heard on the radio was a tornado warning and I would be driving straight through it. The bookstore was closing in 10 minutes, by the time I got there. I don't know when I have ever been so grateful for a day to be done. Flooding, car repairs, being drug towards a stranger's car, and a broken bed were more than enough bad things for one day.

Overwhelmed

Do you ever feel really overwhelmed? I am at that point right now. I feel like I have so many irons in the fire that I do not know how I will ever get everything done. It is pretty rough lately. I know I am not as busy as some people, but I am overwhelmed

My irons have grown in the last few months since Popeye got home. Since Popeye got home laundry multiplied immensely, along with other chores. I also started working again for the first time in years. I work from home, but it is still not something I am used to. I enjoy the work. Freelance writing is fun, but it is something that takes away from what had been my normal schedule for years.

I have also taken on some things like being an assistant den leader for Little Bear's den. Then, there are projects like finishing the bathrooms, sealing the tile floors in the rest of the house, and then cleaning up after we get it all done. I am ready to have my house back to normal instead of being torn apart. Soon, I hope, it will all be done.

One of my many irons

To help combat the overwhelmed feeling I have made myself a schedule. The first part of my day begins with getting Little Bear off to school. After that, I come home and take my morning nap. I know, I know, most of you think a morning nap sounds crazy, but with my gastroparesis, I need a morning nap to function the rest of the day without biting anyone's head off or falling asleep mid-afternoon.

My writing work doesn't take too long most days so I am scheduling it for my mornings and early afternoons. I usually try to get it done around lunch time. I schedule chores and painting for the afternoons. Then, I plan my time for making dinner and doing laundry in the evenings.

Having a schedule really helps, but even more than having a schedule, I have found that starting my day off right helps most. On days I start with reading my Bible and having some quality prayer or my devotional time I have a much better and more productive day. I am in an online Bible study group that I love. When I keep up with that I do much better at keeping up with all the other things in life. Working on my relationship with God helps me control my stress and anxiety and I need all the help I can get with that.

They are like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. 

Luke 6:48  

Planning Our Future

With Popeye, my sailor, home, we have been talking a lot about goals. We are planning for the future. When I say planning I mean financial planning, vacation planning, short-term planning, remodeling, and planning for education. Planning is stressful to me, but it must be done. It has been put off far too long.

Our plans include: 

Paying off debts

Popeye taking online college classes

Saving Money

Tithing and generously giving to charitable organizations that are important to us

Vacations to a few places over the next few years

Being more involved in our church
Remodeling and upgrading things around the house

Some of these goals will really take some work on our part. One of the first things we are doing to make this work, is I am getting a job. I have not worked for many years. When Popeye and I got married I quit my job and moved across the country. I had a hard time finding a new job and then I was sick as a dog and pregnant with Little Bear. I have been privileged to be a stay-at-home-mom these last few years, but the time has come for me to take on a new role in life. I don't know how much money I will make as a stay-at-home mom and freelance writer, but I am working on making it a career. 

Another thing we will be doing is setting down a more strict budget. I really hate budgeting. We have a budget, but it has a lot of wiggle room in it right now. We are going to be more strict about what we spend for fun. Some of that extra "fun" money is going to be put towards debt and savings. 

Popeye will be doing online classes to finish his degree. He has been working hard at it every time he is home long enough to take classes. His degree will help to ensure our financial future many years from now, after his time in the Navy is done. 

We will be giving generously. We already tithe, but I plan to give more generously above and beyond our normal tithe. We will be tithing, giving to mission offerings that speak to our hearts, as well as other non-profit organizations we are fond of. 

Popeye and I are homebodies. We like to do stuff, but we do not really enjoy spending time in large groups of people. We like spending time with our little family. We will be breaking out of our comfort zone more often to join in church events and gatherings. We will be spending more time in fellowship with like minded people. 

And last of all... vacations. They are expensive. We will be saving money specifically for some trips we would like to take. We want to go to the Grand Canyon. It is a long trip from here, no matter how you do it. We would also like to spend a few days exploring Disney World and Orlando. So much to do and so little time and money.

We are already in the midst of remodeling and upgrading some things around the house. We have replaced the kitchen sink and garbage disposal. We ordered flooring for the bathrooms, to replace the nasty carpet. We are working on the yard. We have been looking at new light fixtures and arguing about paint colors. Our home is a work in progress. 

So, our planning has begun. We are a work in progress. I am sure we will slip up on our road to success, but trying is worth something.  

Stupid People are Everywhere

As a teenager and college student, I worked at a couple of tourist places. One of the first things I learned at 16, working as a tour guide in a cave is that stupid people are everywhere. I don't mean slightly stupid people, I mean absolutely nonsensically idiotic.

Me in high school... the very figure of authority

In the cavern, there are many places that have chained off areas that say do not enter and areas with railings. I cannot tell you how many times people would try to cross these barriers, and rarely were they children. More often than not it was grown adults that were the problem. They would blatantly and obviously crawl under or over barriers... and they always got caught.

I would shine my flashlight on them and tell them they needed to come back on the pathway. They would look at me from the other side of the barriers and say, "I am not breaking any rules" or defiantly "You can't make me!" Usually, this resulted in a threat that we would have the police called because damaging the cave is a criminal offense.

One day a man, in his mid-30's or early 40's, decided to climb over the railing. I politely asked him to come back onto the trail. He rudely refused and then started to get belligerent. We were near the end of the tour and he had been quite frustrating all along.

As a 16-year-old, it can be quite difficult to maintain authority in a dark hole in the ground with rude people. As I was starting to get frustrated and was about to radio up that they needed to send someone down to escort him out, a woman comes up and says angrily, "Let me deal with him!" And she walks up to the barrier where he is standing and whacks him with her purse. With an evil gleam in her eye, she says "If you don't come back over here and behave I will take the car and go home without you." Then, she turned around and walked away. Turns out they were married and she was not happy with him. He came back over the barrier and was silent the last 10 minutes of the tour and apologetic as I was locking the gate on the way out.

A life lesson from that day...  as a wife take control of the situation when your husband is being a moron and if all else fails, whack him with your purse. It is a lesson, that as a wife, I am glad to have learned. One additional gem is that stupid people are everywhere.

Chiroptophobia

I am afraid of very few critters and creatures. One of them is bats.... Now being afraid of bats may seem like a totally irrational fear, but I promise it is not. I have a legitimate reason.

When I was a teenager I gave tours in a local cave. As part of tour guide training, they tell you there are no bats in the cave. Well, they lied and I found that out the hard way. There may not regularly be bats in the cave, but there are sometimes.

One day I was giving a tour, a huge tour, with sixty people on it and I are only sixteen. Keeping the attention of 60 people as we walk through a cave is not always easy. That day as we were walking and the family next to me asks me what is back in this one hole. I had shined my flashlight back in that hole hundreds of times so I shined it back there and something flies out.... in my face and then flies around and gets tangled in my hair a little bit. Mind you as this small bat is flying around I started screaming. Not just screaming but a bloody murder terrified kind of screaming. The bat was IN my hair, flapping and freaking out as much as I was.

In reality, whole ordeal lasted less than a minute, but to me, it felt like an eternity. Let me tell you screaming a blood-curdling scream will get the attention of all sixty people on a tour. Right past the hole where the bat frightened me is a room that we stop to talk about formations in. The entire time we stood in that room the bat flew round and round with me watching it and hoping it would go away.

A few years later my family went on vacation and went to Carlsbad Caverns. While we were there we watched the bats swarm out of the cave one evening. It was another terrifying event. You stand near the mouth of the cave and wait and as the sun sets the bats to start flying out. As they start flying out there are only a few and then all of the sudden there are hordes of them. The employees remind you repeatedly to be quite so the bats can use their echolocation to fly. As people get quite the bats fly lower and lower, which means they get closer and closer to people. The bats started getting closer and I tried really hard to ignore them. It didn't help especially when it flew so low that it knocked my dad's hat off his head. He was sitting next to me so that was way too close for comfort.

I won't even look at the bats in the zoo. I walk right past them and wait outside while my son and husband watch them. Looking at them even in their little glassed-in cage makes me anxious. Bats may eat bugs and creepy crawlies, but I do not like them even if they are useful. I have chiroptophobia. Yup, I do, I am afraid of bats.

Avoiding bats at the zoo