In previous posts, I have mentioned that I have become more interested in religion and have begun some self exploration in and about how I feel about it. At Christmastime, my younger sister lent me some books which she thought I might be interested in. Two of these books were Captivating by John Eldredge and The Shack by William P. Young. I really enjoyed these books and there were some ideas addressed in them which I found particularly interesting. I thought I would post about a few of them in case anyone may be interested in the topics and picking up one of these books too.
Captivating, is about the soul of a woman. It discusses God's creation of the woman's soul and the parts of God's own self that woman embodies. The book talks about Adam and Eve as the embodiments of the first man and woman. It suggests that men have an innate need to be heroes, to be leaders and women have an innate need to be nurturers. This is not to say that women cannot be leaders, and men cannot be nurturing but that we are naturally wired to be predisposed to certain feelings. As a soldier's wife I believe my husband really is a hero in more ways than one but even if he was a business man doing a desk job somewhere I don't think I would feel any differently. Before we were married he used to call me his princess and that made me feel special in many ways. I think every girl wants to be some one's princess and he really made me feel like one. The book also talks about the story of Adam and Eve and about the portrayal of Eve as the cause of man's exile from the Garden of Eden. The author points out that although Eve is the one who eats the apple first, Adam just stands there and does nothing. He fails in his role as Eve's protector and therefore is equally to blame for their exile. He doesn't even protest when Eve offers him the apple as well. I like the fact that Adam and Eve are equally to blame for man's downfall. It's an interesting book and I would recommend it to anyone interested in the roles of men and women and it is enlightening in how it explains the hearts of women.
The Shack, is a very different book. This book does not set out to be a text on religion. Rather, it is a story about a man whose daughter is murdered and how he learns to come to terms with her loss. The main character has a religious experience in which he meets God. God is embodied in three people, rather like the trinity. One of the three is a black woman who loves to cook, one is an Asian woman who loves to garden, and the third is a middle eastern man who goes by the name Jesus and loves carpentry. The main character is uncomfortable at first with the idea that God is a woman. She doesn't fit his stereotypical image on Jesus or God as a white man with a beard and long white robe. I like the idea that God could be someone other than the stereotypical image. In the book, God also tells the main character that he does not care for the institution of religion at all. He thinks religion creates rifts between people because they put to many rules on each other and use them to exclude each other. There are a few ideas in the book that I don't entirely agree with but some of the ideas are intriguing. It's worth reading if you are interested in viewing God and religion from a different perspective.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Big Blessings in Small Packages
I believe that babies are a gift from God. Actually I believe that lots of things are gifts from God. I believe that God answers prayers... even if not always in the way that we hope. As a little girl I prayed to God to send me a man, not just a boy, but a man that would love me unconditionally and who I could love unconditionally back. A little over a year and a half ago, I married the man that God sent to fulfill that dream.
In the time that I have been married alone over a dozen of my friends have given birth to little ones. This doesn't even count the ones who had babies before our wedding. Last year, May was blessed with Spain and I have enjoyed every moment of watching him grow up and bond with his older brother Alex.
In January, another friend of mine welcomed a third child into her wonderful family. Unfortunately I didn't know about it until recently due to the fact that Hubby was home and to the fact that her husband was home on leave as well. I thank God that they were able to be together for the birth of their new daughter. I had prayed that the timing would work out for them. Yet another prayer that God answered with flying colors.
I wish that I could say that the circumstances under which I discovered that this good friend had given birth to her daughter were just as happy but unfortunately the news was accompanied by the news that the baby was sick and in the hospital at only one month old.
My heart went out not just to my friend but also to her entire family; to my friend as a mom who was in the hospital with a newborn, to her husband deployed overseas unable to help his wife or child, to their other two young children who now had to cope without the every day attention of either parent until their newest sibling could come home. Trying to imagine myself in any of their shoes was heartbreaking. Luckily both parents have family in the area who stepped up to help with the older children and to provide emotional support.
I didn't want to overstep my welcome but I reached out in the only way I know how. First with words and an offer to listen and chat, and secondly with dessert. I know it sounds silly but somehow, for me anyway, a friend and some sweets always seem to make a bad situation seem a little bit better.
I was fortunate enough to be able to visit mom and baby twice during their three week long hospital stay. I was afraid to hold the baby for fear of hurting her but my friend assured me that she wasn't quite that fragile. Holding this tiny baby girl in my arms I was completely enthralled with her. She is absolutely beautiful and she was so happy, smiling at me and making happy noises despite the fact that she was not feeling her best and had an IV tube attached to her tiny arm. It was such a privilege just to hold her for that short time until she decided she was hungry and wanted her mom back. All I could think about was how this new little life was a blessing from God to every life that she touched. Her parents are incredibly lucky.
Many people have been praying for this little girl so that she would recover quickly and be able to go back home to the rest of her family. These prayers were fulfill this week and I am happy to be able to say that my friend was able to take her home earlier this week.
In times such as these I often feel a bit of what I call "baby envy." These small bundles of joy are such wonderful gifts and it is difficult not want one of my own. Hubby and I have decided to wait a bit before we start our own family so that we can enjoy time being a couple first. A time will come when we are ready to have a baby of our own but until then I feel blessed to be able to share in the job of welcoming my friends' children. To those of you who are blessed to be the parents of these children, thank you for letting me share your joy.
In the time that I have been married alone over a dozen of my friends have given birth to little ones. This doesn't even count the ones who had babies before our wedding. Last year, May was blessed with Spain and I have enjoyed every moment of watching him grow up and bond with his older brother Alex.
In January, another friend of mine welcomed a third child into her wonderful family. Unfortunately I didn't know about it until recently due to the fact that Hubby was home and to the fact that her husband was home on leave as well. I thank God that they were able to be together for the birth of their new daughter. I had prayed that the timing would work out for them. Yet another prayer that God answered with flying colors.
I wish that I could say that the circumstances under which I discovered that this good friend had given birth to her daughter were just as happy but unfortunately the news was accompanied by the news that the baby was sick and in the hospital at only one month old.
My heart went out not just to my friend but also to her entire family; to my friend as a mom who was in the hospital with a newborn, to her husband deployed overseas unable to help his wife or child, to their other two young children who now had to cope without the every day attention of either parent until their newest sibling could come home. Trying to imagine myself in any of their shoes was heartbreaking. Luckily both parents have family in the area who stepped up to help with the older children and to provide emotional support.
I didn't want to overstep my welcome but I reached out in the only way I know how. First with words and an offer to listen and chat, and secondly with dessert. I know it sounds silly but somehow, for me anyway, a friend and some sweets always seem to make a bad situation seem a little bit better.
I was fortunate enough to be able to visit mom and baby twice during their three week long hospital stay. I was afraid to hold the baby for fear of hurting her but my friend assured me that she wasn't quite that fragile. Holding this tiny baby girl in my arms I was completely enthralled with her. She is absolutely beautiful and she was so happy, smiling at me and making happy noises despite the fact that she was not feeling her best and had an IV tube attached to her tiny arm. It was such a privilege just to hold her for that short time until she decided she was hungry and wanted her mom back. All I could think about was how this new little life was a blessing from God to every life that she touched. Her parents are incredibly lucky.
Many people have been praying for this little girl so that she would recover quickly and be able to go back home to the rest of her family. These prayers were fulfill this week and I am happy to be able to say that my friend was able to take her home earlier this week.
In times such as these I often feel a bit of what I call "baby envy." These small bundles of joy are such wonderful gifts and it is difficult not want one of my own. Hubby and I have decided to wait a bit before we start our own family so that we can enjoy time being a couple first. A time will come when we are ready to have a baby of our own but until then I feel blessed to be able to share in the job of welcoming my friends' children. To those of you who are blessed to be the parents of these children, thank you for letting me share your joy.
Friday, February 24, 2012
A Taste of Spring
The weather this week decided to give us a small taste of spring and it was just what I needed to get me out of the winter blues I was feeling due to the events discussed in my pervious post. Wednesday dawned gorgeously sunny after sleeping in (a luxury that I get on days off). It actually got up to about 80 degrees. I washed off my front porch and cleaned the table and chairs out there in prepartion for spring. They were coated with a thick layer of grime thanks to the wind, rain, and dust we have been blasted with in the past few months. All I wanted to do was to be outside and bask in the warmth of the sun. I sat on the porch in my freshly cleaned chair and just enjoyed being outside. I picked up a novel for awhile and for a few hours I was distracted from the list of things that have been weighing on my mind. It was energizing. I felt my mood had been lifted 100%. Even after that sun began to set behind the trees I felt good. I can't wait for days like that every day, for spring to arrive for good. Today we were back down to 60 instead of 80 but I can live with that for now. Wednesday's sunshine was just what I needed to recharge my batteries and take a fresh new outlook on life. Don't we all need that once and awhile? Sometimes it's the little things like a sunny day.
Floods, Fires, and People Who Know Nothing
I realize that I have been radio silent for awhile but the last few days of January and the month of February has been full of mishaps and frustrations. In an effort to keep myself from ranting too badly I decided to wait to post about them until I could laugh about them a little.
Floods
I guess January went out with a bang or should I say a burst. A burst of water that is. Where I live, it seems like we either have no rain or torrential downpours. There doesn't seem to be such a thing as "gentle" or light rain. The rain began a few hours before I went to bed. It was heavy but I wasn't overly concerned because there were no severe weather listings on my go to weather source, weather.com, or on the news.
Apparently that changed in a hurry after I decided to go to bed. I awoke around 2am to the sound of a storm right on top of my house. The thunder boomed so loud that every picture on my wall seemed to rattle and I feared they would fall off and come crashing to the floor. The lightning lit up my room eerily and cast ghostly shadows around my bedroom. I lay awake listening to the storm and found myself unable to go back to sleep. I had a nagging feeling that something was wrong; something other than the possibility of my pictures falling off the wall.
I dragged my butt out of bed and threw on a a pair of sweatpants and a long sleeve T-shirt. Walking around the house, nothing seemed out of place but the nagging feeling remained. I grabbed my Tablet and pulled up weather.com to see what they were saying about the storm. That's when I noticed a warning about an approaching torrent of golf ball sized hail.
I had left the car parked in the driveway because it was covered in bird poop and I was hoping the rain would wash it off. Worried about hail damage I decided I had better pull it into the garage. I grabbed a coat from the closet, pulled up the hood, and grabbed the first pair of shoes that I could see. I realized my outfit probably looked ridiculous but at at two in the morning I didn't think anyone would notice. I grabbed the keys and rain out into the pouring rain.
I stepped out of the door, right into a freezing cold puddle. Ugh... Awesome. I slogged my way down to the driveway. It was completely flooded. My driveway points downward on a hill towards my house and at least a foot of water was swirling and gurgling around the garage door. The grate that is supposed to drain the water just could not keep up with the downpour. In that instant a sinking feeling told me that there was probably water in the garage... The nagging feeling that something was wrong told me I was right.
I stood there for a minute trying to decide what to do. I still wanted to pull in the car. I figured that the water in the garage was probably less than the water on the driveway and I really did not want hail dents in our one year old car. I also wanted to know if water was in the garage because if so I would need to rescue some boxes we have stored in there because our garage had never flooded while the basement had in the past.
I opened the garage door. Water had already leaked inside and the boxes and furniture were wet but when I opened the door the problem had become ten times worse. All of the water that had been pooled on the driveway rushed in with a vengeance. I quickly pulled in the car and shut the door to prevent any more water from getting in. The water covered my shoe but at least it wasn't up to my ankle like the driveway water. I turned on the light and began trying to "rescue" our stuff. The basement was still dry, go figure, so I moved everything there. Everything was soaked. Speakers, boxes, a desk, our Christmas tree, and a really nice refrigerator my parents had given us. CRAP.
I have no idea how I did it; how I moved everything into the basement myself. I even managed to move the fridge. There was no way I could lift it over the step up to my basement doorway. I pushed it over to the the door and pulled it towards me into the basement onto its side. Later I would wonder where I found the strength to do this alone. I am chalking it up to one of those things where you gut a surge of adrenaline under pressure and can do super human feats.
I shut the basement door and decided to hope for the best until morning. Only problem was when I went to lift the garage door to go back into the house, I realized that when I had closed it, it had somehow become locked. I have no idea how this happened since you have to physically turn a knob on the outside to make it lock but maybe the pressure of the water coupled with the force of the door closing triggered it? I have no idea.
So there I was. Trapped in my garage and I was beginning to panic. I was soaking wet and I took several deep breaths to try to keep myself from freaking out. OK, you can figure this out. I said to myself. I pulled up as hard as I could...the door barely budged. Did I really think that was going to work? No, but in my state of panic I was hoping for a miracle.
I was completely trapped in the garage. To make matters worse... It was by this time 3 in the morning, still pouring, I was soaking wet, freezing, and I realized that the windows in the basement had been nailed shut. On top of that, I had pulled the car into the garage so no one would even think to look for me. They would assume that I wasn't home. AND, my cell phone was in my bedroom. I hadn't though to grab it since I was just going to be running out to pull in the car.
Panic rising I prayed out loud again and again, "Dear God, please help me to get out of this garage!" I didn't know what to do. I found the directions to the garage door tapped to the door. Unfortunately they only explained not to let children play with it. Not how to unlock it from the inside. Go figure. They didn't even show to to take it apart. I briefly considered running the car through it. I knew it would damage the car but I had to get out of the garage. I pulled at the door desperately trying to get it to open. Eventually I figured out that the bar of the locking mechanism could be bent. I was able to bend it just enough to force it up one notch which allowed the door to to open enough for me to crawl out under it. Unfortunately this also meant crawling through a foot of water so now I was really really really soaked and freezing cold.
From the outside of the garage I put the door back down all of the way and trudged back inside hoping for the best and deciding to let the rest be until morning. By this time it was about 3:45 am. I had a doctor's appointment in just a few hours time.
I stripped off all of my soaked clothes and left the sopping shoes at the door. I needed a shower. I was covered with mud thanks for the fact that I have no grass and so the dirt had flooded onto the driveway with the water. I took a quick shower and crawled into bed for a few last hours of sleep.
The next morning after my appointment (which I had walked to) I opened the garage to discover that the water inside had completely receded. But it had left a a wet muddy mess in its place. I pulled the car back onto the now drying driveway. Thankfully, the rain had stopped.
I spent the majority of the day dragging wet cardboard to the curb and trying to dry things out and clean up the mud. My back was not thanking me for my efforts. It took three days for the garage to dry out completely. Then came the task of moving everything back into it from the basement.
Thank God for Helpful Neighbors
I began moving things back into the garage but the fridge was blocking the way of moving anything large. I could not budge it an inch. I have no idea how I moved it in the first place. I needed help. With Hubby gone I wasn't sure who to ask. I finally opted for my next door neighbor. The neighbor across the street had essentially shut the door in my face when I had gone to bring over a batch of congo bars to welcome them to the neighborhood but thankful the couple next door is really nice.
I knew the soldier's wife was on a trip away from home and I felt bad asking for his help but I didn't know anyone else who I felt could help me move my ridiculously heavy fridge. I sheepishly knocked on the door and asked if he would mind giving me a hand. A bit to my surprise he enthusiastically ran out to help. He didn't even hesitate. God bless him. He helped me move the fridge back, although he admitted it was heavy and even offered to help me with everything else. I took him up on the offer to move a few of the heavier boxes and thanked him several times. I brought him a plate of cookies the following day.
It wasn't until a few weeks later that I felt confident enough to plug the fridge in to see if it still worked. Thank goodness it does.
Crisis averted I hoped that would be the worst thing I would have to deal with for awhile. Unfortunately a week later the garage had water again. At least this time it only made it a few feet inside so it didn't get anything important wet a second time.
Fire
After the flooding issues I had pretty much had it and wanted to hide out from everyone. I just didn't feel like being social. I was relaxing on the couch one night watching TV when all of the sudden, I smelled something burning. It smelled like burnt pizza. It was 11:30pm. I hadn't even used the stove to cook dinner. I searched the entire house including the basement and garage for the source of what I assumed had to be a fire. Everything seemed normal. In an effort not to freak out I called May. I am so thankful to have her. Who else could I call at absurd hours of the night? She told me to call the housing office and have them come out to look at it. Something burning it not something to mess around with and I agreed with her.
In an effort NOT to bore you to tears I'll make a long story shorter and tell you that I spent at least an hour on the phone trying to get a hold of somebody and then it took an hour or so for that somebody to come out to my house. Needless to say it was 2:30 by the time the guy had left my house... He couldn't even find anything wrong. Fortunately the smell has dissipated and I felt OK knowing that he had checked everywhere. At least he had smelled it too when he arrived so I knew I wasn't crazy. He told me it had probably been cause by the fog. Fog causes burning smells?
People Who Know Nothing
A few days later I was trying to gather our tax paperwork. After going through it with Hubby we figured out that we were just missing two documents and that both happen to be from companies that he used to have student loans with; loans that we had paid off last year and should be getting a tax deduction for. Hubby had called both of these companies while he was home on leave to request the appropriate forms but I wasn't surprised that they had not followed through. Feeling bad that Hubby has little time to deal with this stuff and because of the time difference overseas, I offered to call the companies to request the forms again.
One company had an automatic request system. No problem.
The second company however was less than helpful. The first representative told me that my husband was nowhere to be found in the system and that I must have the wrong number. Taking a deep breath I told her that this number was on every single statement and letter that we have concerning this particular loan including the letter we received to confirm that the account had been paid off. She asked me if I was sure. No, I thought to myself, I'm just looking at it. I read her what the letterhead said but she still insisted our account did not exist as a past or present customer. I asked to speak to another representative. The jerky woman who clearly knew nothing informed me that I could but they all work from the same system. She then put me on hold... for 20 minutes.
I was getting more than annoyed. I hung up and called back. This time I got a different representative. This woman could not find us in the system either but after putting me on hold twice and having me give her our information time and time again she finally found the records. I had been on the phone for over 45 minutes. I then asked her if she could please send us the required tax form. She informed me that she couldn't because I was not authorized to do anything on the account. Seriously? I didn't even ask for any info. I PROVIDED all of the info. All I wanted was for a tax form to be sent to the address they already had on file. She told me that if I faxed a copy of my POA that I could call back in a week or two to request the form again. It's a good thing that I wasn't taking to her in person. I might have decked her one.
Poor hubby had to call because I was to pissed to deal with the situation and did not want to wait two weeks just to "request" the form. He was told that we have to wait a minimum of 17 days just for the request to be processed.
So, in conclusion... it has been a rough month. Did I mention that the DVD player in my bedroom stopped working and the TV in our living room seems to be on the blink? Sigh... hurry home Hubby. I miss you :(
Floods
I guess January went out with a bang or should I say a burst. A burst of water that is. Where I live, it seems like we either have no rain or torrential downpours. There doesn't seem to be such a thing as "gentle" or light rain. The rain began a few hours before I went to bed. It was heavy but I wasn't overly concerned because there were no severe weather listings on my go to weather source, weather.com, or on the news.
Apparently that changed in a hurry after I decided to go to bed. I awoke around 2am to the sound of a storm right on top of my house. The thunder boomed so loud that every picture on my wall seemed to rattle and I feared they would fall off and come crashing to the floor. The lightning lit up my room eerily and cast ghostly shadows around my bedroom. I lay awake listening to the storm and found myself unable to go back to sleep. I had a nagging feeling that something was wrong; something other than the possibility of my pictures falling off the wall.
I dragged my butt out of bed and threw on a a pair of sweatpants and a long sleeve T-shirt. Walking around the house, nothing seemed out of place but the nagging feeling remained. I grabbed my Tablet and pulled up weather.com to see what they were saying about the storm. That's when I noticed a warning about an approaching torrent of golf ball sized hail.
I had left the car parked in the driveway because it was covered in bird poop and I was hoping the rain would wash it off. Worried about hail damage I decided I had better pull it into the garage. I grabbed a coat from the closet, pulled up the hood, and grabbed the first pair of shoes that I could see. I realized my outfit probably looked ridiculous but at at two in the morning I didn't think anyone would notice. I grabbed the keys and rain out into the pouring rain.
I stepped out of the door, right into a freezing cold puddle. Ugh... Awesome. I slogged my way down to the driveway. It was completely flooded. My driveway points downward on a hill towards my house and at least a foot of water was swirling and gurgling around the garage door. The grate that is supposed to drain the water just could not keep up with the downpour. In that instant a sinking feeling told me that there was probably water in the garage... The nagging feeling that something was wrong told me I was right.
I stood there for a minute trying to decide what to do. I still wanted to pull in the car. I figured that the water in the garage was probably less than the water on the driveway and I really did not want hail dents in our one year old car. I also wanted to know if water was in the garage because if so I would need to rescue some boxes we have stored in there because our garage had never flooded while the basement had in the past.
I opened the garage door. Water had already leaked inside and the boxes and furniture were wet but when I opened the door the problem had become ten times worse. All of the water that had been pooled on the driveway rushed in with a vengeance. I quickly pulled in the car and shut the door to prevent any more water from getting in. The water covered my shoe but at least it wasn't up to my ankle like the driveway water. I turned on the light and began trying to "rescue" our stuff. The basement was still dry, go figure, so I moved everything there. Everything was soaked. Speakers, boxes, a desk, our Christmas tree, and a really nice refrigerator my parents had given us. CRAP.
I have no idea how I did it; how I moved everything into the basement myself. I even managed to move the fridge. There was no way I could lift it over the step up to my basement doorway. I pushed it over to the the door and pulled it towards me into the basement onto its side. Later I would wonder where I found the strength to do this alone. I am chalking it up to one of those things where you gut a surge of adrenaline under pressure and can do super human feats.
I shut the basement door and decided to hope for the best until morning. Only problem was when I went to lift the garage door to go back into the house, I realized that when I had closed it, it had somehow become locked. I have no idea how this happened since you have to physically turn a knob on the outside to make it lock but maybe the pressure of the water coupled with the force of the door closing triggered it? I have no idea.
So there I was. Trapped in my garage and I was beginning to panic. I was soaking wet and I took several deep breaths to try to keep myself from freaking out. OK, you can figure this out. I said to myself. I pulled up as hard as I could...the door barely budged. Did I really think that was going to work? No, but in my state of panic I was hoping for a miracle.
I was completely trapped in the garage. To make matters worse... It was by this time 3 in the morning, still pouring, I was soaking wet, freezing, and I realized that the windows in the basement had been nailed shut. On top of that, I had pulled the car into the garage so no one would even think to look for me. They would assume that I wasn't home. AND, my cell phone was in my bedroom. I hadn't though to grab it since I was just going to be running out to pull in the car.
Panic rising I prayed out loud again and again, "Dear God, please help me to get out of this garage!" I didn't know what to do. I found the directions to the garage door tapped to the door. Unfortunately they only explained not to let children play with it. Not how to unlock it from the inside. Go figure. They didn't even show to to take it apart. I briefly considered running the car through it. I knew it would damage the car but I had to get out of the garage. I pulled at the door desperately trying to get it to open. Eventually I figured out that the bar of the locking mechanism could be bent. I was able to bend it just enough to force it up one notch which allowed the door to to open enough for me to crawl out under it. Unfortunately this also meant crawling through a foot of water so now I was really really really soaked and freezing cold.
From the outside of the garage I put the door back down all of the way and trudged back inside hoping for the best and deciding to let the rest be until morning. By this time it was about 3:45 am. I had a doctor's appointment in just a few hours time.
I stripped off all of my soaked clothes and left the sopping shoes at the door. I needed a shower. I was covered with mud thanks for the fact that I have no grass and so the dirt had flooded onto the driveway with the water. I took a quick shower and crawled into bed for a few last hours of sleep.
The next morning after my appointment (which I had walked to) I opened the garage to discover that the water inside had completely receded. But it had left a a wet muddy mess in its place. I pulled the car back onto the now drying driveway. Thankfully, the rain had stopped.
I spent the majority of the day dragging wet cardboard to the curb and trying to dry things out and clean up the mud. My back was not thanking me for my efforts. It took three days for the garage to dry out completely. Then came the task of moving everything back into it from the basement.
Thank God for Helpful Neighbors
I began moving things back into the garage but the fridge was blocking the way of moving anything large. I could not budge it an inch. I have no idea how I moved it in the first place. I needed help. With Hubby gone I wasn't sure who to ask. I finally opted for my next door neighbor. The neighbor across the street had essentially shut the door in my face when I had gone to bring over a batch of congo bars to welcome them to the neighborhood but thankful the couple next door is really nice.
I knew the soldier's wife was on a trip away from home and I felt bad asking for his help but I didn't know anyone else who I felt could help me move my ridiculously heavy fridge. I sheepishly knocked on the door and asked if he would mind giving me a hand. A bit to my surprise he enthusiastically ran out to help. He didn't even hesitate. God bless him. He helped me move the fridge back, although he admitted it was heavy and even offered to help me with everything else. I took him up on the offer to move a few of the heavier boxes and thanked him several times. I brought him a plate of cookies the following day.
It wasn't until a few weeks later that I felt confident enough to plug the fridge in to see if it still worked. Thank goodness it does.
Crisis averted I hoped that would be the worst thing I would have to deal with for awhile. Unfortunately a week later the garage had water again. At least this time it only made it a few feet inside so it didn't get anything important wet a second time.
Fire
After the flooding issues I had pretty much had it and wanted to hide out from everyone. I just didn't feel like being social. I was relaxing on the couch one night watching TV when all of the sudden, I smelled something burning. It smelled like burnt pizza. It was 11:30pm. I hadn't even used the stove to cook dinner. I searched the entire house including the basement and garage for the source of what I assumed had to be a fire. Everything seemed normal. In an effort not to freak out I called May. I am so thankful to have her. Who else could I call at absurd hours of the night? She told me to call the housing office and have them come out to look at it. Something burning it not something to mess around with and I agreed with her.
In an effort NOT to bore you to tears I'll make a long story shorter and tell you that I spent at least an hour on the phone trying to get a hold of somebody and then it took an hour or so for that somebody to come out to my house. Needless to say it was 2:30 by the time the guy had left my house... He couldn't even find anything wrong. Fortunately the smell has dissipated and I felt OK knowing that he had checked everywhere. At least he had smelled it too when he arrived so I knew I wasn't crazy. He told me it had probably been cause by the fog. Fog causes burning smells?
People Who Know Nothing
A few days later I was trying to gather our tax paperwork. After going through it with Hubby we figured out that we were just missing two documents and that both happen to be from companies that he used to have student loans with; loans that we had paid off last year and should be getting a tax deduction for. Hubby had called both of these companies while he was home on leave to request the appropriate forms but I wasn't surprised that they had not followed through. Feeling bad that Hubby has little time to deal with this stuff and because of the time difference overseas, I offered to call the companies to request the forms again.
One company had an automatic request system. No problem.
The second company however was less than helpful. The first representative told me that my husband was nowhere to be found in the system and that I must have the wrong number. Taking a deep breath I told her that this number was on every single statement and letter that we have concerning this particular loan including the letter we received to confirm that the account had been paid off. She asked me if I was sure. No, I thought to myself, I'm just looking at it. I read her what the letterhead said but she still insisted our account did not exist as a past or present customer. I asked to speak to another representative. The jerky woman who clearly knew nothing informed me that I could but they all work from the same system. She then put me on hold... for 20 minutes.
I was getting more than annoyed. I hung up and called back. This time I got a different representative. This woman could not find us in the system either but after putting me on hold twice and having me give her our information time and time again she finally found the records. I had been on the phone for over 45 minutes. I then asked her if she could please send us the required tax form. She informed me that she couldn't because I was not authorized to do anything on the account. Seriously? I didn't even ask for any info. I PROVIDED all of the info. All I wanted was for a tax form to be sent to the address they already had on file. She told me that if I faxed a copy of my POA that I could call back in a week or two to request the form again. It's a good thing that I wasn't taking to her in person. I might have decked her one.
Poor hubby had to call because I was to pissed to deal with the situation and did not want to wait two weeks just to "request" the form. He was told that we have to wait a minimum of 17 days just for the request to be processed.
So, in conclusion... it has been a rough month. Did I mention that the DVD player in my bedroom stopped working and the TV in our living room seems to be on the blink? Sigh... hurry home Hubby. I miss you :(
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