Not Having A Very Good Friday

Started off the day with falling at the house I babysit at. Luckily I fell on my knees, so the baby is fine. But my knee is all sore and bruised up. Then, on the way home, I called my mom to see if she wanted me to bring her lunch. She tells me that a policeman just left her office, apparently we had a fire at the house. No one was home. Some stranger passing by saw our back porch on fire, grabbed our hose, and put it out. Thank God he was there, or we would have lost everything. His name and address will be on the police report, so we'll be sure to thank him properly.

So I get home and check it out myself. There was yellow police tape blocking the porch. A plastic table was sitting on the lawn, a big hole burned right through it. We're thinking this is where it started. It normally sits between two chairs on the porch, and holds three ashtrays. They had to pry away some of the siding and a few boards had to be removed, not to mention much of it is charred, but luckily, the porch is still strong enough to walk on.

My house stinks of smoke, charred wood, and burnt plastic, but at least I have a house. I'm thankful for that and I'm thankful for that stranger. Things could have been so much worse.

Still...not a great end of the week, huh?

Just When I Thought My Luck Was Changing

Not having a very good day. It actually started with news I got yesterday. Unfortunately, because I never know whose eyes will see this blog, I can't go into detail about it. Let's just say it's a family issue that is driving me up a wall. Then today I get news about my car. Yes, I'm still happy that it waited to get to the shop before breaking down. Only now, the price has gone up. Seems when they went to put the new axle on, they noticed my two front tires were worn down on the inside, due to my alignment being "way off." So, two new tires and an alignment later, the bill is now going to be about $450. But the day is still young. Who knows what else they will find wrong with it before they're done.

To top it all off, I was supposed to volunteer at my daughter's school today for Mardi Gras day. I called at 8:30 and asked what time I was to be there, I told them I was supposed to help the kids write letters to people living in retirement homes. I was told 12:30. I showed up at 10:40, to make sure they really needed me at 12:30 and to see if they needed any extra help. Again I was told 12:30, and no, they didn't need me for anything just then. So I show up at 12:15 and am told that the letter writing was that morning and they didn't need me for anything that afternoon. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! All that time wasted I could have been doing my freelance work. My daughter expected me to help out and now I wasn't. I went to her classroom to tell her what happened. She said she had been disappointed when she did the letter writing and I wasn't there. But she's ok. I'm still pissed though. The office staff at her school don't know their asses from their elbows!

And to top it all off, I'm starving and we have nothing to eat in this house...and no money to buy anything. Sigh. I guess I'll just have to have oatmeal or something. I'm cranky, my back hurts, and I've yet to pick up my car. Just not a very good day.

Some Good Luck For Once

My car has been making a weird grinding noise when I go around corners. It's been doing that for more than a month now. Unfortunately, with my schedule the way it is, I never had time to bring it to a shop to get it checked out. I kept thinking next week, next week. Not to mention the money situation is still miserable, and I wasn't looking forward to hearing that I needed to spend $1000 on that piece of crap. But I don't need the car tomorrow, so I thought today would be a good day to get it down there. I'm so glad I did.

I dropped the car off, told them to do an oil change and to find out what was wrong, but just to do the estimate, not any work. I was thinking whatever it was, I've lived with it for over a month, I could wait till next week to get the work done. But the guy called me minutes after I got back home. He took the car out for a test drive and as he went around the first corner, my axle just fell apart. He had to push it back to the shop. So, whether I liked it or not, I had to get it fixed right then and there.

Now, I did call this good news. The first part of the good news is that it waited to fall apart until after I dropped it off at the shop. It could have happened on the way to or home from work today. Could have happened the other day when I went to my hubby's work to drop off insurance paperwork. Could have happened when I had my daughter in the car. But no, it happened literally minutes after I bring it to a shop. That's the first piece of good luck I've had in awhile. The second piece of good luck was being told that they could get a refurbished (sp?) axle for about $120 and the whole deal, including the oil change, should be about $250. Not bad. I mean, I can handle that. I was thinking it would be closer to $1000. So I'm happy about that. Third piece of good luck, the car will be done tomorrow afternoon, so I don't have to live without a car for very long at all. :)

So, I just thought I'd post my car experience because you all are so used to reading about me being miserable. Change of pace for y'all. :)

I also want to thank everyone who emailed me after the last post. I haven't been able to get back to you all yet, but I will. Just know that your kind thoughts and support really helped get me out of that funk. You guys rock!

Till next time....