Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Welcome to our Crazy Life

So far this week:

My car has been in the shop. It's worth ~$2000, it needs 3 different repairs, each quoted by the dealer as being $750. We're going to make one of them (which, according to a late breaking text, isn't actually the repair we thought it would be - dealer's diagnosis and local shop's diagnosis disagree, so this first round is considerably cheaper than anticipated), and get some other things in order to be able to pay all or mostly cash for a replacement vehicle later this year.

The washer started making noise a couple weeks ago. ~$200 later we will have a new pump tomorrow. I do not want to replace this until Leaf is out of diapers - high efficiency washers and cloth diapers seem to have issues, and I like my old washer.

The fridge started making noise last week. The compressor is bad, which is a $750 repair. I think the fridge only cost $780 when we bought it 10 years and 6 weeks ago, as our housewarming present to ourselves. The repair guy said he wouldn't fix it - we're better off buying new.

My great aunt (or 3rd cousin, or something - in this case, tribal kinship rules make more sense than actual geneology) passed away last night. She was my grandmother's cousin of some sort, but she was raised by my great-grandparents because her family was sickened by a cholera outbreak, and they wanted to protect her, so they sent her away. Last year we learned that Aunt E had a sister still alive, back on her home reservation.

Aunt E was the first person I ever met (and I was 10 when I "met" her the first time that I actually remember meeting her) for whom faith was something one lived their life by, rather than just the name of the church one attended. For her, it wasn't about needing to *believe* in something - it was complete acceptance, a quiet knowing - there was a glowing solidness to her faith. I used to pray that I'd be given faith like hers, and in some ways, I have that solidness now....just not in the same God, and not always to the same extent that I always saw in her.

Aunt E was diagnosed with stage IV metastatic cancer of the lymph nodes back in 1993 or 1994, before I even met my husband, and she decided a year or so later that she was going to enjoy what time she had left, rather than go to doctors so she quit all conventional treatments (though she did see a traditional healer)....and cancer still wasn't what killed her this week, more than 1 5 years later.

And that's just the unusal stuff, not anything related to the NICU or nurses or work or the terrible threes (really, two was a good year for us. Three is turning into a disaster of frustration and tantrums, and I really would like my sweet boy back, thanks).

No wonder I feel overwhelmed - that'd be a rough week without our normal chaos.

2 comments:

  1. That's a lot!

    I'm sorry about your aunt.

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  2. Forgot to say - three sucks. But there's also some cool stuff that goes along with the tantrums... hope you get to see it soon!

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