A Week in the Rough

It's easy to be sweet when things are going your way, but a nice long easy patch in life has its disadvantages. For one, it's so very jarring when reality hits - life is not always smooth. That reality has hit me this week, in little ways, over and over. On top of that, I've just been bad at life for at least three of the past seven days. Here are a few of our (mis)adventures.

At 7:00 on Thursday morning, I loaded two sleepy boys and one sleepy me into the car and made the hour long trek to east Joliet. I had some shutters I found on Craigslist the day before. I emailed the seller to ask if they still had them. They responded that they did and named the price. I replied that I was coming for them in the morning, and they said, "See you tomorrow!" Imagine my surprise when I pulled up at 8:05 a.m. and was told that the family just sold them to someone who was most definitely not me.

Irritating. Disappointing. We are buying a house with a basement space that, as you can see, is not for the faint of heart.

Don't get me wrong, I like leopards as much as the next guy, but we have extensive plans for this space. Plans that can be summed up with these pictures.

A little less this...

...and a little less this...

...a little more this...

...and a little more this.

So, I will have to find shutters elsewhere.

Fortunately, the trip was not wasted. We were planning to visit my mom, who took a nasty spill the other day and ended up with a leg full of stitches. I stopped to get some coffee for us, but no trip through the Dunkin drive-thru goes unpunished. As I began to order, I was rear ended by the lady behind me. Oddly, the "small, decaf YOU-HAVE-GOT-TO-BE-KIDDING-ME" is not a menu item anymore. Something about it being a very unpopular drink, except among insurance agents.

*May I offer a brief note on accident etiquette, even though I know you are all wonderful drivers? Should you somehow find that you have struck some part of your vehicle against some part of another vehicle, it is wholly unacceptable for you to wave off  the offended party with a nonchalant, "Eh, you're okay." This tends to elicit an uncharitable response.*

We finally made it to my parents' house, and Carson was immensely impressed by Grandma's injuries. I truly meant to be helpful, but I started out by making an epically terrible pot of coffee (I wasn't supposed to have coffee, it seems). I finished the visit by accidentally omitting a very important two cups of milk from the recipe I made for their dinner. My poor mom. I ended up moaning something like, "I'm going to bed until it's tomorrow!" She's my mom, and she lets me be pathetic like that from time to time. I love her for it.

On the bright side, I've been looking for some vintage/antique dining chairs.  While in my parents neighborhood, I got these for a steal. Coming soon, a post on refinishing antique solid oak chairs!

I had been negotiating about a refrigerator with a lady on a Yorkville garage sale Facebook page, since the house is coming with not one single appliance. She sent me a message, asking if we would come look at the refrigerator that night. "Yes we can," I replied. Just like that, we cancelled our plans and the grandparents graciously came over to babysit. We waited. And we waited. We waited some more. She never responded to us. So we had a fun night in, eating chocolate chip cookies with Gramma and Grampa and watching "Wipeout". Appreciating symmetry the way I do, I felt it only made sense to both begin and end the day with inconsiderate online sellers. (We did end up getting the refrigerator. It's great, and so was the price.)

*Insert a few more days of curveballs* One of these was that my mom went into the hospital for an infection in her leg, where they kept her a couple of nights to get it under control. The boys and I took her home and stayed with her over the weekend in what felt like a more successful attempt at being helpful.

We left bright and early this morning to go meet and pay the pest inspector at the property we're trying to buy. This is the LAST THING that has to be done before our closing date can be scheduled. We waited an hour and forty five minutes. When the pest inspector arrived, the people in the house wouldn't let him in because he was late. 

Dear sweet mercy. 

For ELEVEN days, I have been working on coordinating everyone for this dumb formality termite inspection on a house that has already been thrice inspected by three different entities. I spent a good four days smoothing ruffled feathers and getting ducks in a row after the first termite inspection that didn't actually happen because of a listing agent error. We picked an inspector who was nice enough to us, but ended up being a complete diva with everyone else. He called us this afternoon after his inspection and reported there were no termites. Score! Give us the paperwork and let's get this show on the road! He launched into a spiel about the work we needed to do on the house if we bought it (yep, that's why it's cheap). He informed me that he would not buy it if it was him, (it's not) and that he felt compelled to put these opinions into his report and our lender would surely not approve our loan. 

*When my brother was a little guy, he would bang his head on the floor when he got frustrated. Twenty years ago it seemed really counterproductive. This afternoon, all of the sudden, it made perfect sense.*

Termite Man, you have one job! We need you to say, "Why yes, there are indeed termites!" or "No, there is nary a termite to be found!" Wait. We would also like for you to be on time, so you have two jobs, of which you have done exactly zero. 

So we wrote him his stupid check and called Terminix for a second opinion. In fairness to Termite Man, he said we didn't have to pay for the inspection, but I paid him out of spite. Because nothing says, "Thanks for nothing!" like a $75 check, right?

Carson had a rough night tonight. He got in trouble and couldn't spend the night with his cousins. He cried and cried, and then cried some more before bed tonight. I pulled him onto my lap, and we talked through the awesome day he had just had with 15 of those cousins. We talked about all he had to be thankful for. It struck me that I'm not exactly qualified for this particular teaching moment at this particular time. I know I have a whole lot to be thankful for, and I really am. 

But please toss up a prayer for this termite inspection tomorrow. Sister's about to start banging her head on the ground, here!