Life With Lani: It's Always Something

It's a law of the universe that when one thing starts to go wrong, stuff keeps on going wrong. I hope the rule that everything comes in threes is true because that should mean we're about done. Up until a couple months ago, we had had our credit card debt completely paid off for a few years. All we were making payments on were the vehicles and the associated insurance, the house (obviously), and my student loans (which, since I had the amazing foresight to graduate from a private liberal arts college, we will be paying off until I'm 80). Then stuff started to go wrong with finances. A couple years ago we bought a food vendor business. Last year it was very lucrative. This year we ran into problem after problem with getting into events and long story short we lost out on our spot for what should have been our big money-maker for the year. Let's just say we're out of a sum in the range of 5 figures. That's pretty much impossible to recover from.

We figured we could limp by, and we could have except that our refrigerator decided it was done doing its job. This is an appliance you can't really live without for any amount of time so that had to be replaced. And that meant we had to open up a store credit so we could replace our fridge. At least we have 6 months to get that paid off before the interest sets in, but it really stressed me out that we had to open a credit account when earlier in the year we would have been able to pay cash.

Next, it was the Mercedes. My work has been doing a lot of neverending construction for the last few months and what that meant was that inevitably something that didn't belong in my tire would end up stuck in there. It was just a matter of time, really. Unfortunately the screw punctured the inside edge of the tire, which can't be patched, which meant the whole tire would need to be replaced. And since the car is AWD, you can't just replace one tire without replacing the other 3 as well. So we had to buy a whole new set of tires - which was something else we couldn't afford out of pocket but you can't really drive a car without tires.

This is what $1000 will get you.

Rather fortuitously (?), we had just opened a credit card account a couple days before so at least we were able to pay for the tires. And at least the new set has a lifetime warranty so if another byproduct of construction destroys the new tires they'll be replaced for free, which is a big relief since I'm pretty sure by now my work will never finish with the construction projects they have going on. And the old tires were more "sport" tires versus "all season" so with winter coming up the new tires should handle the snow a lot better. But still, that was money I'd rather not have to pay off after going so many years without having credit cards at all.

The reason we'd gotten the credit card was to buy plane tickets to Jacksonville so we could visit my grandparents. That was something else we could have been able to afford without too much stretching earlier in the year except for... well, you know. Arguably a vacation should be something you put on the chopping block if you don't have the money but for me, this visit was going to happen and was not in the running to get rid of. Family is very important to me and not to mention we haven't had a real vacation of any sort yet this year, and you can't tell me that's helping our stress level! The nice thing about visiting family is all you really have to pay for is your transportation out there and then most everything else after that is covered.

Very fortuitously for us, my dad came to the rescue with some Frequent Flier miles. He was able to cover the cost of 2 of our tickets and so we only had to buy one round trip ticket, which really made a huge difference. Love you Daddy! It'll be nice for Mira to have her own seat on the plane but that means we have to pay for Mira to have her own seat on the plane. I'm honestly quite nervous about the flight out because I'll be flying out with Mira on my own (Mark wasn't able to get the full amount of time off so he'll be coming out later) and I'm having recurrent nightmares and anxiety attacks picturing a) Mira having the world's worst and longest temper tantrum for the majority of the 3.5 hour flight to Atlanta and b) losing track of Mira in the Atlanta airport trying to make our connection. Or more likely c) me running frantically through the Atlanta airport juggling a thrashing toddler and our carry-on bags. Knowing me I tend to fret needlessly and things work out well but still, any of those scenarios is likely and I'd feel better if I had another person available to help me out. Luckily all three of us will be flying back together. I think the fun part will be seeing Mira's reaction to flying on an airplane. It's not the first plane ride she's ever had but the first she'll really appreciate and get excited about. If I wasn't so worried about the FAA hunting me down I'd record her reaction to taking off.

One casualty of all the stress we've been under (and Mark especially due to additional crap trickling down at his job) is that our fantastic Halloween yard is going to be MIA this year. I'm not hugely disappointed - Halloween is Mark's thing and if getting the yard all tricked out is just going to add to his stress I'm glad he's not doing it - but it's still a bit of a letdown. But there's always next year. And that means I'll be able to focus more on taking Mira trick-or-treating, which I think she'll get very excited about this year. And there are still other Halloween-related activities, such as decorating pumpkins, which we got to do at Mark's parents' house last weekend.

I didn't even know you could stab a pumpkin with pipe cleaners! Mark came up with that one.

I feel bad for Mark because he's been having such a rough time lately and as it's mostly job-related there's not much I can do about it. Sometimes he'll seem like he's having a good day and then he'll say something like he wished someone had shot him while he was on duty today because he doesn't want to deal with it anymore and at least if he was killed on duty we would be taken care of monetarily. Umm yeah, just slightly disturbing to hear something like that. I wonder if all cops talk like this when they get overwhelmed or if it's just mine. But at least Mark has found a good appropriate outlet for his pent-up emotions: hockey! He recently joined a rookie league and he's always so pumped up and in a great mood for a couple of days after his practices. I'm not much of a sport person but of course now hockey is my favorite sport. :) I went to watch one of his practices and was really impressed with how well he's doing for someone who's never played hockey before! He's the one in the black jersey with red, grey and white stripes and the white helmet.

And of course we went to see the season-opener game of the Utah Grizzlies, our local hockey team. We won, of course. Go Grizzlies!

On to a different topic, as of this morning here is Mira's potty chart.

She was doing really well using the potty at least a few times a day for awhile, then she got less excited and I stopped pushing it, mostly because I knew this trip to Jacksonville would be happening soon and I really didn't want to deal with a newly potty-trained toddler on a cross-country plane trip. But she'll still use the potty at least once a day, and if she's with me when I use the bathroom she applauds me so at least she's making the connection. Now I want a potty chart and a reward every time I use the potty.

She's still super sneaky, especially since she's figured out how to quietly open up the door to the bedroom. I was talking to Mark while he was taking a shower one morning (I had left Mira on the couch watching one of her favorite shows so I figured she'd be riveted to the TV for the next few minutes), and when I walked into the bedroom I found this:

I'm not sure how she sniffed out that bag of Reece's Pieces but apparently she's got a nose for it. But she was very happy snuggled under the covers. (I always smile a bit to myself when I see her do this because before Mira was born Mark was adamant that she would never come into the bedroom after she outgrew the bassinet. Our bedroom is for us, went his reasoning. I'm sure he had every intention of firmly following through with this rule until Mira wrapped him around her little finger. This man loves his daughter so much! So now when she sneaks in and gets under the covers he usually ends up having a tickle match with her, unless by some chance she's sleepy enough she'll let him snuggle with her. I think she'll decide pretty soon that she's a daddy's girl.)

We went to my dad's and stepmom's for dinner last night and dessert was frozen blueberries with whipped cream. You can't really tell how purple her teeth and lips are in the pictures but at least they're good pictures.