Many years ago, I attended a seminar for my job. Through the years there were so many different seminars and workshops, and, quite frankly I only recall a handful of them.

One particular session stood out. The speaker drew a bunch of squiggly lines on a chalkboard.. her rendition of a roller coaster.  She spoke for two hours, but it was her final point that stuck with me. Life is like a roller coaster.

At times, we ride along smoothly with just a few slight bumps here and there. Other times, everything seems to be going great as we climb to the top. We are on top of the world!  But then….

Boom!

We start diving down, faster and faster, with life around us spinning by in a blur. It seems that everything that CAN go wrong, DOES go wrong.

Just as we’re ready to give up, we start to slowly climb upward again. There will be a few more dips, but eventually things start to even out. By the end of the ride, we’re cruising along on a level surface.

Here We Go..

I haven’t written a new blog post for a month. Sure, I could have written a bunch of words (blah, blah, blah) and published them..but my roller coaster was speeding downhill so fast that I couldn’t catch my breath long enough to write.

Our dishwasher died on us. This dishwasher has been on it’s last leg for months, so it wasn’t a huge surprise. No problem, I don’t mind hand washing dishes. As a matter of fact, I find it relaxing. Eventually a new dishwasher will come into our lives, but this wasn’t a major issue.

Next, it was the pickup. My husband broke down on the way home from work. We thought it was the transmission, but luckily it was something else a bit less sinister.  Still, it was out of the scope of my husband’s mechanical skills, so into the shop it went. For the next two weeks, we shared a car- not an easy task with our busy work schedules.

On the day we got the pickup back from the shop (to the tune of seven hundred dollars), my daughter-in-law sent me a message. Her plumbing was backing up into the toilet and bathtub. They rent from us, so this was our concern. We have a duplex, with us living in the front unit and them in the back.

My husband checked our bathroom and.. you guessed it..ours was also backed up. In all of the years we’ve had this place, both units have never had this issue simultaneously. I called the city to have them see if it was on their end. It wasn’t. My handy husband rented a sewer snake and supposedly broke the clog.

All was good for two days until it happened again. What the heck? “Heck” wasn’t EXACTLY the word we used, but you get the picture..right?

Another sewer snake rental, broke the clog. Were we done? Of course not!! My husband went to put the toilet back on and discovered the bathroom floor was rotted out. Rotted out, and he had to leave town for two days (truck driver). No toilet at all. Luckily, the back unit toilet was working and we know our neighbors pretty dang well. 🙂

My husband returned on Friday morning, put in a makeshift floor until he has enough time to replace it properly, and installed the toilet. Yay!

Nope. I started a load of laundry and everything backed up again. Time to call the plumber. Three hundred dollars later, we are cautiously optimistic.

Oh..I forgot to mention that in the midst of all of this, we found out that the water heater in the back unit is shot and needs replaced. There’s another five hundred bucks. 🙂

Plus…

Throughout all of this we have been having health issues. My husband’s diabetes is acting up with a 13.9  A1c. His doctor wants to put him on insulin but can’t due to DOT driving regulations for his job. They are trying other options. I had also been having issues with kidney stones (much better now).

There’s more..

In the midst of our  mess, my husband looked up in the corner of our living room and saw what he thought were cobwebs in the dim, cozy lighting. No, not cobwebs..just a little bit of MOLD!

Seriously? Seriously? Seriously.

All of this took place in November. Also in November we have had two son’s birthdays and four grandchildren birthdays, along with another grandson’s birthday coming December 2nd.

Has anybody seen the movie The Money Pit? I think I’m living it right now.

But..

All of this has been awful, but still this Thanksgiving we have so many blessings as well. I recently found out another of my loved ones is fighting a terrible illness. Other loved ones are suffering heartbreak, in many forms. I have no right to complain.

It is my hope that their roller coasters begin climbing back up very soon.

As for me, my arms are tired from holding them up and enjoying the zoom downhill. It’s time to level off a bit.

Happy Thanksgiving! 🙂