Stories We'll Laugh About Someday...

 

There are two things I’m profoundly grateful for when it storms.

The first is that somehow, in the grand scheme of random pet choices, we landed two pets who are completely unimpressed by storms. They don’t cry. They don’t whine. They don’t whimper. They seem a bit bored by them, truthfully.

            The second is that both of them use litter boxes, so rainy days don’t mean muddy paws and wet fur smells.

            We awakened to Matlock-like storms yesterday (if you watch the show, you get it), and I stretched out in bed thinking how grateful I was about those two things.

            Therein ended my feelings of goodwill toward yesterday.

            Ryan and I got up and ready – and I had to wear a workout shirt for my day of real work, because we still don’t have the clothing thing figured out yet, and a workout shirt was what I could find.

            “Figuring out the clothing thing” means that we both have to sort through our existing wardrobes and pare down significantly. In comparison to others on the planet, I really don’t feel like we have a lot of clothes, but we have more to put in the closet than the closet space can hold. We are going from a normal-sized walk-in closet to a shared reach-in closet. Things will have to go.

            A couple of nights ago, I went through the hanging clothes and cut out almost half of what I own. I probably should go through it one more time – and I have other stacks to purge as well. Once we do that, we can stock the closet and the drawers, and we hope everything will be much easier to navigate.

            After we were ready for the day, a gentleman came to do an installation for us. Moving always means installing new things, so we’re in the week of such visitors gracing our home. He talked to us for a long time, and during a lull, Ryan walked into our bedroom.

            He called out to me, “Can you bring me some pots?”

            WHAT?!

            Turns out all that rain brought about a leak in the roof. You know…the roof the inspector said was in great shape?

            We actually knew it wasn’t – but not until after we purchased the house. We were over here working one day last fall during a terrible windstorm. We found shingles flying off, and when Ryan went up to see what he could do, he said the roof was definitely in need of a replacement. Soon…but we didn’t know it would be this soon.

            I tried and failed to have kind thoughts toward the inspector as all my cooking pots migrated to the bedroom.

            Ryan went to the garage to get our tarp to place it over the offending area, but we’ve owned it so long and used it so much, it’s full of holes – like the roof, I guess.

            He went to the hardware store and found a new, affordable tarp, so now we’re “those people” on the lake. The ones with bricks holding down a tarp. Hello there, new neighbors!!

            It was during a conversation between the installation man and Ryan (who was strategically placing the pots) that I heard our zip code mentioned and realized immediately that the 200-some address update announcements I sent out yesterday most definitely had the wrong zip code. When you have to learn four zip codes in as many years, you’re bound to mess one up. What a time I picked to do so!

            So there, I sat, huddled in the corner to work, watching rain fall into the lake, listening to fans whir in the bedroom, and thinking about zip codes.

            But for all the madness that fell into one solid hour of a day, we did have some blessings.

·     *   Ryan was home to contend with the leak. (As if I have a clue about leaking roofs!)

·     *  The hardware store had a tarp in our price range and in stock.

·     *  We found the leak before it ruined anything we owned.

·     *  It didn’t leak during any of the four months we were not living here to find it in time.

·     *  I didn’t print and mail 200-some incorrect address updates.

·     *  Our pets don’t hate storms.

And thus, we have come full-circle.