Really Bad Karma

Today we had really bad luck or how I like to put it ‘really bad karma’.  This was not a fun day. Sounds kind of bad doesn’t it? Well let’s do a recap of what happened.

The morning started out with a phone call from Daryl’s work and he had to go in for awhile. He wasn’t sure at this time how long he was going to have to stay, so I decided to get some stuff done around the house, do chores, and then start mowing. I put the rest of the gas that we had on the farm for the riding lawn mower and Daryl stopped back home just in time for him to run into town to pick up some more. Then he didn’t have to go back to work for a couple of hours so he grabbed a some pieces of tin for an example that he still needed for the shed and he was off to town. The town that he needed to go to for this tin was an hour away and I figured that I could have quite a bit of the lawn mowed by the time that he got back. Yea… well that didn’t happen. I swear that he didn’t even hit the highway when the front tires of the riding lawn mower slid into a wet spot in the ditch. OK, this couldn’t be that bad now could it? Well the more that I tried to get it out – the worse it was getting. Soon I found myself in something (not sure what I should call it) and this whole situation was looking bad! I told myself, think logically. So after trying to push it out without any success, I went to get some lumber to put under the wheels to give it some more umph. It worked, but then I slid off of it and got even more stuck. You can just about imagine how mad this would make someone, and I found out that I was definitely one of those ‘someones’!! By now I was really pretty frustrated, mad, and hot so I thought I’d go in the house and try to come up with a plan. The next thing that I did was to get some really fine corn cobs to soak up the wet gunk in the ditch. Pretty smart huh? Well, it didn’t work. The only thing that it did was to make corn cob dust stick to the gunk on my legs and feet.  Then I remembered the 4 wheeler. That should work. I would hook it up to the mower and pull the dumb thing out. Well, I couldn’t get the 4 wheeler started, so I went into the house. I have no idea how hot it was outside, but I was sweating and decided to get a drink before I got too hot! OK, so I was going to try getting the riding lawn mower out one more time and I told myself that it was going to work. I mean it only needed to move just a couple of inches and I’d be free again!  Well, as I stepped in front of the lawn mower my most favorite flip flops in the world snapped. I had these flip flops for 3 years and have been through just about everything and today they decided to die?  By now I was just praying that no one was going to drive by because I’m thinking that I looked just a little bit scary. I threw the flip flops to the side, stepped back into the gunk, cleaned out the junk from underneath it which gave my arms a new layer of black mud on them, and pushed and pushed. And guess what? It was still stuck. That’s it and I was done. So I thought I’d fine some more chore shoes and do some push mowing. It didn’t take long to find the shoes and I thought at least I could be productive. Well, I couldn’t get the push mower started so I went back into the house. I was so crabby and hot, along with a massive headach that I tried to watch TV but couldn’t even do that. With the lawn mower was stuck, my flip flops broke, I couldn’t get the push mower or the 4 wheeler started, today was not going well.

Then Daryl came home and he looked like something didn’t go well in town for him. What happened was that they had all the tin that he needed to finish the shed and after he paid for it and went to get it from the lumber yard – they didn’t have any. So he spent 3 hours and couldn’t buy the stuff he needed. OK, this whole day is bad and we just need to get it over with. He helped me get the lawn mower out of the ditch which literally took 3o seconds with 2 people,  and then he started the push mower with one pull. I wanted to get some trimming done now that it was started and he said it only had about 10 minutes of gas in it. No problem – I can mow a lot in ten minutes! He grabbed a pop and back to work he went. So now with only 10 minutes to use the push mower – I was off. I have no idea how long I was mowing but I got the grass around the house and clothes lines mowed, the garden fence mowed, the steel bins mowed, trees in our front lawn mowed, and the rest of the ditch mowed. I must have looked like Wile E Coyote or something just running around with the push mower. And guess what? I had to shut it off because I didn’t run out of gas 🙂

So now I’m mowing and mowing on the rider and notice that it’s starting to sprinkle. There were a lot of dark clouds over head and I thought .. Bring it On! The day that I was having wasn’t nothing compared to what a little rain could do. Well, I guess I shouldn’t have thought that because I was finishing up the last 45 minutes in the rain.

Whew ! What a day huh? Well, William called and they were just coming home from Wisconsin and he was going to stop in to pick up a few things. Sounds good right? Well, then he mentioned that his side window of his car was falling down into to the door. Oh ohhh. He was going to see if he could take the door panel off when he got home and then try to temporarily fix it for now. It ended up being too dark when he got home so he decided that it would be OK for now because he got it stopped before it fell into the door. The weather report for our area at this time was calling for storms with heavy winds and hail so they ended up waiting for about 2 hours to let it blow over. In the mean time my wrist was just killing me. Somewhere in the course of the day I must have strained it or something because it was really starting to hurt and swell up. Great! William got out the ACE bandage and wrapped my wrist up and then a bag of frozen peas were on it to try to take the swelling down. He thought that maybe I sprained it or something. NO WAY!  I’m sure it’s just really sore. Finally the wind and rain calmed down and they were off. Then the phone rang. And it was William. His brake line on his car broke and he didn’t have any breaks. He was only about 10 miles away and he said that he could just use the hand break to get back home and then switch cars and use the Pacifica. I was scared to death that something was going to happen but they were soon pulling into the yard. Now the second batch of bad weather was coming around and they waited another hour until that blew over. They had everything packed into the Pacifica and now with the weather was looking better they were going to go. I said goodbye again and gave the Mom discussion on being safe and they went outside to leave. Well, I couldn’t figure out why they weren’t going and then I saw William running through the yard in the rain carrying something from the shed. He needed to jump the car because the battery was dead. I just used it on Friday and I’m thinking that the back hatch wasn’t closed tight and the light was on which drained the battery. By now I’m trying to convince them to just call it a day and leave in the morning. I mean it was already about midnight. But William said he had hours invested in  just trying to get back and he wasn’t going to give up now! (hummm…. I’m pretty sure that I saw this look earlier in the mirror) So finally he got the car jumped and they were pulling out of the driveway. I made them promise to let me know when they got there safe. So I laid back on the couch with my pack of peas on my wrist and finally Daryl comes home around 2 am. What a day we all had and I sure hope tomorrow is much better! These holidays are way too stressful!