The Man in the Flood

After a long discussion with John, I made the decision to decline the receptionist position at the yoga studio. Yes, it would have been amazing, but the majority of the income I made would have gone towards paying for childcare and that didn't make sense combined with how much I'd be away from them at dinner and bedtime. As I declined yet another job, I was reminded of the story The Man in the Flood:

The man is caught in a flood and as the flood waters rose, his neighbors told him: "You have to leave, the flood is going to wash everything away."

Calmly, the man replied, "It's not a problem, God will save me!"

As the waters rose to the 2nd floor of his house, some rescuers came by on a boat. They tell him, "Get in! The flood is going wash you away!"

Yet again, he calmly says, "It's not a problem, God will save me!"

The waters rise to his roof and a helicopter comes by. They tell him to grab the rope or he will be washed away. He again declines and says, "It's not a problem, God will save me!"

Finally, the flood washed everything away and the man drowned.

When he approached heaven, he saw God. The first thing he asked was, "Lord, I was so certain you would save me. What happened?"

Perplexed, God said, "I just don't know. I sent neighbors, a boat, AND a helicopter for you!"

I feel like I'm being handed these fabulous jobs and turning them down for perceived problems. After I got off the phone today, I was picturing God shaking his head with his arms crossed, muttering, "What a nincompoop!"

It's been two months since I turned down the library job and I STILL kick myself over it, although I haven't had any great ideas as to how we would have made the on-call thing work. I'm pretty sure I'll be kicking myself over this one for a while too.

John graduates at the end of the month. He has two weeks of classes, then one week of finals and then we are done. And then I will start school either for the summer term or the fall (we need a little break from classes for a while!). I'm sure I'll finally feel like I'm doing something good for myself once I get started on school. I just wish I knew if I was really doing the right thing by turning these jobs down or if I'm being a complete idiot.

Addendum to A Mad Problem

For further good thoughts or prayer: Aiden has an appointment with his pediatrician for next week to discuss the anger/irritability issues. While talking to the nurse, multiple possibilities were brought up ranging from the five year testosterone surge to a food allergy to anxiety to Celiac's disease. I don't think it makes me feel any better that the options range from a passing growth phase to needing a special diet and/or medication.

But hopefully we can get started on getting some answers and developing some sort of plan to deal with this.

A Mad Problem

Soon after Aiden recovered from that week long flu he had, he began getting quite angry over the most minor things. Screaming, yelling, stomping, cursing (yes, cursing....thank you school children), throwing things....just getting out of control. Since then, this happens multiple times per day and we never know what might set him off. It's also begun to flow over into his behavior at school so much that his teacher has had to talk to me about it on numerous occasions. This past weekend, he actually broke out in hives while at John's parents.

We have no idea what is causing this and it's getting quite frustrating. His teacher wants to meet with me next week to discuss it. Before then, I plan to call the doctor to see if it's something we need to discuss medically. I have a history of anxiety and tend to break out in hives if my anxiety levels go through the roof, so that may be a possibility. It's also possible that he's having an allergic reaction to something - lots of kids act out as part of an allergy reaction.

Whatever it may be, it's definitely causing a lot of extra stress on us all and since we're still in the thick of John working and finishing school, extra stress is NOT GOOD. If it's something you do, please keep us in thought and prayer while we work through this.

Dishwasher

We'd been without a dishwasher for a little while now and though I had been spending at minimum of hour per day washing dishes by hand, the view below never seemed to change.


The one day I did manage to get a good portion of the dishes washed, it took me right around four hours and the old break in my wrist hurt so bad, I couldn't do any other housework for the rest of the day without feeling like I going to burst into tears.

We had been waiting on a friend for her old dishwasher, but there was a bit of an unknown as to when exactly it would be ready for pick up. After some back and forth, John ended up making the decision that we needed to buy our own. So off to Lowe's we went and we found a great deal on a new Maytag dishwasher. We had talked about choosing stainless steel when replacing our kitchen appliances, but ultimately decided that we liked the features of the white one better. So we still have a matching kitchen. :^)

John being John, he opted to not pay for them to install it, but wanted to install it himself. So once he got home from school last night, we began the installation process together. I learned that just because John knows how to install a dishwasher, doesn't mean he can do it without some problems arising. It will be a long time before I forget him asking me to look closely under the dishwasher to let him know if there was any leaking water coming from the pipe hook-up. He turned on the sink and water went spraying out from under the dishwasher onto my face!

But we finally got it all hooked up and working after about an hour and a half. We are both VERY happy to have a working dishwasher again. It's quieter and washes more dishes than the old one. And the great thing? It does actually WASH the dishes.