Water, water everywhere and life NEVER going according to MY plans

Way back in mid-February, on an already busy Saturday afternoon, as I got ready to go to our upcoming Teams of Our Lady meeting, Tim decided to fix the bathroom faucet that had very low water pressure.  

Things didn’t go as planned.   

The valve broke off the pipe and water gushed into our house at an alarmingly rapid rate.  We had water pressure now- but now we couldn’t turn it off.  The water main shut off was completely stuck.  Water poured into our house for about 45 minutes or so while we waited for a plumber to come and fix it.  The whole house was flooded in the process.   

We didn’t make it to our Teams meeting.

The insurance claims process, the water mitigation, the clean up and put back together of our soggy house has been long and exhausting.  Nothing has gone according to plan.

Not really a picture of our flood.  This is from last summer at the local "spray ground."  But it was cute and it fits the theme of water water everywhere.

The chaos and unpredictability of it all started almost immediately with four hours of ripping apart the wet mess of our home, followed by four days of dodging huge dehumidifiers and fans all over.  Followed by four five weeks of waiting…waiting…waiting for the new flooring, painting, minor carpentry repairs, and new bathroom vanity.   

In the meantime- under our old laminate, the kitchen floor was the most indescribably hideous, disgusting linoleum that was covered in mismatched patches and textured with streaky stripes of old tile glue.  It wouldn't come clean- I know, I got down on my hands and knees and scrubbed it with multiple cleaning agents ending up with bruised knees and a floor that still left the bottom of our socks a dingy brown color.

This week, more than a month since the flood, the contractors hired by the insurance company began the restoration work!!!!!  

First thing, Monday morning, we got a call- the flooring sub-contractor was coming to install the new laminate.  I looked at our school work for the day and planned out how to accomplish it all in the midst of workmen taking over our kitchen.  Then, an hour later, I got a call from the flooring company again.  They weren’t coming after all, because of rain in the forecast.  As we did our schoolwork, I watched out the window as NO rain fell on our house.  Nothing was fixed on Monday.

Tuesday, we got the same call again.  The flooring men were on their way.  The kids and I went to Mass for the Feast of the Annunciation assuming the workmen would arrive soon after we got home.  Instead, we came home to a voice mail message- the painters were coming.  Long story short—still no floors but the painters were at our house ALL day leaving at 5:30 with only one room completed!

Our leftover paint all lined up

 

Wednesday, there were paint cans, drop cloths, ladders, brushes, and baseboards stashed all over my house, but the painters weren’t coming because FINALLY the flooring WOULD be installed!  One team of workers took on the kitchen to install the laminate.  Another team tackled the bedrooms to put down new carpeting.  We couldn’t get down the hall, had to literally climb our way to the toilet, and had furniture and toys and stuff all over the family room (and all the painting supplies too) because it was the one room that would not be getting new flooring.  What a mess of a day!  The kids and I did about half of our planned work and then gave up because the distractions were too overwhelming.  When Tim got home from work the floors looked AWESOME, the house was mostly put back together and the kids and I were having trouble keeping our eyes open through dinner because we were so tired from all the chaos of the day.

Thursday, the painters came back.  Another loooong day of painting.  Workers all over my house.  Paint fumes permeating the air around us.  Apologetically sneaking by the painters and all their supplies to go to the bathroom.  And seemingly endless phone calls to figure out when the last of the work would be finished (our baseboards were never finished and somehow in the craziness of Wednesday the pile of uninstalled ones completely disappeared.  No one knew where they went.  No one was scheduled to finish them.  And no one would tell me when or IF they would ever be done.  The new bathroom vanity has not come in yet.  No word on an estimated date of arrival for that either.  Oh and the family room carpet is supposed to be professionally cleaned for us.  No one has even mentioned that.  AUGHHHH!).  My kids have been amazing troopers and have kept up with their school work as well as they possibly could.  They have stayed out of the workmen’s way and have not complained about the disruption of our lives.  We are hanging in there keeping our positive attitudes and our sense of humor about the whole situation- but just barely.

Our new kitchen flooring- still waiting for the baseboards.

This morning it’s Friday!   We still have no baseboards.  Still no official word on them even.  Still no word on any of the other unfinished work either.  But the kids and I have our co-op classes and after not leaving the house all week because I had to be here to supervise the workmen, we are all anxious to go see our friends and get some fresh air.  But….a half hour before we were set to leave, my four year old threw up ALL over the beautiful new laminate flooring.   No co-op for us….

Lent is all about letting go of our will and submitting to God’s, right?  I think I’m getting the message..… Can things quiet down just A LITTLE NOW?!?!!?!?!?!

My new toy!

Confirmation

I guess I didn’t do a very good job of keeping up with my Confirmation Prep Series. I didn’t write a thing about my daughter’s Christian Service hours.  How she signed up to help out at the infant care center of our local crisis pregnancy center to get her 20 required hours.  Or about how she fell in love with the babies there and could not give up her volunteering even after she met the 20 hour requirement, and even now, more than 3 months after she surpassed 20 hours, she still looks forward in great anticipation to the few hours a week she gets to go play with those precious babies whose mothers chose life even in the darkest of circumstances.

I didn’t write about the service project she did with the other Confirmation candidates at our parish- going to a soup kitchen and serving dinner and dessert to nearly 200 homeless men and women.   Or about the mini-retreat we had one chilly breezy afternoon on the shores of Tampa Bay praying and reflecting and meditating on the works of Holy Spirit along with her wonderful sponsor.  

Which reminds me- I didn’t even mention my daughter’s chosen Confirmation sponsor- the lovely, faith-filled young lady who used to be our babysitter but is now a treasured friend.  My daughter was so incredibly blessed to have a sponsor who is not just a loyal and kind friend but also a great role model-- a truly magnificent example of authentically living out one’s Catholic Christian faith even through the sometimes difficult challenges of late adolescence and into early adulthood.

I didn’t mention much about the books we read in preparation, or the discussions we had, or the prayers we shared. 

But, despite my negligence in all this- I won’t let the opportunity to share about the actual Confirmation pass….

After all our learning and preparing and praying……..Last Thursday, finally- the Confirmation Mass was upon us!  My parents came and so did some close family friends.  And of course, our entire family was present to witness the sacrament.  My oldest son was privileged to be one of the altar servers assisting the bishop in the Mass.

My daughter dressed in the long flowing skirt and matching silver sweater we had painstakingly sought out.  She pinned on the name tag prepared for her for the event that proclaimed her Confirmation name- “Bl. Teresa of Calcutta.”   She wore a Holy Spirit medal and dainty jeweled cross earrings.  During the Mass when we were invited into the moment of silence before the official conferment of the sacrament, I offered my prayers that my daughter would feel the Holy Spirit touching her heart, but, that even in the moments of life when she didn’t that she would remain ever faithful and close to Our Lord.  My daughter looked beautiful and peaceful as she stepped forward with her sponsor to receive the sacrament.  The bishop spoke with her for just a moment, imploring her to be like Mother Teresa and see Jesus in everyone she meets in life and then he spoke the words of the sacrament, “Be sealed with the Holy Spirit” and anointed her head with the sacred chrism, making her a fully initiated Catholic.  

the best picture we got during the Mass

The Mass was moving and beautiful and the get-together afterwards was full of laughter and love as we celebrated the joy of the occasion.  

opening her gifts after her Confirmation

(how cute is it that she put her new Confirmation name on her cup?)

Preparing my daughter for this sacrament was a new experience for me.  I was no expert on Confirmation going into it but as with so many things- we learned together as we went along.  I am still no expert on the sacrament but through our months of sacramental prep, my daughter and I were very blessed to have many opportunities to talk about our faith and how to truly live it out and what it means to be a soldier for Christ.  I hope her faith was strengthened.  I hope my faith was strengthened too.  And I hope the Holy Spirit continues to work in both our lives inspiring us to holiness…..

Inspiring fiction- The Life I Dreamed

What if you had the chance to influence someone’s decision to choose life or to abort an unplanned pregnancy?  Now imagine that encouraging the decision to choose life, would come at great inconvenience to you...what would you do?

 

 Read the fictional account of one young family's response to just such a situation in, the CWG Seal of Approval novel, The Life I Dreamed.

Two Fabulous Pro-life Stories! FREE TODAY!

 

Free today at Amazon.com

A Life Imprisoned 

The Life I Dreamed

One hit wonder

I have a new blog.  A fancy new one created as a space to write about my writing.  It has a beautiful design and is sitting there (over at Wordpress) all ready to be posted upon.  However, Wordpress never seems to like me much and gives me nothing but endless problems. And I have a few things to say about my writing of late.....so, here I am back at "From My Catholic Perspective" where I thought I'd never be again...

To talk about one hit wonders.

One hit wonders-- those fabulous chart topping songs that everyone loves and everyone sings.  Those amazingly successful, incredibly popular songs by artists that no one has heard of before and no one ever hears from again.  

I'm sure there has never been a musician who has aspired to become a one hit wonder. Sure, it is better than a no-hit failure....... but not much.

I wrote a novel a few years ago.  It was great.   Writing it was great.  Editing it was great.  Publishing it was great and reviews of it were, for the most part, pretty great.  So I wrote another novel and then another.   

My second novel was terrible.  So terrible, in fact, that I never finished the job of editing it.  A few thousand words into my read-through of it told me, it was not worth pursuing further.  

My third novel was much more fun to write than the second.  The story seemed better, the plot clearer, the characters better developed.  However- the editing process feels eeriely familiar to story #2.  There are so many things that need to be fixed and I am not sure what the best way to go about fixing it all is.  Should I re-write the entire first half of the book?  Should I change the basic premise of the story?  Should I make my characters totally different?  Should I keep going with the story as it is and just clean up the grammatical errors, not worrying that parts of it just don't sit well with me?

As I have pondered all these questions, I have also wondered- Am I the writing equivalent of a one hit wonder?  Maybe my first novel was a fluke thing.  Maybe I can't follow it up.  Maybe I am not all that talented as a writer.

And if all these things are true-- Can I live with hanging up my writer's hat, so to speak, and just being content to have had that one success? Is it okay to give up one's dreams after having just a tiny taste of those dreams coming true?!?!??!?!?

My latest work....

I recently published a short story which is now officially available for purchase at Amazon.com.  The story is entitled "A Life Imprisoned" and it tells the tale of a man who is convicted and given a life sentence for the murder of a dog..... 

Check it out here!