One Crazy Week

Last week was busy and pretty stressful and now that it’s over I kind of can’t believe I didn’t completely lose it and go bat shit crazy. But maybe I’m already there and just don’t even realize it! After Sunday’s missing ring ordeal I really thought the rest of the week would go by fairly uneventful. Wrong. Chris switched to first shift this week but where he works, first shift doesn’t exactly cover the hours you and I might think. His latest start time was 3:45 AM and by Friday he had to arrive by 2 AM. Um, that’s the middle of the night. The bars aren’t even closed yet! Well that put a damper on us spending any amount of time together in the evenings that I’ve been waiting to do for the past 10 months we’ve been on opposite shifts. When you have to get up in the middle of the night you have to go to bed when people are still eating dinner.

Wednesday afternoon around 3:15 Chris called and said he had just gotten off work (a 12 hour shift) and stopped at the gas station to grab a drink for the ride home. When he came back out to the car it wouldn’t start. I work just an exit away from him (so annoying we can’t ride together) so I met him up there and he tried the jumper cables, even though he was pretty sure that wasn’t going to help. No luck. He thought it was something with the A/C belt but that’s where you lose me so I couldn’t begin to explain. I have roadside assistance through my insurance company so I called to see if I was still covered even for a car that was not on the plan. It was half an hour of repeating myself to several people before it was finally confirmed that I could use the service. Another ten minutes later the tow order was in and I was told it would be an hour or less. Well I didn’t realize that Chris was sure he could get someone (his dad) to help him fix the car instead of having it towed to the nearest repair shop. The roadside assistance would only cover a tow within 15 miles of our location and we live 35 miles away. So I had to cancel that and then find a towing facility near by and put in a new order. We waited an hour and called dispatch to check on the driver’s status and the woman was beyond rude. She told me the driver would be calling shortly but 15 minutes later he hadn’t so I called back. When I got rude with the dispatch woman right back she finally played nice. Ten minutes later the driver called Chris but he was still another 45 minutes out. He said if Chris fell asleep waiting he would wake up him and he could ride with him home. So I left to go let the dogs out and feed them. Of course there was a wreck on the highway so it took me an hour to get home.

Now if that wasn’t stressful enough, we decided to put the condo up for sale and a professional photographer from our realtor’s office was coming to take pictures for the listing the next morning. I thought we would have plenty of time to get things put away and/or hidden and tidy up but the towing mess took so long my time was limited. I ended up making a quick protein shake for dinner so I could carry it with me as I scrambled to move things around. If you are like us you don’t even realize a lot of the items that are kept out because they are used on a daily basis are actually considered clutter to interested home buyers. We don’t have a garage or a basement so storage base is limited. I put some things in cabinets but bigger things (like extra dog beds) ultimately were shoved into my car. Chris finally made it home around 8:30 but found out from the tow truck driver that insurance should have still covered the tow fee and hook up and the first 15 miles of the trip and then have us pay the rest. It took half an hour to get that straightened out with the insurance company on the phone but we ended up with only a $25 charge.

Luckily Chris was could catch a ride to work Thursday with a guy on the same shift who lives just a few miles from us. But Friday was another story. We ended up having to go borrow my mom’s car for the day since it’s hard to get a ride to work at 1:30 in the morning. We were definitely grateful to be able to use her car but it ate up a good portion of the evening working that out. I almost fell asleep watching Grey’s Anatomy and crashed into bed after that. I hate working out in the morning but I felt so discombobulated from having our schedule go out the winter all week I felt like I just needed to get up and do it Friday morning. 4:45 came early but it ended up being worth it to feel good and accomplished before 6 AM.

I was so happy by the time Friday afternoon rolled around I hugged my furballs a little bit tighter. They were really so good at adapting in spite of the craziness of the week and didn’t even complain that we didn’t spend as much time with them. They just rolled right along with everything and gave me extra kisses as I ran around like the metaphorical chicken with its head cut off. I should probably take a cue from them on handling stressful situations.

Friday night Chris and I hung at my parents’ house and played with their neighbor’s 5 month old baby. Chris was helping her do baby squats and it was so funny we were all laughing. It was a relief to just hang out for a little while but the rest of the weekend was crazy busy. We did flower girl fittings and lunch Saturday and then I cleaned and caught up on things I didn’t get to do during the week. Chris and his dad, okay mostly his dad, fixed the car and then he went off to help his groomsmen get their wedding gear. In the evening I headed out for my friend’s birthday dinner and to watch the Kentucky v. Notre Dame game. We ended up with about 10 girls in a corner booth clapping and yelling the whole nail biting game until Kentucky finally came out with the W at the very end. Sunday morning it was grocery time and then I went went off on a secret birthday present mission for Chris with my dad. 

In the afternoon we took the dogs to the park to soak up some sunshine and enjoy the fact that it felt a little more like Spring than Winter. 

We ended the weekend with dinner to celebrate my uncle’s retirement at Carlo & Johnny’s and let me tell you they have fabulous mac ‘n cheese and cheesecake.

I’m hoping this week is a little slower as we prepare for Chris’s 30^th birthday on Friday and Easter weekend!