Being happy

The last few weeks have been challenging.

I woke up one morning a little over three weeks ago with some fogginess in my vision. I went to a local ophthalmologist and got a diagnosis and an appointment to return in five weeks. As the next several day passed, it continued to get worse, so, with some help from my mother, I found a specialist in Indianapolis who is in my insurance plan's network. They got me in the next day.

We discovered that the original diagnosis, while not incorrect, was incomplete, and that the problem is both potentially more serious, but also more treatable. The first line of treatment is a huge Prednisone blast, stepped down over six weeks.

My body didn't like that. I was jittery and agitated. Shaky. Couldn't sleep. Was having night sweats, achy muscles, limb numbness, and horrible mood swings. So we stepped down the amounts over the course of 10 days and now I am on half the original dose. We will continue the planned step down from here. I'm still having some side effects, but not so severe, and I can handle them if it saves the sight in my left eye.

In the midst of feeling like a total wreck, I was in a total wreck. Literally.

A driving lesson gone bad.

 

The Volvo did what it was supposed to do. The frame buckled and we both walked away. My husband went and looked at the site of the wreck and said that he can't believe we made it mostly between the tree and the light pole, hitting one with a glancing blow and bouncing off of the other.

So my car is totaled. My body is shaken and sore. I will miss my stupid car.

But we are not seriously hurt. The insurance company is giving us a fair price for the car. Life will go on.

And my eye seems to have improved a little.

Over the past couple of weeks, the prayers of my friends and family have surrounded me as an almost palpable thing. I have returned over and over again to some Psalms and hymns that are particularly powerful on themes of trust and contentment and the pure unwavering message that I belong to Christ and nothing changes that.

I am basically a happy person. I am blessed not to be prone to depression. I bounce back quickly. It is one positive personality trait that offsets many that I don't like so well. But right now I feel a little bit of a need to focus, specifically, on all of the large and small things in my life that add to my happiness. So, each day for at least a month, I am going to post a picture and blog about one of these things. Some will be totally frivolous and some will be big and obvious. I'm doing this for me, but I hope that you will enjoy it too.

Why should cross and trial grieve me?
Christ is near
With His cheer;
Never will He leave me.
Who can rob me of the heaven
That God's Son
For me won
When His life was given?


 When life's troubles rise to meet me,
Though their weight
May be great,
They will not defeat me.
God, my loving Savior, sends them;
He who knows
All my woes
Knows how best to end them.


God gives me my days of gladness,
And I will
Trust Him still
When He send me sadness.
God is good;
His love attends me
Day by day,
Come what may,
Guides me and defends me.

Why Should Cross and Trial Grieve Me, vv. 1-3
Paul Gerhardt

The end of the story

Maybe I really didn't run my van out of gas. We aren't sure. It may have been the beginning of the fuel pump going out. That repair was $900.

The Buick didn't cost anything to fix. Colin looked at it and discovered that when the car had some maintenance work done on Tuesday, the air filter hadn't been properly replaced. It caused sensors to trip, which in turn shut off the engine.

I got through the silent auction last night. Now I'm ready to spend some time working on the house.

Act II

I shared yesterday's van trial last night. Here's an update.

The van is not running. It is in a parking lot, sitting, waiting for Colin to go look at it and see if he can tell more than I can about why it's not running. Needless to say, since it is in a parking lot, I was stranded for a time today.

But WAIT! That's not all!

My car is not running either. It is also in a parking lot. Fortunately, it is in the church parking lot, where it died this afternoon. It started acting up while I was our running around trying to gather silent auction items, and I was fervently praying that it just get me to church. It did. So at least I got to enjoy some yummy soup and a church service, but the car is not starting. So Colin's going to go look at it tomorrow, too.

We are wondering about the gas--from the same station--that we put in both cars, which were both empty or very nearly so. Bethany filled her nearly empty car at the same station minutes after I did, so let's see if hers is next.

Never a dull moment

I had a lot that I wanted to get done today. I've been doing battle with a sore throat for the past couple of days, and it has slowed me down a bit, so I was hoping to catch up. The morning was already committed, so I planned to try to get some running around for the silent auction done this afternoon.

I headed out, deciding at the last minute to wear my wool jacket over the top I had on with my jeans. That turned out to be an extremely good decision.

I have been driving one of our minivans, because the fan in my car isn't working and I'm waiting for Colin to look at it. Today I was driving the Silhouette, which is right at 190,000 miles, and has a few quirks. The gas gauge hasn't worked for a while, but I just use the trip odometer to keep track of how much gas I have.

Apparently I lost track.

As I was pulling up to a stop sign--on my way into Jefferson Pointe, for those of you familiar with Fort Wayne--the van started running roughly. When I accelerated to pull away, the van died. In the middle of the intersection. My initial assumption was that the van was dead; I didn't even consider that I might have run out of gas.

So I sat there, flashers on, door open, trying to figure out what to do. I wanted to get it out of the way, but obviously couldn't do it alone. I managed to push myself backward with my foot so that I was at least back out of the intersection. A few people honked at me, before they figured out that I couldn't move. Most just ignored me. Finally a lady stopped to see if I needed help and offered to push. As soon as she stopped, three more people did, and I was shortly pushed into the JP parking lot.

I started thinking, and remembered that Monday I had only put in $10 worth of gas because of problems with the pump. Duh! So I walked across the four lane road and the Wal-mart parking lot and bought a gas can. Then back ascross the parking lot to the gas station for a gallon of gas. Then back to the car.

I could NOT figure out the gas can. After about ten minutes of messing with it--and after getting gas on my hands--I finally worked out the secret, and got it to work.

Got into the van. Prayed that the gas was the problem. Turned the key. It started and died. Tried again. Started and died. Again. Waited a few minutes. Again. This time after I started I really stepped on the gas. And it kept running.

Needless to say, I drove straight to the gas station and filled it all the way up.

At this point, I had lost over an hour. I had been in the wind and my hair was flat. I was sweaty from walking. I smelled like gas. I was no longer in the frame of mind to go beg for donations. So I went home. Afternoon wasted.

Now the good things about the afternoon. I wore the jacket. The van died less than a block from a gas station--with a nearby store that had gas cans--where it could be pushed into a parking lot, not by the marsh, or out by our house, or on the highway, all of which could have easily been the location. There were several people willing to stop and help a stranger. It was a beautiful sunny day for a walk. All in all, a fairly painless reminder NOT to forget how much gas I put into the car.

Car repairs

Why is it that when something goes wrong with the car, and we take it in for repair, I should be quizzed about why it cost so much?

Do I look like I can tell if the repair dude is telling me the truth?
Do I look like I want to spend too much money getting my car fixed?

If a man is going to second guess the results of a trip to the garage, he needs to take the car in himself and wait while the car-fixer-dudes work so he can quiz them.