To Crumple In A Heap or Sing Precious Memories?

I glanced casually at the clock and stopped short. Is it really almost eleven? Frantic glance at the microwave, "No, it's ten till ten. Wait. What is going on here?" Snatch at my phone... "The microwave clock is set one hour behind?? You've got to be kidding!"

That wasn't the beginning of the story. The beginning of the story started four days earlier when the electricity went off for seven hours the day my husband was planning to leave for a week. I'll not bother you with the rest of the week, except to say there's been a lot of snowy roads and a lot of plans that have not panned out.

The story I came here to talk about is Thursday.

With rain on Wednesday and a temperature drop and possible snow forecast for during the night, I had Isaac park the van at the bottom of our treacherous lane before going to bed. True to the way my week had been going, we woke up to snow falling and a covered road. I used to refuse to even try driving in snow, so I am getting braver. But oh, how I hate it.

Off we went, on a road that no snowplow had yet touched. I should have known what was coming when I passed the first high water spot but on we went. I was gritting my teeth, anticipating the first bad hill, when we rounded the corner to see a truck parked on the road and beyond him, water. Our road floods easily and this isn't the first time our morning trek has turned into a debate about whether or not to drive through. With the truck sitting there though, I didn't even bother to try. I put the van in reverse and struggled my way back to the road I'd just passed.

One good thing about where we live, there are multiple ways you can travel to reach the same destination. We turned around and wound our way back the way we had come; past The House On The Hill, on out to the interstate and around the world to school by SR 513. I confess, my drive home included tears and a good bit of verbal frustration and self pity. I felt lonely and forsaken and in desperate need of some Jesus in skin.

I got home and set to work on hot lunch prep, busily texting my husband as I worked. His week that was to be spent helping his buddy with a countertop job in AR was turning out to be even more frustrating than mine, with cabinets not arriving and walls not being painted, to name just a few of the complications. After describing the latest disaster, his next text made me throw up my hands and laugh. "Preeeeeeecious memories........" he typed, complete with musical notes on each side. Typical, typical Christopher!

"Perspective, Bethany," I muttered. "Perspective."

That was right before I glanced casually at the clock and realized my time was running out....

After some frantic scrambling, 

 I grabbed the shovel

and scraped the snow so I'd be able

to drive up when I returned. 

And I trucked all my stuff 

down the hill to the van

with some precarious moments

along the way

(You try opening a van door while

standing on slippery snow

And holding two hot pans of brownies.)

 And. I went to school and discovered that I probably wasn't Job being attacked by Satan after all. One of the ladies helping with lunch had fallen the day before and broke her arm and the other lady discovered her casseroles were still cold when it was nearly time to serve lunch.

I didn't break out singing "Precious memories" but I did decide that that was a better option than my earlier urge to crumple in a heap.

The End.

Even so come the end of this week.

Amen.