Outlook

And no, this isn't going to be a tutorial on Microsoft Outlook. I'm talking more about your outlook on life. You know, your perspective as life throws those unexpected curve balls at you.  Let's take the last 2 weeks of the Schrall house in to consideration...

Wednesday (8/3) - My cell phone dies. Now keep in mind the blackberry is only 9 months old. It took me 4 days and 10 hours on the phone with customer support/technical support/and any other support I could get with Verizon to get me back up and running with a "like new" phone. And might I mention that those 10 hours of support time were filled with snarky, rude and don't-care-attitudes with the exception of one person. It was more like customer non-support. But by Friday I was back up.

Friday (8/5) - I get a bladder infection. TMI? Well too bad. I'm 8 months pregnant so my filter is quickly disappearing. PLUS my check engine light comes on for the first time ever. I love my Jeep Cherokee. First brand new car I ever bought and it has served me well. Even after buying it at the end of 2004, it still only has 78,500 miles on it. Turns out it was a plethora of maintenance and other items for ~ $1000. At least it wasn't worse and it's the only major repairs other than tires, brakes and oil changes I've had to do.

Sunday (8/7) - The airconditioner goes out...and it's literally 102 degrees outside. I debated whether to ride it out and avoid the weekend service call but I knew by the end of the day I was going to be miserable. Thankfully it was back up by 7:15pm that night because the house was pretty hot inside. And lets face it - a hot pregnant woman (and I don't mean sexy) is just not good. However, we ended up needing to get quite a lot of work done to prevent the whole unit from crashing on us down the road. Approximately $2,000 to be exact.

Wednesday (8/10) - While the workers were here fixing our AC issues, my internet and phone go out. Keep in mind I work from home so when it goes out, I can't do anything for work. That was down for 1/2 the day but I was thankful that TWC sent someone out immediately. Maybe they heard I was pregnant and having a bad week. I'd be scared too.

Thursday (8/11) - I get little Peanut down for bed and am washing dishes...it's raining outside with just a touch of thunder and WHAM! Lightening hits our sycamore tree. I screamed and it about sent me in to labor. The tree isn't far from the window so it looked like fireworks went off right in front of the kitchen window. We had already planned on having the tree cut down in September because it was hit by lightening some time before we bought the house. This just confirmed we made the right decision. During that said lightening strike, it apparently knocked out our disposal. So we had to get that replaced the next day by our wonderful contractor (who said it was as old as the house and needed to be changed out anyway). It also knocked out an electrical outlet in the kitchen so out came an electrician on Friday as well. Thankfully we can now claim all this on our home owners insurance.

Sometime in the last few weeks...our stroller was stolen out of the back of Daniel's truck. And it was a nice double jogging stroller that would fit both kids! It's a covered truck bed and we can only assume it was left unlocked and someone stole it in the middle of the night. Unfortunately thiefs will go through cars if they are unlocked in our area.

Saturday (8/13) - I'm loading the dishwasher only to realize there is standing yucky water in the bottom of it. We just bought the dishwasher last year so I was going to lose my tember if it was anything major. (have I mentioned I don't get much sleep these days since I'm 8 mos pregnant?) Thankfully that was an easy fix - clogged drain. Although I must admit I was close to throwing things around at that point I was so frustrated.

Then...

Daniel is out with his friends for pizza and after I wrap up getting Peanut to bed and laundry, etc. all I want to do is crawl my very pregnant and very tired body in to bed and watch a movie. But alas...apparently the lightening also fried the TV in our bedroom! I actually shed a few tears at this point. No really. I did.

Sunday (8/14) - I finally get around to cleaning the house and as I'm vacuuming our vacuum cleaner starts to overheat. It got so hot that I was afraid it might catch on fire. Had to go buy a new one.

Wednesday (8/17) - Daniel is putting some things in the attic for us and notices some light...you know the type that should NOT be above you in an attic? Yep, he found 2 holes in our roof and from what we can see, it also appears there is water damage as well to the wood. A Roofer came out and said basically we need a new roof. Too much damage has been done to the plywood underneath to just patch the spots that are bad. Insurance has been called and it's tarped for now.

Then...

Charlie wakes up screaming around 11pm. He proceeds to continue the rest of the night. The only time he didn't was at 1am when we finally hopped in the car and drove around Cola for 45 minutes. I think then he slept for 2.5hrs straight the entire night. Otherwise, we were all awake the rest of the night trying to figure out why our normally happy baby was crying non-stop. Doctor couldn't find anything wrong so we have to assume it's teething plus maybe a cold virus. He's in better spirits today but still has a mild fever and alot of congestion. Poor Peanut.

Now I'm hoping that this ends the cycle that began just two weeks ago. But you never know...

Wondering how all this ties in to my introduction and perspective? Or are you wondering if I'm standing on the edge of a very tall building, cliff or otherwise dangerously high structure?

Not long ago I watched Soul Surfer. Good flick if you haven't watched it yet. At one point the youth pastor (played by Carrie Underwood) is showing close-up pictures of different items and having the students guess what it is. When she zooms out each time, it's always something different. For instance, one of the pictures looked like a brain but when you zoom out it was a walnut. She said that sometimes we can be too close to a situation and just need to zoom out and get a new perspective on things. So true. Don't you think that sometimes we are so engrained in the details that we can't see the bigger picture? Or we let that close perspective skew our judgement? We could easily be "oh wo is me" about all this but instead we are trying to take it one day at a time and are just thankful it isn't worse yet.

We all have more to be thankful for than we realize. We can choose to let life's curve balls skew our judgement, get us down and derail us. Or we can be thankful for what we have and continue and bless/serve others. We always have hope, especially with Christ as our Savior.  (But God, if you're trying to get my attention...I'm listening!  And if it's not you, then get the devil out of our house please!! A "postal" pregnant woman is not good!)

So if life is handing you lemons right now...you don't have to make lemonade...but you don't have to be sour puss either. Just try to zoom out and get a new perspective (or have someone help you find one).

Anything got you down? Have anything Daniel and I could be praying about for you?  Do you feel like some days/weeks/months you need a new perspective when those curve balls come?