Filed under: *eep!, *whinge*, Dewicate feewings | Tags: Coping mechanisms, perspective, refrigerators
Yesterday, I noticed that the ice in the freezer wasn’t ice. Uh oh…I thought. The freezer’s on the fritz. Terry spent time cleaning the coils and doing his magic man-thing to it…but still no ice, just trays of water. However, the air in thair was nice and cold so…no problem, maybe it’s just 38 degrees or something. I took the (still mostly frozen) stuff and put it in the big freezer. most of it, anyway. Just the important stuff.
However…this morning the inside of the fridge was definitely warmer than it should have been. So we got to number crunching, and determined that it would be actually the same price to purchase a new fridge than the spend all that on service calls and new parts and not to mention the time spent waiting for the inevitable out-of-stock issue that requires another service call so oh heck, go price fridges at Lowe’s and see what you can find, said Terry.
While talking on the hone with Terry, discussing all this, my phone died. No chirp, no warning at all of the possibility of battery run-outage. Just a little blip sounds and it turned itself off.
and the engine malfunction light is on in my car. I do know why, and it’s an easy enough fix,once I can remember to tell Terry.
and the leaves are falling off the peach tree and I have no idea why.
and #4 is failing 2 of his classes, which might mean Summer School if he doesn’t bring those grades up in the next 3 weeks. Ugh.
HOWEVER…as ridiculous as all that is…I am remembering PERSPECTIVE.
In my immediate family:
No one has died.
No one is seriously ill.
No one is pregnant. (well, I mean, no one’s girlfriend is pregnant, as far as I know. If she is,please give us a few days before informing us)
No one is in jail.
So, in the grand scheme of things…really everything is pretty good.
However, number crunching also reveals that the purchase of a new fridge means no vacation this Summer. That’s ok. The beach is a 1 hour drive, so maybe we’ll do a couple of day trips and I’ll make lots of barbeque.
So, the biggest resolution I made is to worry less about stuff i cannot control. Boy that’s a tough one. I am a chronic and habitual worrier, and when I am not actively fretting about something definite, my mind kicks in and starts fretting in the background. However, I am determined to do this resolution. Just this morning, about 4:30am, I woke up in a panic about money. and not even “oh Lordy can we pay our bills this month” but “Oh NO! What if #4 doesn’t get a scholarship when he graduates from High School?!”…he’s in 7th grade. Then that spiraled into “what about WORK? WHAT will he do for WORK?!” He’s 12. Then I thought “Good grief, Rootie, you’re a moron. An eedjit.” but I still laid there and fretted about the distant future.
Stupid brain. If it can’t find something relatively concrete to fret over, it will make something up.
Not long ago I was all fretful and blaming myself for all sorts of problems with my kids, and the troubles they’re having (which in the grand scheme of things aren’t that big) and the sarcasm cortex (located just beneath the logic lobe) started firing and saying “That’s right! You’re to blame for all their problems AND you’re ALSO to blame for the equality issues women have in Saudi Arabia! It is ULTIMATELY YOUR FAULT WOMEN CAN’T DRIVE IN THE SAUDI KINGDOM!” That was when I said…ah. Ok. I get your point.
So now, when I start fretting about stuff, I say to myself “Self, it’s your fault women can’t drive in Saudi Arabia, too.” and that is like that rubber band people wear when they want to stop smoking, and snaps me back into reality.
