Where is that rabbit foot?

How much can a person have in the bad luck area at one time?  I was sitting and drinking hot chocolate while looking at my Christmas tree and thinking about all the things that have happened over the last several months.  Maybe I broke a mirror somewhere over the year and didn't realize it or a black cat crossed my path on the way to a soccer game.  How does that statement go?  If something can happen, it will? Bad things happen in threes?  Or something like that.  Either would work.

Let's start at vacation.  I won't even do the full year. I will condense it..............
August 11th- During vacation we get a call saying the town is flooding.  Our house sitter is bailing out water from the bilco doors (which is nothing new with the doors! They leak like an old row boat!) But neighbors are flooding and roads are closed.  It is bad.  What can we do?  We are all the way in TN!  It pretty much rains the whole time we are gone.  The house sitter is dealing with rags and mops but gets it under control.

August 27th- Hurricane Irene. *sigh* Ah yes.  Lovely Irene who came to visit completely uninvited.  Brought with her Miss Rain, Mr. Wind and Mrs. Flooding.  Our basement that usually only floods from around the bilcos looks like an indoor swimming pool.  It is days of ripping out wood flooring and weeks of moping and appraising and calling insurance companies and wringing out items and moving around fans.  It was not pretty!  FEMA came to the rescue and we thought it was over.  (BTW we are still finishing up things down there on that!  Trim work.  Painting. Packing away. Little things)

September/October- School starts in the mist of Irene upheaval and life goes on with buses and soccer games and back to school nights that are redirected around closed roads blown out bridges. 

Then............Todds car dies. 

November- Ryan totals my van!  Oh yes he did.  Smashed it dead in to the backside of a white cross-over with two elderly people....who smash into the black 2 door in front of them.....who smashes into the black truck in front of them hauling a trailer....who is stopped for a school bus.  We have been and still are working with the insurance company over this one!

The insurance company want to low ball the replacement value.  They have pulled the rental on the last day in hopes for us to take their settlement in which my checking account has been attacked and had to pay for and now we have to fight with the insurance co for our money!

I am behind in bills over all this. My Christmas money has gone toward rentals and dealerships and loans and garage people etc etc etc. 

And just when I thought it might finally be coming to an end.....the insurance company puts the van mileage in the wrong spot on my title and voids the deal! I now have to run to the DMV and pay $60 for a new title and....yes you guessed it....it put a hold on my settlement check!

I have a van sitting in my drive that I haven't made a payment on cause my insurance check is not here, another payment I really don't want and stress I could do without!

And to top all this off......

I am sick.  Megan was sick.  Delaney has an ear infection.

We had three funerals in two weeks.  One of which was a brother of a friend who shot himself for unknown reasons. We has a father of two and married with a lovely home and wife.  And another was an old friend who was sick with what he thought was a cold.  He had a dr appointment on Monday and Sunday night, went downstairs to watch TV and lay on the sofa so his coughing would not wake his wife and she found him gone in the morning getting the kids on the bus. Both such full and wonderful lives, quickly taken away in the blink of an eye.

I know that others are in worse places than us.  We have a roof over our head.  Family around us.  I can sit and contemplate my issues in life sitting in a warm living room, drinking hot chocolate and looking at my Christmas tree.  I should feel blessed for all I have instead of looking at what I do not have.  But it still doesn't take away the sting fully. 

Maybe for Christmas, Santa will bring the kids their greatest wishes, me an insurance check ........and a little luck for the Chapman household overall.