When It Rains It Pours...

I was trying super hard to stick to a schedule when it came to my blogging. After all... consistency is key. But since we've been CONSISTENTLY dealing with one crappy situation after the other... I haven't been so consistent.

I recently expressed my gratefulness on the realization that sometimes we need to face the unexpected challenges that come our way in order to really appreciate the little things that we normally take for granted. That's great and I appreciate it and all but as of this very moment...

WHAT THA F%#@!!!???

This time of year is stressful for most everybody with the holidays and the turkey cookin' and the agonizing over weight gain on top of the frustration of finding the one bulb that's not working on a string of 200... Inlaws. (Not referring to mine, of course.) But in this house... Halloween marks the first day of nonstop planning, prepping, cooking, baking, penny pinching, last minute errand running, second guessing, self doubting, stressing, and convincing ourselves we're doing the best we can. 

Speaking of Halloween... here's a little look at our night...

 Our little fairy princess.

 The whole gang in their disguises.

The girls keeping up with Dad.

Jesus & His disciples (Insider)

The kids did great and had good time. The doors they knocked on were answered by some super sweet inhabitants. The littlest one got the hang of trick or treating after the first house. And we decided after walking what seemed half of Connecticut looking for lit porches and getting a total of about five mini candy bars... We might just buy our own candy next year and do our own Halloween party. I mean... we have enough kids to make a party out of it.

Great, but damn near candyless Halloween aside... My focus has been distracted from birthday and holiday preparation to address the never ending crap that keeps getting thrown our direction. Crap all of which could be better dealt with during the spring or summer but nothing ever breaks down when you have nothing to do. But then again... there's never not anything that doesn't need to be done around here.

So getting back to that whole WHAT THA F%#@!!!??? part... After my window was busted in by the weed whacking city worker and the pebble... A week or so later we found ourselves sitting in the E.R. waiting on a diagnoses for the little one. She's now being treated for pneumonia. Thank God, she's much, much better now.

A day or two later... The brakes on the van totally gave out and had to be addressed right away. On that same day, a family friend was in my kitchen replacing a huge chunk of our kitchen wall in order to correct a massive crack that kept spreading across the wall. Which considering I'm supposed to be entertaining in the next week... now left us with the added task of painting the dang kitchen. (Which the babe is doing now.) The change of seasons and growing children also calls for an entirely new wardrobe for 4 out of 6 kids which means Santa will be cashing in on his Kohls bucks this Christmas this year. ::Burning our Toys R Us catalog:: 

Soon as the brakes were fixed... our refrigerator decides it no longer wants to refrigerate. Our Sunday consisted of refrigerator shopping on Craigslist and jumping at the first available option. Soon there after our apartment and two refrigerators were completely taken apart, dragged and rebuilt in their new homes. Now that we're happy with our semi-new refrigerator... 2 tires need replacing on the babes car. And I think my scale is lying to me again... I hope. 

::Kicking my scale away:: Bitch.

Yet, no matter how shitty things get... I always try to keep in mind that there are others who are going through much worse. I still have more reasons to smile than I do not to. Granted... with each hurdle... that's getting harder to do. 

David and I sat across the table from each other after dinner... both looking a little more worn out than usual but enjoying our conversation despite the shitty luck we were discussing. He pointed out that some of things that are happening or breaking down were things that had probably been screaming out for attention for some time. Things that are now getting done.