Rough Road Today!

This photo is from Monday, and it is a beautiful scene from along a road Andy and I walk/run along together. He runs to where he wants, turns around and heads back. Meanwhile I walk up the road, and when he gets back to me, I turn around and we walk together. Works out well.

Anyway, this was not a rough road. It was a beautiful walk with lots of signs of spring - even though it is still a full four weeks away.

The ROUGH ROAD came today. Started out with a bit of a tiff between Andy and I regarding the wisdom of making plans to keep Jansse up a third night in a row tonight to go visit his cousins who are visiting from California. I won't tell you any of those details, just to say we were lovingly disagreeing, and it didn't make for the greatest first thing in the morning conversation.

Then, Andy started the car and the truck so he could go to court and I could take Jansse to school - we needed to leave about the same time. And then guess what! He pulls out of the gate just as my car died sitting in the driveway - I hadn't even gotten out of park yet. Just stopped working. Ugh! I'm running across the field trying to catch him as he's turning out the mouth of the driveway and getting ready to barrel down the ROAD. I'm sure I looked a fright: fat lady running as fast as she can, yelling and waving her arms as she went, hurdling drifts of snow, and splashing in puddles created by the melting snow, trying to catch the attention of that white truck which seems to be accelerating rather than slowing down to pay attention to her performance. Fortunately, I was successful. Then, as we are shouting across the fence and through the truck window with me gasping for air from my unplanned 100 yard sprint, I told him my car had died. Would you believe that loving, intelligent husband of mine said "No it didn't, I just started it for you." Hmmm. He must be right! I was just a bundle of jiggling fat in all the wrong places, acting like I'd escaped from a mental hospital just to give the neighbors a good laugh this morning - you know, preparing for April Fools Day or something. Hurumph!

So, Jansse gets to go to school with Papa, and I stay home to call AAA and meet the tow truck driver - didn't I do this for the truck just oh, say less than 90 days ago?

Oh, yes, I see that I did. Even had the same tow truck driver way back then. Well, anyway, I arrange to have the car towed away, having been warned by the driver of the tow truck that this could be a very expensive fix, based on the symptoms, but, you know, if I'm lucky it will only be the alternater. So, I'm prepared that we may be earning quite a few "frequent flier miles" in the next few days as we get the car repaired.

Then, I get a call from Andy that he was running so late that he decided to take Jansse to court with him and then take Jansse to school late. But then, Jansse fell asleep on the way to the court, indicating that indeed, he had been up too late the previous two nights, and the winner of the tiff two hours earlier was the one advocating that he needed to stay home and go to be early tonight. Plus, with the car not working, a trip down to Big Sky was not really an option, so we wouldn't have to cancel Bible Study Potluck in order to go visit family from out of town, and we could attempt to have a slower pace at life. I thought of it as God letting us know how he felt about the whole situation, and us getting a forced slow-down.

Whew! The morning was off to a good start, don't you think? Then, God intervened to slow us down even more - Bible Study was canceled.

So, by mid day, here we were, all home, enjoying a bit of a slower pace. Jansse was out digging in the mud and snow, and Andy, knowing he had to go to court in another town tomorrow, decided to change the oil on the truck. He did manage to spill it all over, and get it on his shirt, but that is to be expected I guess. And, true to form, Jansse decided to cut wood, and then felt that his ax was not sharp enough - that child always wants just a little more improvement with his tools, to make the job easier. So, Andy started up Daniel's grinder, and gave Jansse a bit more sharp. Now, isn't that a cool dad!

But, the grinder did not think it had done enough work just sharpening the ax. So, after Andy turned it off, as Andy was pushing it back into its place next to the wall, but while the wheel was still spinning, it took a bite out of Andy's thumb. . . . . Okay, did you catch that? Put another way, Andy's thumb got caught in the moving grinding wheel, and he lost a pretty good sized chunck of flesh. So, calmly, but quickly, he came into the house, we threw some iodine solution on the gaping hole in his left thumb, and then all loaded up into the truck ("Thank You God that the oil change was complete and the truck was ready to go!") and headed off to Urgent Care.

As we drove there, Andy explained very nicely to Jansse about how this is a lesson that until the grinding wheel has come to a complete stop you don't touch it. So, all of you now know that rule, right?!

ROUGH ROAD.

The doctor said no need to do stitches since the two edges of the wound were never meant to touch and the fact that the missing chunk included some of the nail bed made stitching it together a pretty tough thing to do. Just let it heal, scar tissue will fill in the gap some, and the thumb will always have a story to tell. A couple weeks of bandaging, and a full month or two of healing, and it will look funny but work fine. It really does look like it's been notched. But that is so much better than being a stump, as it could easily have been. God is good! He protected bone and nerves and tendons and the muscle needed to keep that thumb functioning. We are thankful.

Since Urgent Care is just across the hall from where our friends Steve and Denise have their physical therapy practice, we just stopped in and said hello. They pointed out what a nice outfit Andy was wearing - running tights, a running shirt, and a big old flannel plaid shirt that was covered in oil stains. Yep! Just be glad he was wearing his running shoes and not the muck boots he usually wears to change the oil - that is a real look to avoid with the tights tucked into the muck boots and big plaid flannal over shirt hanging down like a mini-dress.

We also got the news this afternoon that my cousin's oldest son, who is 4 1/2 years, was rushed to the hospital today, with blood sugar levels somewhere around 385, when normal is 100. So, yes, he is diagnosed with diabetes as of today, and will be in the hospital for a few days while they get him stablized and teach his parents how to do all the things that go along with having a diabetic child. It breaks my heart for all the life changes and risks that this brings about, but I'm thankful that God has provided so much information on how to manage this disease. Our prayers are going out to the whole family as they face this crisis and the changes it brings to their lifestyle. We love my cousin and her family as if they were our siblings, and Wyatt is the sweetest little guy ever. Fortunately, they have so much faith that I know they are already resting in the assurance that God knows what he is doing.

ROUGH ROAD!!

To console ourselves from this day, we got pizza for dinner and made rootbeer floats - something we do maybe once every two or three years. And we began our meal with a prayer for Wyatt, and thanksgiving that Andy still has 85% of his thumb, and acknowledgement that God does indeed know what is right, and a little slow down will make the ROUGH ROAD a bit easier to navigate.

Just to keep the evening consistant with the day, Bo the puppy got the stomach flu and threw up all over the living room. It was all we could do not to burst out laughing at the appropriateness of this for today. For a puppy he sure acted like a little child - he whinned and cried as his stomach was obviously hurting. He kept trying to pull his bed closer to Andy, like he wanted to cuddle. Then he jumped up, headed to the door, and puked. Poor little guy is sleeping now, whinning and puking has stopped, and he'll probaby be fine by tomorrow. That's the way dog flu is, right?

By the way, the car is fixed already, and we were "lucky" or as we like to think of it, blessed, because the problem was the alternater, and cost a lot, but not so much that we couldn't make it work without having to rethink our entire financial future.

I'm listening to sermons from canidates for a pastor position at our church, and today, while none of the crisis things were happening, I heard one that mentioned Romans 5:1. I'm so glad I heard that today. Here's the verse: Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Well, I've read that verse many a time before, focusing on the justification through faith part, but today, the idea of having peace with God was stunning. And, I commented to Andy, as we were driving to Urgent Care that even though the day was not full of worldly peace I was so thankful to know that I'm at peace with God because of faith. That is a comfort!

So, I'll leave you with this other lovely photos from our walk a couple of days ago. Enjoy!