Valentine's Day

Late on the night of the 13th, I began writing a blog post that I had intended to post yesterday for Valentine’s Day. It was a sweet love letter to my husband, telling him all the things I appreciate about him. I’m not sure what happened to it. It disappeared somewhere out in cyber space, I guess. It’s gone now, wherever it went!

And ya know what? That’s ok. ‘Cuz boy do I have a Valentine’s Day to share with you. Although I should warn you….I saw no flying babies with bows & arrows nor doilies glued on red construction paper. My Valentine’s Day sort of sucked dirt. There are many reasons why it inhaled dirt….but they’re all intertwined. Let me see if I can explain.

Larry gets paid early in the month. I get paid on later in the month. And then Larry also gets a check to cover his mileage/travel/gas every few weeks as well. Our paychecks together ‘just’ meet our expenses with a little leftover. If we ever have a big unexpected expense come up, we’re in trouble because it means that we have to start ‘borrowing’ from next month’s paycheck before it ever arrives…and then when that check finally arrives, we have to ‘pay back’ the account before we start deducting that month’s expenses. So one month of unexpected expenses can snowball & leave us in a financial bind for months. If we know it’s coming, we can at least semi budget for it, but many times, we’re left pinching pennies and trying to stretch the last few cups of milk by about ¾ of the way through the month. This is one of those months.


{By the way, we’ve got the Dave Ramsey Total Money Makeover book & I am reading it right now….so hopefully we can dig our way out of this hole sometime in the near future, but for now, this is just how it is. Just in case someone was going to suggest it in the comments section, I thought I'd mention that.}


Ok, so back to our day yesterday.

On Saturday, Samuel began having a little trouble with congestion and what seemed to be sinus drainage. He said his throat was a little sore & he felt like he kept having to swallow ‘stuff’. We checked his throat & it wasn’t red or inflamed looking. He had no fever. So we plugged ahead with Benadryl & Motrin and figured that he was just dealing with sinus crud. He went to Chuck E. Cheese on Saturday and went to church on Sunday without an issue. But yesterday morning, he woke up with a little fever. Larry stayed home with him & took him to the pediatrician. It was at about the time I got off work & went to pick up the kids that he called to tell me…Samuel has the flu! Yikes! Knowing what was ahead – expensive medicine, Lysoling the house, trying to keep the girls from catching it, Larry or I missing work for possibly several days or a week – I was totally distracted when I headed toward town to pick up Samuel from Larry. (He had an appointment of his own to get to!) And whammo…just like that the lights came on.


Not the “lights” of me having a good idea. The red & blue flashing ones in my rear view mirror. Apparently I had sped up in my frustration and went right through a school zone at 38 mph. Yes, I know that it’s not exactly the autobahn in a minivan, but the school zone speed limit is 25 mph. Oops! I really hoped that the officer who exited the car would be one we know. With Larry working in law enforcement, we know a lot of the local officers, but alas, this one was a new guy that neither Larry or I know. Ouch. Remember those tight finances I mentioned above? Sigh.


I picked up Samuel from Larry & took him home. Soon after, Larry called to tell me he was done at his appointment & was feeling really dizzy. (He was going to the doc about his blood pressure medicine that doesn’t appear to be working!) He was in town but felt like he could safely drive home (he was only a mile or so away), but he wanted me to drive him back to the pharmacy to pick up his new prescription plus the Tamiflu prescriptions for the kids. (Even though Samuel is the only one with the flu, the pediatrician prefers to go ahead & treat the girls “just in case”.) I put our oh so valentiney vegetarian lasagna in the oven & gave Savannah instructions on what to do with it when the timer went off and left with Larry to go pick up the medicines.

Pharmacy stop #1 went fine. Larry picked up his medicine.

Pharmacy stop #2 was not so great. After waiting in a very long line to pick up the kids’ Tamiflu prescriptions, we found the total was so high that it would overdraw our bank account if we got it. We decided that we could borrow money & come back to get it in a couple hours, but first we needed to go home & eat supper! It was 7pm and the kids were home alone, probably wondering when we were going to eat! (We usually eat between 5-6!)

After eating, Larry left to go back & get the medicine. On his way out of our little town, he was pulled over!!! Apparently one of his headlights had gone out. Luckily, thanks to the badge in his wallet, the officer was kind & let him go with just a verbal warning. He then drove on to the pharmacy and headed back home. Coming back into town, guess what? He was stopped. Again. For that same headlight! He was given a 2nd warning. Interestingly enough, he just replaced that very headlight about a month ago, and when he bought the lightbulb for it, he got a 2 pack, so he replaced the bulb with a fresh one this morning!

By the time he got home with the medicine for the kids & they all took their 1st dose it was about 9pm.


Oh…and did I mention that my air bag warning light came on yesterday? And that the book says that light means something is wrong with your airbag system & needs to be serviced ‘right away’?
And then my underwire broke.
And Larry's blood pressure is still up even with the new medicine.

Good grief. What a day. When it rains, it POURS.

I woke up this morning knowing that today HAD TO be better. (and it was....today was Sarah's 10th birthday...see next post!)