MY DAY DID NOT GO AS PLANNED, and I'm not alone

This morning, the younger of our two old cats (she's almost 15) continued to act weird as she has all weekend. She's nervous and trying to mark and pee everywhere, which is quite unlike her. I had locked her into the bedroom with James as Mal and I were heading out to meet Mal's friend as usual on Sunday.

I decided to get a car wash on the way. 

As I was pulling out of the car wash, I rear-ended the car in front of me, which I thought was pulling out so I moved forward and guess I was just zoned out. It didn't damage either of our cars, so it was fine, but it shook me up.

LATER: In thinking on this, I'm not 100% sure that I hit her; it's possible that she backed into me? She said something about how she was trying not to pull out in front of a truck as I hit her... which makes me wonder exactly what did happen. I was a little shocked that I didn't realize I was running into another car. But I digress...

When we got to McDonald's, Mal wanted hotcakes instead of his usual chicken McGriddle. One of my favorite things to do when he wants pancakes is to get their full homestyle breakfast for $2 more than just the hotcakes, and then use the other stuff to make me a breakfast sandwich.

The employee delivered the plate, and there were no hotcakes! It turned out that I had ordered the homestyle breakfast WITHOUT pancakes. So I had to order Mal pancakes separately, and instead of saving $2, I spent $3 extra. Sigh.

When we went out to the car to drive to Temple, I realized that both driver side tires were very low. Fortunately, I have a pump in my car and aired up all of the tires. The two low ones were about 15 PSI! I'm not sure when or how that happened!

At last, we drove up to Temple. We were supposed to meet my parents at a restaurant where my niece's husband works. However, there was an accident and we were running a bit late.

My dad messaged me that it was fine that we were running late, as his car had a flat tire (tyre, for my UK readers) and they couldn't loosen the lug nuts, so were waiting for AAA.

Fortunately, they were in the parking lot of my niece Hannah's apartment, so we headed that way. Between Hannah and a neighbor, they'd managed to get the nuts loosened and were well on the way to changing the tire to the spare. Hannah and I finished it up, then we adults and three kids piled into 2 cars to go to the restaurant.

We were still full and only going to see and support my... nephew-in-law?? I did get a brownie, though, and then Mal was too full to eat the cookie he'd ordered so I took that one for the team.

Then my mom drove my dad to Sam's Club to get a new tire; then I took her and the two older boys back to her house.

I called a Lyft to take me back to Sam's Club since my dad can't drive anymore (it wasn't a DUI or anything, as you were probably assuming; it is because of his "vision impairment," as he calls it). 

The Lyft driver was a chatty one. He asked how I was, and I returned the question. He said, "I'm always having a great day. Even when I'm having a bad day, I'm having a great day. Even when I'm having a bad day, it's a great day in the Lord."

As we made our way the 2 miles ($6) to Sam's Club, he told me about how a friend of his called him this weekend and said that he (the friend) had been suicidal but thought about all that he (the driver) had said and done for him, and that turned him around. The driver told me that he had many friends who'd reached the brink and told him that he'd turned it around for him. "I can do that for my friends, but I can't do it for myself... I can't turn things around for me."

I was a little concerned that his mental health + driving me somewhere = suicide with a side of manslaughter, so I said, "Well, it's really good that you know you have that kind of positive affect on people!" He said, "It's not me; it's all God. God really does just change everything for you. He can take the worst things and make them good. I just have to trust in him. I am ready to try to just take a dive and say, 'It's all you, Lord. You can take it all' and see what he'll do."

I didn't respond; I was too busy willing him not to pull a "Jesus take the wheel" during my fare.

"Yeah," he continued. "I have two little kids. Of course, I haven't seen them in a long time. Nothing happened, though. I just have a crazy baby mama."

I told him that he could just pull over as we were parallel to Sam's Club. He told me that no, he was going to take me all the way to the door. Which he did. No one died.

The tire change happened quickly. My dad bought the stuff I wanted at Sam's Club, which I wasn't expecting and was very nice.

We got to their house and I pulled the weeds in their back yard. Then I went to do the ones in the front yard and realized that actually, that lady from this morning... her tow hitch had gone through my passenger-side headlamp. 

Sigh.

I ordered another one, and that's $60 I hadn't planned to spend. Fingers crossed that I can change it out myself. AND then whatever it's going to take to get Aish checked up, blood tested, and medicated (probably antibiotics). 

Hopefully all of the excitement for the week is over now.

I'm too tired for any more!

Day of Disappointments

This morning, I finally got the final paperwork for submitting the rebate request through our electric co-op for the new HVAC system we got in February. Once I got onto the site though, the application link was gone and, instead, I saw this:

I called the co-op and and she didn't have any information as to when it would go live again, but it's already been 3 months since we had it installed, and the deadline is 60 days. However, we had the heat pump put in on February 13. It was listed as "pending" in the city's building code inspection unit until... they were no longer allowed to do in-home inspections anymore because of COVID19. Then once they finally got out here, PEC has closed down the program.

Granted, it was only $300 on a substantially more expensive project, but still... we were certainly expecting it.

Then later this afternoon, I was brushing Mal's hair and he was mad about it, as usual. I was doing it while he was watching videos so he'd be distracted. He decided to play LEGO Star Wars instead, and instead of choosing "Load Game," he selected "New Game," and clicked on the game slot we have been playing for six months. We have 68% of the game completed. The warning popped up, "This will delete the data for the existing game. Do you wish to proceed?" Before I could stop him, he pressed, "Yes." And it wiped out every bit of progress in the game. We had to start all over. All of the levels were locked, all of the characters locked. No coins, no accomplishments. Nothing.

There was a lot more crying involved in that than in the $300 thing, I can assure you.

It's been a few hours, and we're both coping okay. We've played a lot of computer games today, as I promised to help Mal catch back up to where we were.