Storm after the calm

I am confused. Dazed, stunned, overwhelmed and confused. As I said to someone recently, "I've been waiting for the other shoe to drop [with regards to all of the marvelously synchronous way this move has come about] but I never expected the entire inventory of Payless to come crashing down on my head!"

My car needed some minor repairs. I have discovered "minor" is relative to the make/model and availability of service. I did earn enough in our yard sale to cover three of the four repairs. The more major job of fixing my heater fan [a bit of an incovenience when you're driving cross-country in DECEMBER!] was another matter. Unfortunately, the day I had to take my car back to Pleasanton [beware owning a specialty car... service is rarely local unless you live in a major metro area!] was the day was had to say goodbye to our faithful and loving Lab, Abby.

Then, our son has been fighting with banks and other financial junk for a while but this week it seemed to be more conflicted, more inanely stupid [on the bank's part] and a real challenge for me to allow him to figure it all out. He did. And he's ok with the results for now.

Grace came down with the flu. And she found out she didn't pass all of the proficiency exam so that she can move in January with a diploma. I guess we're back to square one on that front.

Then Larry's 93 year old grandmother is taken to the hospital. She had not been well for a week and prescribed treatment was doing nothing. Larry's mother expressed her fear more than once that if Granny went into the hospital, she doubted that she'd ever come home. Granny died yesterday. Peacefully. She was so tired and kept asking to "just go home." We all knew what she meant. It is so very sad - it's sad that the kids and I are, once again, stuck on another side of the world from family.

Oh, yeah... yesterday my car decided to die in the middle of the grocery store parking lot. So once again the car has been towed an hour a way and I'm holding my breath waiting for the prognosis. Can you DNR a car? Oh, and did I mention all the doomsday advice I've been getting about the house and the current downturn of the real estate market??

And yet, despite all that I can whine about I still feel strangely calm. Sad. Done. Exhausted. Yet I refuse to be shaken. I refuse to curse God. If this is a test I'm struggling with the answers and I don't know if I'll pass, but, dammit, I refuse to give up. I know in my heart, as surely as I sit here and feel the keyboard under my fingers, that this road is the one we're meant to travel. Kyrie Eleison.

There will be a rainbow. There is always a rainbow. I count on the promise of the rainbow!