About 3 months ago I got a phone call at 3:30am. The call came on my cell since Brad was working in the Yukon. Anyway, it was my landlord asking me if I had water in my basement. I completely zoned out and kept thinking, "are you kidding me?! You call me at 3:30am to check that?" I got out of bed and went downstairs and sure enough I had 4 feet of sewer water. I hate clutter, so I had the majority of our possessions down there. Awesome. We lost a bunch of our things but it was all stuff that could be replaced. The fun part was cleaning it out with my darling cousin Chelsa who skipped work to spend 10 hours hauling wet and mud covered things out of my basement and onto the front lawn. Every three hours I had to stop to feed my 4 week old baby. It was an experience I look back and laugh about now.
I was reminded of this yesterday morning. Brad left for school at 7:00am and told me he started laundry and asked me to switch it over. I went back to sleep, happy that he is kind enough to do things like that to help me out. I get up with Brock at 8:00 and my phone rings. It's that dreaded call where you are assigned to speak in church in 4 days. Easy. Especially since I get up so many times at night to feed Brock that I feel like a zombie all day. Speaking makes me so nervous. Really nervous. I almost passed out last time I gave a talk and I feel sick to my stomach if I have to say a prayer in church. Ridiculous, I know.
I finally decide I can handle it and I go to change the laundry at 11:00am. As I walk downstairs I think to myself, "wow that laundry detergent smells strong today". Oh, maybe that's because the the entire brand new 5 liter blue liquid jug was spilled all over the brand new cream colored carpet. Delightful. Brock is at this stage where he wants to be held and played with ALL day. Which is normally just fine with me but I had a different priority at the moment. So I spend the next 2 hours soaking up laundry detergent and scrubbing it out with one arm and holding a squirmy baby in the other! I'm pretty sure a tear or two slid down my cheek in the process.
I had appointments to go visiting teaching at 1:00. As I was scrubbing the carpet I thought about the message I was sharing that day. "It's always better to look up". That put things into a better perspective. I laughed and left to go do my visits. The sweet lady I saw spoke in church last Sunday and told me she was given 4 weeks notice. Lucky! When they were over I went to Safeway to rent a carpet cleaner. Got home set it up and it doesn't work. I call the trouble shooting dept. They walk me through things step by step and eventually say sorry Miss but you need to take it back and get a new one. Of course. Why wouldn't that happen today?
I sat down and laughed at my day again.
Its really easy to focus on the silly little things that wreck your day but ultimately, it always better to look up, ask for some help, laugh and carry on.
Sister Hinckley said it best, "The only way to get through life is to laugh your way through it. You either have to laugh or cry. I prefer to laugh. Crying gives me a headache."
