Mondays seem
to be a tossup for me of disdain and joy.
In so many aspects I hate Mondays.
And rightfully so. The kitchen is
always a mess of soiled dishes and odds and ends scattered throughout the house. The thought of getting through all of those
dishes seems impossible and daunting, but on the other hand I love
Mondays. After the chaos of getting six
kids up and running and a husband off to work, my hands sink into warm
dishwater with soft church music playing in the background and I get to reflect
on the week before. In so many ways this
starts my week with peace despite the endless mess and dirty floors before me.
I was thinking thus this morning as
I was struggling to scrub off the dried and glued on leftover Taco Soup from
the pan that I was washing when I couldn’t help but think to last
Saturday. The day started rather
sweetly. Jason and I laid in bed longer
than usual just enjoying being together.
The kids were quiet and off doing their own thing downstairs giving us a
very rare Saturday morning of sleeping in.
When I got up I decided to make a big breakfast or rather brunch since
it had gotten so late. My oldest two
girls were actually cheerful as they helped clean the kitchen and start
cooking. Everything was going
beautifully and I couldn’t help but think it…should have knocked on wood then.
I sent my younger two downstairs to
find some canned fruit to go on top of the waffles. Before long they started up on fighting which
seems to be becoming the norm around here and something we were working
on. In the process of their bickering
Stephanie took a swing at her brother who in return jumped out of the way
knocking a jar of pears onto the cement floor of the fruit room and spilling
the contents all over the floor.
Jenny and Nan then were called into
clean up duty so that the little ones wouldn’t get cut by the sharp glass and
so that I could continue on with the breakfast.
Jason promptly set Sam and Steph into respective corners for fighting
which I must reiterate has been the norm as of late with them and then joined
me to help finish breakfast. He started
making Orange Smoothies forgetting to add ice and neglecting the hash browns on
the stove browning them just a little too much, I nearly forgot to turn off the
sausage getting them also a little too brown.
We laughed at brunch that Sam and Steph’s fight had jinxed the day.
If we had only known then…Then we
decided to head up north with our Pass of all Passes card in hand to enjoy
Laser Tag and Mini Golf and Rock climbing only to realize that I couldn’t find
Luke’s pass anywhere. Searched through
the whole house and car with no luck and everyone’s patience frazzled. Looking on line I found the place to buy a
new one for only 9.95, ten dollars less then I originally paid for it, but when
it printed off it said that it would be six to eight weeks until it came in the
mail. With receipt in hand we decided to
hope for the best that they would still stamp off Luke’s hand and let him in.
On the way up to Lehi I decided to
use the app on my phone and check our bank account to make sure like I do every
two weeks that our automatic deposit from work had gone through. It had as it always does but long and behold
what did I find in my looking but that someone had rented a Redbox Movie in
California for $2.19 on one of our cards.
We live in Utah not California.
Not a big deal? No. But it could have been if I had not so
quickly noticed and they had continued on using our debit card. After calling the bank we found out that one
other charge had been made in California for the small price of $3.00. Great.
Now we were in the process of cancelling Jason’s debit card, the only
one we had with us up north for a day of fun with the kids. Could the morning get any worse? Luckily for us only a few miles away there
was a Wells Fargo that was still open for another ten minutes and they were
able to issue Jason a temporary card to use until his new one shows up in the
mail.
At that point our tempers were a little
hot and the morning seemed to be one failure after another but then… my
children started talking about the broken jar of pears that had started it all
and laughing about how ridiculous the morning had become one thing after
another. It wasn’t long until we were all
laughing and teasing about everything that had happened. The rest of the day was wonderful and Luke’s
hand did get stamped and we had the best time and in it all I am so happy that
whomever had stolen Jason’s card information had only made small purchases and
that I had taken the time to look at our bank account that morning before we
finished our day and before the thieves had the nerve to start making big
purchases out of our account.
What was starting out to be a big
disaster resulted in blessings and stressful moments that very shortly after we
were able to laugh at. Isn’t that how so
much of life can be? One stressful thing
after another. Sometimes I am not always
so quick to stand back and smile instead of crying. I don’t know any other way to get through
life and all that seems to come with it bad included with the good then to
smile when all you want to do is cry.
Smiling is contagious after all.
One child started laughing about that miserable morning we were having
and before long we were all laughing about it and really we should have
been. After all those pears taught Sam
and Steph to feel a little repentant about all the fighting that they had been
doing and showed Jenny and Nan that even though it was a mess to clean up that
together it wasn’t so bad. Yes Jason may
have forgotten the ice in the orange juice and nearly burnt the hash browns and
I the sausage but we didn’t and brunch was really yummy and we had plenty to
eat. The debit card was stolen but only
a little over five dollars was taken and the card was replaced and it could
have been hundreds or even more and the bank would have been closed if I had
waited to look another ten minutes more.
Now I know that nothing really huge or really horrible had happened that
day but in the past it has and yes sometimes we need to cry a little before we
can laugh, but in the end we need to laugh or smile at least. Life is meant to be enjoyed even when it
seems too hard and when our hearts feel too broken we can smile and we can find
joy and once we do, when those times feel the hardest, we can appreciate the
joy all the more.
Well on to another week and yes we
will have to wait and see what it brings.
Hopefully I can keep smiling and laugh when I want to cry, because
really everything seems rosier when we smile.