Ridiculous Day!

We have a 2nd car. Really, we do. But it broke down...on May 15th, 2007...our 10th anniversary...on Michael's way to school. And it hasn't been fixed since. Money, honey. So we've been making do ever since then. That means that on days when Evan has swimming class or we have doctor's appointments or anywhere to go, we have to take Michael to work in the morning and pick him up in the evening. It was okay...until Parker was born. Who wants to wake a sleeping baby? And sometimes the other kids are sleeping, too, and really need to get more rest but I have to drag them out of bed anyway. So, this has been a sore spot with me the last few weeks. Well, today was, as the title suggests, ridiculous!

Parker and I had an appointment at 5 p.m. today that I could not reschedule. The next open appointment was at the end of September. I had to go today! But last night I learned that Michael had to work in the Northwest clinic today. No way was I going to drive him out there. So I started trying to come up with a plan. And here's how it went. My sister, Danica, called to ask me a favor this morning. While she was at it, I asked one of her. Could she drive me out to the country to pick up a car I was going to borrow to get to my appointment? She said she would. Okay, only problem was that she doesn't have enough seats in her car for me and all of our kids combined. So I needed to find someone to stay with the older two. I tried Anton (our neighbor boy) about 3 times and he wasn't home. I tried another neighbor. I tried some friends. No one was home. Finally I tried one of my Beehives at 11:16...14 minutes before Danica was going to come pick me up. She said she could come. She had to ride her bike over here (not all that close!). Then Danica drove me 15 minutes out to the country to pick up the car (thank you, D.A.!!!). I figured Anton would be home by 4:30 when I needed to leave and that he could stay with Evan and Maren. I couldn't take them in D.A.'s car because I didn't have Maren's car seat. When I started calling Anton again, I learned that he wasn't going to be home. I tried my other neighbor again but she was headed out at 5:00. Finally I realized I was going to have to take all of the kids with me but I would need a car seat for Maren...that would fit in the back of a sedan with two other car seats! I called my friend, Chris, to see if I could drop by her house to pick up a car seat on my way to the appointment that I was not excited about taking three kids to! She suggested I just leave Evan and Maren at her house. So that's what I did. All this because we only have one car. It's a mind-boggling thing trying to come up with ways we're going to get to where we need to go, safely, on the days we can't have the car. I'm pretty done with it, really. And I feel like a big moocher. I've probably borrowed Chris' car 17 times in the last two years. And other people have helped out left and right. Anyway, in our prayer today we had to thank Heavenly Father for Addy, Dave, Danica and Chris, who all made it possible for me to get to my appointment today. Now that's ridiculous. But I sure am grateful that we are surrounded by people who love us and help us when we need it.

Now, anybody know a good, cheap mechanic? :-)

In case you feel like this was a whiny post, that's not why I did it. I want to be able to look back and read about this ridiculous day and compare it to other days that aren't so chaotic and laugh about it. I'll need this someday! Oh, I also started working again today. If you come over and it looks like a tornado touched down in our house, now you understand why.