Eyeing The Finish Line

I can see the finish line on my Alice painting! I can!

This is where it's at this morning. I hope to have it done tonight or tomorrow.

I had hoped to finish it over the weekend, but that just didn't happen. Instead, I had all sorts of other things happen.

But before I get to that, the contest vying for a licensing contract is in the last days here, and I could really use your help. You don't have to register or give any information to vote, but if you could support me, I would really appreciate it. Simply follow this link, and find my name at the bottom and click vote. Thank you!

So, my weekend. It started off with my husband and daughter headed out of town for a soccer tournament, and a storm blowing into town. A big storm. I think they said it was a Nor'easter, but when it's not cold enough to snow, I admit I don't pay much attention. In the winter, a big storm like that would mean gobs of snow and "you better have groceries in your house, because it'll be a while!" But with it warm, so it only rains? Yup, I totally ignored the warnings.

So it stormed. For days. The house rattled nonstop, the BBQ almost blew off our deck, and several pieces of deck furniture actually did. The chickens even stopped laying eggs. You know it's bad when a chicken says "I'm not working today!" Of course, I absolutely love snuggling and snoozing during a good storm. Hearing the windows rattling and the wind whistling around through the trees is like someone coming into your living room and saying "Stay home! Snuggle! Enjoy!" With every gust. So, it was miserable and rainy, and I loved it.

Right up until my furnace/boiler/hot-water died. By Sunday morning, we didn't have any heat or hot water. I didn't really notice this until after I went for a run and was all icky. However, I noticed really quickly when I tried to take a shower. Well-water is icy! I ended up filling up the tub 1/4 of the way and hoping the icy water would warm to room temperature, and setting three pots of water to boil on the stove. I managed a very quick luke-warm bath. Clean, but not happy is how that ended up.

I then took my father and my son up into town to see Iron Man 3 (we liked it!) But first we went to Walmart, where I finally remembered to pick my husband up a nice, big cutting board. I'm one of those people who perpetually forgets things when I finally make it to the store. So, it was good that I finally remembered, as the store is an hour away from home. However while in the parking lot, my dad overlooked the cutting board in the cart. When we looked over at the cart right next to our car, we would have seen it and hopped out to grab it, this was literally just a matter of seconds between forgetting and sitting down... a man (probably in his 30's, kind of a yuppy) had seen the item and ran across the parking lot and took it. He looked right at us, smirking.

And that is how I had my cutting board stolen in a Walmart parking lot.

This infuriated me on multiple levels. The first was that the board wasn't cheap. For a while, I thought that was the main thing that was making me so angry, all that lost money, but it wasn't. The truth is that I would NEVER do something like that man did. In fact, if I saw that someone left an item in a cart like that - well, first I would wait and see if they noticed, because it had only been a few seconds. Then I would point and try to tell them that they had left something. And if I failed at all of that? I would have taken it back into the store to customer service and turned it in with an explanation of what had happened and who had left it. I never, in a million years, would have taken something that wasn't mine, much less so brazenly in front of the people who had paid for it.

It took me hours to calm down. It's so hard to believe people are "decent human beings, for the most part" when you see someone behaving like that. I struggle with humanity as it is, and so even a somewhat little thing like this is enough to make me horribly angry and sad. I'm still upset about it.

My husband tried to fix the boiler that night after he got back from his trip, only to find that it wasn't the part we thought it was. So, still no heat or hot water (even now.) The next day was memorial day, and we were going over to my parents for a BBQ, so we ended up showering there. However, while there and out tossing the football around with my family I managed to hurt myself.

My wedding ring finger, actually, and I'm pretty sure it's broken.

I went to catch the ball, and everything just went wrong. I heard a weird snapping sound, and if I had nails I would have thought I had broken them all. That's sort of how it sounded. But I had trimmed all my nails off that same day (long nails and holding a paintbrush don't mix) so it wasn't that! I've jammed many fingers over the years, so I know how that feels. This... is different. This hurt unbelievably at first, and then even worse later. Right now, it's buddy-taped to my middle finger (fitting, on so many levels) and I'm exhausted because every time I moved my hand last night, it woke me up. I've been doing Advil and ice. Since it's not a scary break, I don't see any reason to go to the doctor, but I am going to pick up a finger splint.

So that was my weekend. A storm, a theft, and a broken bone. I can look at it with silver linings:

• The storm was fun, and at least the weather is warm enough that the pipes won't freeze while we don't have heat or hot water (hopefully this will be fixed tonight.) It's actually supposed to warm up this week, so I shouldn't be freezing for long.
• At least it was just a cutting board. The jerk. But still just a cutting board. I sincerely hope he got a flat tire or a speeding ticket going home. 
• At least my broken finger is on my left hand and not my right, so I can still paint. I also didn't wear my wedding ring yesterday, so that saved us having to cut it off (and there's no doubt that we would have had to.) 

That's the best I can do for silver linings. 

How was your weekend?