Water Pipes, Flowing Toilets, Bloody Noses & More Snow

When it snows...it snows some more! That's right, more snow as I sit down to blog this afternoon. Our week has been full of mishaps and stressers and it's only Wednesday! We started the week with a window malfunction in our car...it was frozen down. After we returned home from our 2nd Christmas weekend, we found our pipes in the master bathroom frozen and unable to use. The next morning our vehicle wouldn't start, Maelyn had her first ever bloody nose from all the dry air, and this morning one of our toilets overflowed!

I have to admit that I'm having a hard time "rolling with the punches" these past few days. I have been tired of brushing my teeth in the girls' bathroom, wearing my snow boots everywhere instead of my favorite tennis shoes and I could make a list of cons about owning vehicles - why don't we live in a city with a subway or city bus system? (I'd probably complain about that as well this week, so take that statement with a grain of salt) During the bloody nose incident I almost fainted from the amount of blood gushing from my three year olds nose along with the anxiety of not knowing exactly what to do to stop the bleeding - major thanks to my special friend who stayed calm and gave great instructions during my frantic phone call! So the cancellation of school and the overflowing toilet was the icing on my overloaded cake today.

After sopping up gallons (ok, maybe not) of water, running fans and trying to instruct my girls in how to best help me with the mess...things are finally looking up. The hot shower and lunch probably helped as well. All of this forcing me to realize that I don't handle myself as well as I thought in the heat of a crisis, or four or five. I have been painfully snappy at my husband, resented the impositions on my days and plans, and failed to set a good example of calm and Christ-like behavior for my girls. In times such as these, I'm thankful for God's grace and forgiveness, but also of His love for me and my desire to handle myself differently in times of trouble so that I can be pleasing to Him in all things. Even if something more disasterous should happen the next day or the day after that...

As I write I'm reminded of the high points so far this week and they are more numerous than the low ones - even though the standing water on the floor almost put me in a mental hospital. So I'm going to make an effort to take crisis in stride, remind myself that others have life a lot worse, pray for paitience and use these moments to teach my girls what a lovely daughter in Christ I am called to be.