Another egg hatched into Omega Man, who cleans up crime throughout the land. With a plunger. That's some serious sit fighting, although he's a stand up guy. You know what I mean. He's even had some commercial success. You guessed it, in a commercial. Something fishy about a sushi chef advertising comics. TBS

Too bad not enough of our nest eggs hatched to keep all our chickens, I mean children, fed. Maybe its the size of those little cluckers, not so small any more, and always hungry. So we did some nest cleaning before the big storm the night of our anniversary. No, wait. That was a whole week before. However times flies, we were still tired from the stress or helping another fledgling fly the coop. Of course, seeing this fledging in front of a 7' tall door, you'll wonder how much bigger one could get. And maybe how sharp are his teeth?

If I posted only the last spelling at least one person would think I can’t spell. Instead, I’m having a rainy spell. It’s bad enough getting rained on where people will notice you looking like a drowned rat. It’s worse when you get soaked financially. Within 3 months we’ve had 2 broken phones (1 of the expensive android-gynous persuasion), 2 mechanically challenged cars, 2 wrecked trucks,1 stolen trailer, 1 stolen ring, 1 broken fridge, 2 broken washers, and a pool with multiple broken parts. Now what did I forget?  I try not to think about the thousands of dollars in water damage in a bathroom due to a certain teenager’s looooooooooong showers.

The fridge is back in business because I knew what was wrong, found a cheap part, and the repair was manageable, if not easy. Nothing else has been even close to easy. When the fancy washing machine decided to go out of balance during each load, I couldn’t decide which part it needed. Its unbalanced behavior—constant hopping around the laundry room floor—nearly unbalanced me too. So I did some hopping onto Craigslist and sold it—with full disclosure, by the way. I told the buyer the most expensive part on the long list of possibilities.

I researched; I shopped, and finally decided no more fancy HE washers. In fact, no more NEW washers, period. It won’t be nearly as painful replacing my used $400 washer/dryer pair as a new $1800 washer/dryer pair—which I sold for $350. Ow. Never mind getting an agent for my fiction writing. I need one to manage all these disasters. There must be some profit in failure, right? 

Did you already guess my replacement washer broke too? You should’ve seen that coming, even if I didn’t. I liked the Atlantis, an old fashioned (never mind how much water it uses) top loader.  Except it sometimes didn’t drain during the spin cycle, and yesterday it just stopped right after filling and never actually washed the clothes even though the timer advanced to the end of cycle. 

Second Chance Appliances left this message on their phone. “We’re out of business until further notice. Don’t leave a message because I won’t call you back.” I left one anyway, to make sure the owner knew I wasn’t happy. According to another dealer, he won’t hear it in jail. Can’t say I’m sorry. Except once again, after I took the washer apart, I saw nothing that looked broken or smelled burnt. If it’s either the timer or motor that broke, those suckers are expensive. 

Monday I’ll make some calls, search the internet some more, and probably decide wrong again. Would hiring a repairman to do the repairs kill me? No, but considering all the other repairs I can’t do myself and have to hire a repairman, it would kill my budget. That’s why a rainy day almost never means I have much undisturbed writing time.

I would give thunderous applause for even one day without something breaking, getting wrecked or stolen. Oh wait, I had most of one last week, but I used it to wash and fold all the laundry backed up during my last trip to Seattle. Even the bedding had to go through thanks to our cat Furball who had a fight and bled on it. Poor Atlantis (my washer, remember?) re-sank under the last boatload of bedding and might never rise again.

I’m glad I know how to swim. Stroke, breathe, stroke. Uh-oh. Is that a hurricane coming? Okay, have a stroke. Nah, I think I’ll open the doors and let the floods come in. Sorry for the sarcasm. Tonight I prefer paddling over drowning in tears.  Tomorrow, I’ll try to be nice again.

 The subject isn’t setting clocks, but moving forward, in time.

Sometimes I wonder if I have a sign on my back saying, “Kick Me!” Parents know that sign comes with children. The older they get, the worse it gets. But anyone who does their own taxes and has their own business or rental gets another “Kick me” sign from the IRS. Add more signs for disasters at home, appliances breaking, roofs leaking, etcetera. We had both last month. And an unexpected family emergency that kept us home from a church youth trip. Might as well plaster those signs on our windows.

Through all this stuff, did I ask myself what I did to deserve it? Not much. Without explanation, that might seem like a fatalistic point of view. So here goes. It’s too late to change the past. Once I decide if I made a mistake that I can correct in the future, i.e. by repenting, apologizing, or taking different actions, further thinking back is backwards thinking, a waste of time. If I did something wrong, my time is better spent dealing with the problem in time, as in now. If I didn’t do something wrong, springing forward is still the only way to get over a setback.

I know I taught my children right from wrong at an early age and repeated it often enough. But parents can’t make all their children’s choices for them. At my age, I still haven’t got it down. Even if most of my bad choices relate to forgetting something, I can’t expect my kids to make perfect choices. Sleepless nights aside, I’m happy for any sign of improvement. And some of my children are managing their lives well enough that I know I did something right, sometime.

As for taxes, the government officials who create the tax code prefer we hate spending time doing taxes enough to skip deductions. That way they get to keep more of our money. The whole system is geared in their favor, like slot machines. The odds are against people having enough patience or time or knowledge to keep the required records and then plow through all the paperwork necessary to keep every penny they’re entitled to. I just grit my teeth, harness my husband to the plow long enough to account for his own spending, and get it done.

It’s a waste of time asking if I deserve a leaky roof and a broken fridge because there’s a law written somewhere—it never rains but it pours. Anyway, that rain helped our loquats grow into a bumper crop, never mind that we’ll have to give most of it away because of the broken fridge and lack of time for canning. At least I have a fridge with food in it—and a roof.

I spoke of adversity last week to the 7th grade class reviewing my book. At their young ages, 12 through 14, they weren’t sure what adversity meant. I told them some people see their troubles and trials as opportunities rather than adversities, but not always while they’re happening. I wonder if one day a trial will make me smile and say, “Open the door. Opportunity knocks.”

I’m walking to open the door, if not springing forward to open it. During all my recent trials, I kept writing. Sure, it was a half-hour to an hour at a time, but I wrote. In fiction, problems drive the plot. And due to my own trials over the last month, I found ways to make my character’s problems worse. The 7th graders suggested more ways. According to one reviewer in the other class that recently began reading, my book’s beginning is “way better”. Knock-knock!