“When it rains, it pours.”

Many of you may have noticed that I haven’t exactly been around very much in the last week or so on the oh-so-wonderful world wide web.

I have to say, the last 7 days have been… well not good… I mean, I guess I could say that, but then that gets us talking about the entire idea of how to measure our lives. What kind of scale could we possibly use to determine whether or not we are having a good or bad day, week, month, life?

Well let me share with you some of the “misfortune” we have had over the last week.

1. We got denied for our home equity loan, solely because of me and my past. For those of you who know me personally, you know that I have been a complete and utter moron in the past when it comes to finances, and really financial responsibility in general. In this particular instance, at the age of 20 I bought an Audi that was beyond my means. I could not afford it and eventually I called the bank and told them where the car was, and to pick it up because I could no longer make the payments. (That’s just a nice way of saying the car was repossessed.) Yup I have a repossession on my credit. However, we were under the impression that since it was well over the 7-year limit, that it could not currently affect our situation. WRONG. The credit union didn’t apply this derogatory mark to my credit history until 2013 (6 years AFTER the repossession) and therefor we have another 4 years until it is gone… So after jumping through hoops for 2 months with the bank, we were denied. The reason this is so heart breaking, is that we were going to use the loan to pay off my student loans. Many of which are private, at 10% interest and the company refuses to consolidate. I have currently payed Sallie Mae/Navient over $30,000 dollars in the last 3 years… on INTEREST ONLY. And frankly, it is getting to be too much. I understand that I am responsible for the repayment of these loans, however when your payments are $1,300 a month, and the majority of that isn’t even being applied to your principle… you are basically drowning. Needless to say, this was a huge blow.
2. I ruined part of our brand new oven. Now again, for those of you that know me in real life, you are also aware of my domestic handicaps. “Domestically challenged” is how I like to refer to it. Reality is, I am not awesome at the household chore side of things. However, I am slowly but surely getting better… or so I thought. Here I am thinking to myself, “Oh look! I’ll just lay this foil down right here at the bottom and none of the sugary juice from the sweet potatoes will leak out and cause smoke and a mess, and the oven will stay all nice!! Nathan will be so happy!” WRONG. Soooo, did anyone else know that you aren’t suppose to put tin foil in the bottom of your oven? No? Ok good me neither… Apparently it heats up too high and melts to the bottom. So, yeah… don’t do that.
3. We had our first minor scare with Reef that required a Doctors visit. Saturday morning we woke up and our little boy had some pink spots in his abnormally dry diaper. We did our best not to panic, called our pediatrician and luckily they got us in within the hour so the nurse practitioner could take a look at him. It turns out he was just a little bit dehydrated from starting rice cereal and we need to give him some small bottles with water after he eats. So the good news is that it was nothing serious. The bad news is that it really threw us off our game this weekend. We stuck very close to home all weekend but our little man was really not himself and spent most of Sunday screaming and upset. L
4. Our wonderful family/friends Brad and Victoria left. And that just plain sucks. No explanation needed.
5. Nathan Puked. Yesterday Nathan got stomach sick and ended up throwing up while trying to take care of Reef. I couldn’t be there because I was at the office for my mandatory one day a week. However, all this did was leave me stressing out for the entire day that Nathan wasn’t well, and in turn wouldn’t be able to care for Reef. STRESSFUL.
6. Mosquitos ATTACKED. Last night while Nathan was at work, Reef and I went to bed. While we were asleep, before Nathan got home, I believe the screen door was blown open by the wind. (Nathan thinks he left it open but I’m 99.9% positive it was shut.) And mosquitos swarmed our room. By the time Nathan realized what had happened and moved us downstairs it was too late. Poor Reef was completely eaten alive by them. At least 20 bites on his poor little baby head. He looks like poor Thomas Jay from the movie My Girl and it has been making me feel completely hysterical all day.

So those are really the most major things that have been pretty detrimental to my mood.

I wanted to share this because I think it is really important to keep things in perspective. So much of what we share from our day to day is the shiny, polished, happy moments. But realistically, things can’t always be perfect, and sometimes, ish happens.

I think the most important thing to take from the misfortune, is not the misfortune itself. But rather, how we handle it.

While the past week has been ROUGH (to say the least) it has definitely brought my husband and I closer together.

We just need to rally to figure things out financially. The Loan would have definitely made things easier, but we will be OK without it.

We put our heads together to try and fix the oven, and it turns out to be more of a cosmetic issue than a mechanical one. Phew!

While we miss Brad and Victoria desperately, we need to be able to stand on our own and form a solid routine for our family that works with both of our work schedules. This wouldn’t be possible with all of their help (no matter how WONDERFUL and COMPLETELY APPRECIATED it may be )

Luckily Nathan seems to be feeling much, much better today.

And we are showering our little man with absolutely all of the love and attention we can while he isn’t feeling tip top.

And the mosquitos? Well I’m sorry but they are just a serious glitch on Gods part and we will have to be super diligent in making sure all the screens are always shut from now on!!

Of course, all of this has really limited my time spent on the blog and social media, however I will be doing my best to catch up and get back to everyone. (But since I’m writing this on my lunch break it certainly might take a little while!!)

Thanks everyone for your patience and support. And don’t worry, The Botts Family will be back at 100% before you know it!!

Has anyone else had some rough patches lately? Please share in the comments below,

XOXO

MAL

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