The Silver Lining

You know that expression "when it rains, it pours?" Well, that seems to be a very fitting theme for this week. It has been a stressful week, starting on Sunday night. This was the evening that my husband took a friend to bail his girlfriend (the friend's, not my husband's :) ) out of jail. My husband is always about the "fastest route" so he decided to take this windy mountain road. I should add this is only a faster route during the day when traffic is backed up on the highways. I called him at about 10 to find out where everything was at, and he says "I wrecked my car." Now, when you hear this, don't flashing red lights go off in your head and your stomach plummets?

It turns out that he swerved to miss a deer. Remember how I said it was a windy MOUNTAIN road? Well, he went off the road and hit some rocks or something.

So this week has been mostly about fixing the mechanical aspects (which is hella cheap since he works for an automotive shop and gets parts at cost and doesn't have to pay most labor costs). However, the body work was the biggest concern. On Monday night, he tried to demostrate on some foil what his car looked like. It was not good. He is working on getting the estimates for repair and we could possibly have to take out an insurance claim. Also not good. I have been stressing over this all week.

He brought the car home last night because the mechanical work was done. Since he has today off, I finally got to see the car this morning.

THE DAMAGE IS NOT BAD AT ALL. Yes, it is a bit dented in some areas and the paint is scrapped. It looks like he hit some rocks/small trees and maybe not the BOULDER he made it sound like. I totalled the front end of my car and needed about $6000 of body work alone. There is no way that doing the body work on his car will cost near that or anywhere near to that. I am guessing $1000 at the most and even that seems generous. Now, I am no car expert, but seriously. I am not taking out an insurance claim for that. No way. The silver lining in this situation? Hmmm....the fact that my husband exaggerates the extent of damage and needed repair finances. And that when I discover the exaggeration, I feel a ten thousand pound weight fly off my shoulders.

So in addition to that, there has been the dental stress. I still have not gotten a hold of the woman who can verify the amount of my "credit" from overpaying. Oh, she did call me back. But not on my cell phone as I asked, and she called to talk about "payment options for my upcoming dental work." Silver lining? Calling the office after hours to cancel my appointment and reschedule it, but alas...no one is there. Bub-bye dentist.

There's also the stress of tracking down my bridesmaid dress. I spent the better part of an hour on the phone with the J.Cr.ew peeps. They are being very helpful. Now, I ordered the largest size available in the dress in order to accomodate for Peanut's expanding belly condo and the burgeoning twins above it. Technically, do I need this size? Probably not. But I figured I could alter it in easily. The better news is that I got a dress for the rehearsal dinner that at the present moment fits me quite nicely and is a much smaller size than the bridesmaid dress even if by a different maker. Silver lining? I am a smaller size than anticipated and hopefully this will get me a dress if not the one I ordered. I will have faith in J.Cre.w until then I suppose.

I have also had headaches with credit cards. I played the balance transfer game to minimize finance charges way back in February. One of the offers just expired, which is no biggie cause the balance is small and I will pay it off this month. The big headache came from a card whose bill I paid online and somehow got reverted to my old bank info, bouncing back the payment which defaulted my special interest offers. I spent a good chunk of time on the phone with them, and got the late fee reversed (the payment was technically on time and they did not inform me of the situation until after the pay by date had passed) and the interest rates reinstated. This was enough time spent on it at this point and once the statement comes, I will call to reverse the finance charges from the 2 default days. Seriously, that is all it was. Silver lining? I have had almost all of my credit cards for 10 years now (coming up in 09) and rarely default on them. Because of this, I feel I have a bit of power when I call the companies to reinstate things. Fingers are crossed for the finance charges call.

Oh, and my health insurance sent me a letter saying that our premium is going up $100 per month in October. Nice. We can't even begin to think about switching until after Peanut is born. I had to explain this to Ben, that no company will willingly take on a new client when they know in a few months they will have to shuck of thousands of dollars. Silver lining: We don't pay our insurance premium, his company does. However, we may pay this increase. They also sent me information on Lamaze classes. That was nice I guess.

It just seems like it has been one of those weeks. It is just one thing after another. I haven't been sleeping well because of everything, so I am exhausted. And somehow I can never get into bed early, like I plan to. Something always comes up.

The best silver lining for this week? I am feeling Peanut move now. It happens quite frequently. Most often when I am laying down or sitting on the couch. It is such a wonderful, wonderful feeling.