Murphy's Law

Murphy's Law - "If it can go wrong it will!" This is how Michael and I felt right around 7:00 pm on Saturday night up until I finally went to bed last night and decided "I'll get through whatever else goes wrong!" On Friday and Saturday, Michael and I attended the Ignite Marriage Conference at our church. Only speaking for myself, I learned so much, and I am so grateful that Michael and I are committed to making our relationship stronger. I was on a high Saturday afternoon leaving the conference, and I thought to myself, "the rest of this weekend is going to be great, and I can't wait to get home and talk about all we've learned!" Just a side note - Michael had to work Saturday afternoon, and I stayed for the last session by myself, and I couldn't wait for him to get home Saturday evening so he could tell me how much he loved the conference and how it made him realize I was the best wife ever! Okay, so maybe I was a little too optimistic! :) At 5:30 pm on Saturday, Michael called and said he was able to leave work early and he was heading home soon. Him leaving early never happens, and I was so excited. He asked what I wanted for dinner, and we ended the conversation by deciding on pizza. About 6:00 pm, he called and said he was heading home with two barbecue sandwiches and some chips he got for free at work. And the steam started billowing from my ears, but I made myself calm. The lessons of the conference started repeating themselves over and over in my head! I was so looking forward to that pizza! I don't like barbecue on a good day, and free, dried up bbq sandwiches from his work sounded awful! But...I had learned to be a patient and loving wife, so I agreed to the free sandwiches. Besides we have recently committed ourselves to Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover, and Dave would be proud of me for saving money! At 6:30 pm, Michael called again. He said, "Brandi, your wish has come true and it looks like you won't be eating barbecue afterall. I was driving down the highway, and I put my foot on the gas, but my car wouldn't go. I'm stranded on the side of the highway!" WHAT!!! But I had it all planned out...dinner and talking! Now he's on the side of the road waiting on his friend Eric to come help him out and who knows how long it's going to take! Did I mention, this is one day before we were planning to do our first budget since we have been married! Dave Ramsey warned us over and over in his book about "Murphy's Law"...if something can go wrong it will! The night before our planned Sunday budget meeting, Michael's car breaks down one day after getting serviced, and we know it's probably going to cost us! But wait...it gets better! Eric and Michael got the car pushed to a parking lot on Saturday night. Michael got home around 8 pm with his cold, soggy barbecue sandwiches. He didn't make me eat them, and we took my car to Taco Bell. It was kinda gross, but I was starving. Sunday morning, we got up and headed to his car to wait for a tow truck. His car miraculously started, so we decided to see if we could get it to the shop ourselves. He drove about 500 feet and once he got on the main highway again, it quit! So there we were on the side of the highway, with him pushing his little car and me at the steering wheel hopelessly making it to the next parking lot! On Sunday afternoons, you are at the mercy of any tower who you can find working. We called three times and we kept getting put off. So we killed some time with lunch and a trip to the bookstore. While we were at the bookstore after hours of waiting, our real estate agent calls and says an agent wants to show our house in two hours. Sure no problem....if we weren't on the other side of town waiting on Michael's car to get towed and the house didn't need to be picked up, dusted, vacuumed, mopped, sanitized, and de-furred, which on a good day takes us about 2 hours. We couldn't turn down a showing, so Michael took me home and I began cleaning. Everything was going well because I was determined to hurry up and try to enjoy my afternoon, and on our way back to the house, the man called us back and said he would tow Michael in the next 30 minutes, so our luck was turning around! I was upstairs, in the middle of vacuuming (I hadn't made it to the other two floors yet) when all of the sudden our brand new vacuum just stopped! I thought it came unplugged, but it looked to be securely plugged in to me. I unplugged it just in case and plugged it back it, but nothing! This was my worst nightmare! Two more floors to go, and have you seen the dog hair my little 18 pound baby sheds! I didn't know what to do! Michael got home shortly, and made it work again, well...for 15 more minutes! It quit again! Needless to say, the other two floors didn't get vacuumed, and I resorted to lent rolling both of our dark brown couches to hide some of Scarlett's hair! It was the best we could do! So after all of these disasters, we had a nice afternoon at the park while our house was being shown, and we came home to tackle our budget. I don't care what anyone says, budgeting is stressful because it requires a lot of discipline, which is a virtue I need to work on daily! But we got some things accomplished, and I had a good night's sleep! I want to thank Church of the Highlands for giving me the opportunity to attend a marriage conference before these disasters occurred because it gave me a little patience with my wonderful husband :). I also want to thank Dave Ramsey for warning me about Murphy's Law...this man is absolutely right! If it could go wrong it did, but we made it through!