Tag: challenges

Categories
life

Resolution

2013 is now a week old and I finally have resolution in sight for the problems I encountered last week: the kitchen is usable but there are a couple of finishing touches before the job is complete and the van was a completely different problem than what we first thought – the mechanics are hopeful that they can complete the work on it tomorrow.

In case all of that was not interesting enough we woke up on Saturday morning to discover that our tub would not drain AT ALL. After hours of work for me and a plumber we found that water had frozen in the drain for our tub (probably while we were out of the house the previous days). If anyone has that problem and is able to access the section of pipe where the ice is located – a good hair dryer is your best friend. ($300 to diagnose the problem – less than $30 to fix it.)

After all that – things are looking up.

Categories
life

A Follow-Up

As a followup to yesterday – I got a ride to work and left my car so Laura would not be stranded while the van is being fixed (it seems to be more complicated than it appeared yesterday) and she just let me know that my car was dead this morning.

I’m pretty sure we have arrived at farcical now.

Categories
life

An Auspicious Beginning

My Ford Econoline shut down because the gyros sensed a rollover in progress – in my driveway – and I’m sure Ford will be happy to let me pay them to fix it.

On top of that I have water damage in my kitchen which can’t be fixed until a plumber replaces the broken shutoff valve under my sink (the valve is broken so that we can’t turn off the water – it is not the source of the leak) but there are no plumbers who can come before tomorrow as far as we have been able to find.

This has been an auspicious beginning to 2013 – it can only get better from here.

Categories
life

Personal Challenges

We had a neighborhood party last Saturday and as we were driving home we got talking with the kids about one of our neighbors and his son who is autistic. As we explained some basics about autism we did so in the context of the fact that everybody has different challenges in life, that the challenges we face may change at different periods of our lives, and that autism is one of those challenges that some people have to deal with.

This got the kids talking about their individual challenges and then they started asking Laura and I what our challenges were right now. When they asked me what my life challenge was right now I told them that my challenge right now is that my life is not always perfect, that sometimes things do not go as smoothly as I might wish.

As I thought about it, that’s a pretty good challenge to have (and I’m sure it can’t last forever). Everything in my life is going pretty well right now. It’s not that I’m in total control and the world bends to my will, but when things do not go as planned there are no devastating consequences. I do not get distraught when something I want remains out of reach because nothing that I need has been denied me, and nothing that I want right now is time sensitive so I can afford to wait when necessary.